Dubai: More than 100,000 tech experts are expected to converging on Dubai to see the emerging technologies showcased at the 38th Gitex Technology Week, which starts on Sunday.
The five-day event — open to trade and business visitors only — is expected to attract more than 4,500 exhibitors from more than 100 countries.
The event will focus on artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, robotics, virtual and augmented reality, all under the tagline ‘Experience Future Urbanism’, apart from the dedicated event for start-ups — Gitex Future Stars.
Trixie LohMirmand, senior vice-president for events management at Dubai World Trade Centre, said that more than 200 government entities are taking part and out of that, 80 per cent are from the UAE.
Twenty-four federal entities under the umbrella of the UAE mGovernment will showcase their achievements in using technology to facilitate the provision of government services and achieve customer happiness, upholding the principle of “one government and distinctive services”.
Thirty-six government departments from Sharjah to showcase the ‘Sharjah Map for Digital Transformation’ Project.
Gitex’s eight conference verticals will provide more than 290 hours of expert-led seminars, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web; Wanli Min, chief machine intelligence scientist at Alibaba; Brian McBride of Amazon; Cassie Kozyrkov, Google’s Chief Decision Scientist; Joe Federer of Reddit; Paul Misener, Amazon’s Vice President for Global Innovation Policy and Communications; Rami Sarieddine, Senior Technology Evangelist at Microsoft; Neal Cross, Chief Innovation Officer at DBS Bank, Singapore.
Arun Khehar, senior vice-president for business applications at Oracle ECEMA, said that digital transformation spending across the Middle East, Africa and Turkey region is expected to surpass $32 billion (Dh117 billion) by 2021 as companies are now looking to change and drive change.
This is possible only with new ideas, customer focus, an action plan, and the best modern technologies, he added.
“We will highlight the power of AI. We plan to take customers through a connected journey at our stand based on our secure intelligent platform for digital business, which is driven by machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI), and supported by five pillars: reinvent the network; embrace a multi-cloud world; unlock the power of data; employee and customer experience; security is foundational and everywhere. We will also be unveiling our latest suite of technologies to support the Middle East’s path to digital transformation,” said Shukri Eid, managing director for East Region at Cisco Middle East.
Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) of India is fielding over 35 Indian ICT companies, as the UAE continues to be the top export destination followed by Saudi Arabia.
At Gitex Future Stars, a lot of cash prizes are up for grabs for start-ups. The Supernova Challenge offers prize pool of $180,000, including $100,000 for best start-up; the inaugural Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) Space Innovation Challenge will reward the world’s best space travel start-up a $60,000 top prize, incubation with MBRSC and an agreement for potential future work with both the MBRSC and the UAE Space Agency; the Accenture Innovation Awards will also grant one winning start-up an all-expenses-paid trip to Silicon Valley; Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) Futurism Pitch calls on all travel and tourism wave-makers to impress a Dubai Tourism panel and bag over $50,000 in prizes across four categories.
What to expect
• LG Electronics will showcase its range of OLED signage that will include Transparent OLED, Open Frame OLED and OLED Video Wall.
• Avaya Holdings to demonstrate the first social platform for chatbots.
• Ring will showcase its latest suite of smart home security products.
• Etisalat and du will showcase live 5G demonstrations covering health care, remote robotic surgery, AR/VR, IoT, autonomous technologies, cloud computing and more.
• HTC to unveil wireless adapter for virtual reality headset Vive.
• iSpace to showcase lightweight robotic lunar rovers and lunar landers.
• Empact to showcase emotion detection technology.
• Amro Kamel will introduce the Promobot V.4, a robot equipped with two printers and an inbuilt PIN pad.
• Bluephin’s self-swimming waste collecting robot will demonstrate its capabilities in gathering up to 350kg of trash every two hours.
An informative Gitex app
Gitex 2018 app is available to download from the Google and Apple app stores.
It gives the complete floor map of the companies participating in Gitex Technology Week and Gitex Future Stars, and how to find the stalls.
It gives the exhibitor listing and profiles, conference and sessions schedule on a daily basis, meeting request and appointments diary.
It also gives social alerts and complete information of what is where at the Dubai World Trade Centre.
