International Data Corporation (IDC) is delighted to announce that His Excellency Wesam Lootah, CEO of Smart Dubai Government Establishment and founding member of IDC’s CIO Advisory Council for the Gulf region, will deliver an honorary keynote address at the upcoming IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2019. Taking place on February 27-28th at The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai International Financial Centre, the event will host more than 200 of the region’s most influential ICT leaders as they gather to discuss strategies for succeeding in an era of multiplied innovation and automation.
Combining a varied mix of informative presentations, panel discussions, and workshops, the CIO Summit’s agenda for 2019 has been designed to help the region’s CIOs rethink the way they leverage information, harness emerging ICT solutions, and facilitate organization-wide innovation, with the aim of making their enterprises more agile, efficient, and productive than ever before.
“As digital transformation continues to reshape the global economy, innovation will multiply, platform wars will intensify, and data will increasingly be used for competitive advantage,”
says Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC’s group vice president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey.
“And with market leadership ranks being disrupted, a new ICT world order is taking shape, built around innovative technology offerings, evolving business models, and emerging DX use cases. Given this unprecedented disruption, it’s imperative that organizations make the right decisions today to ensure they remain competitive tomorrow.”
The event will also play host to the ‘IDC CIO Excellence Awards 2019’ as IDC honors those IT leaders that have excelled in conceptualizing and delivering game-changing digital transformation initiatives for their organizations. With a focus on the tangible benefits brought about by such initiatives, awards will be handed out in the following categories:
• Best Customer Experience Transformation
• Best Business Operations Transformation
• Best IT Service Transformation
• CISO of the Year
• CIO of the Year
To submit your nominations and learn more about the judging process and nomination criteria, please visit www.idcciosummit.com/dubai/#awards. The deadline for submissions is Monday, February 4, 2019.
In a new twist for 2019, IDC will be hosting a Tech Startup Zone on the sidelines of the Summit to showcase the region’s facilities for incubating digital startups, while a dedicated Innovation Center will explore recent advances in the areas of robotics, smart cars, AR/VR, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, and hologram technology. And with the Middle East being home to such a diverse range of markets, the main exhibit hall will feature a series of individual Country Pavilions designed for IT associations and trade organizations to promote the unique business services offered within their respective geographies.
To learn more about the IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2019, please visit www.idcciosummit.com/dubai.
Featured image credit: Edited from Freepik