International Data Corporation (IDC) today launched the 13th edition of its annual IDC Middle East CIO Summit at Dubai’s Atlantis, The Palm. With more than 500 of the region’s most influential ICT decision-makers in attendance, the event is exploring the theme ‘The Race to Reinvent: Connecting Leaders to Empower Digital Transformation’ and is set to conclude tomorrow afternoon when the winners of the IDC Digital Excellence Awards 2020 will be announced during a dedicated ceremony.
With the event playing host not just to CIOs, but to executives from across the entire C-suite, IDC’s global chief research officer, Meredith Whalen, opened the day’s proceedings with a session titled ‘The Future Enterprise: Planning for Enterprise-Wide Transformation’. Stressing the need for a roadmap that incorporates realistic expectations, she offered advice on determining the right digital capabilities to develop, creating detailed business cases, and planning a successful digital transformation strategy.
Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC’s group vice president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, then turned the focus onto the public sector, chairing a panel discussion on the topic ‘Towards Digital Government: Building the Nation’s Future’, which featured exclusive insights from:
• H.E. Saeed Al Mulla, Executive Director of Government Affairs & Partnership Management at the Abu Dhabi Digital Authority
• Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi, Chief Executive Officer at Oman’s Ministry of Technology and Communications
• Eng. Ali Nasser Alsiri, CEO of Saudi Arabia’s eGovernment Program (YESSER)
“The last decade saw governments across the Middle East invest heavily in IT, with a focus on bringing services online and streamlining ICT infrastructure,” said Lalchandani as he introduced the session. “The stage is now set for the sector to leap to the next level of digital transformation and become truly citizen-centric and paperless. This next step will require government agencies to build the required digital infrastructure, experiment with artificial intelligence, make blockchain a central part of their transaction systems, and protect against intrusions on digital trust.”
Building on this theme, Ron Guerrier, CIO and Secretary of Innovation & Technology for the State of Illinois, took to the stage to present a session titled ‘The Land of Lincoln’s Silicon Prairie’. He explained how the likes of Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Uber are all expanding their operations in Illinois and that the state is now a thriving incubator hub for tech start-ups and alumni companies. He explained how the Department of Innovation & Technology is leveraging this strong core, with the aim of better serving the residents and businesses of Illinois.
The remainder of the day saw senior global and regional IDC analysts host a series of individually themed focus groups that enabled attendees to tailor their Summit experience to address their own needs. These roundtable sessions offered advice on a broad range of issues such as enabling next-generation security and resilience, building a scalable and agile hybrid cloud, implementing enterprise-grade intelligent automation, harnessing data assets and infrastructure to accelerate digital transformation, and unlocking the information advantage with enterprise information management.
The IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2020 continues tomorrow (February 27), with delegates set to hear from special guest speaker Luke Williams, Professor of Innovation & Design at New York University Stern School of Business, as he presents a session titled ‘Disruptive Thinking: How to Spark Transformation in Your Business’. There will also be sessions exploring the Future of Work and the role of artificial intelligence in driving digital disruption, as well as a series of dedicated vertical-focused tracks for the government, banking and finance, oil and gas, retail, e-commerce, and manufacturing industries.
The event will draw to a close with the IDC Digital Excellence Awards 2020, which has been designed to recognize and reward the Middle East’s true digital pioneers. IDC’s CIO Advisory Council will be on hand to distribute the awards, with winners being announced in the following categories: Excellence in Digital Innovation; Excellence in Line-of-Business Transformation; CISO of the Year; and CIO of the Year.
