I have been attending Gitex Technology week in Dubai and it is now time to talk about some of the things i have observed in the last three days. First what is Gitex? GITEX (Gulf Information Technology Exhibition) is an annual consumer computer and electronics trade show, exhibition and conference which takes place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Now you know
My impression of Dubai is that you really need technology to work for you in order to survive. The place is as hot as hell but it is hard to realize especially when indoors due to the smart use of technology to control the temperatures. So this is a case where the circumstances have forced people to spend substantially in technology. And the investment, has made IDC to project that the ICT market of the region will jump from USD 15 Billion in 2014 to USD 20 Billion in 2020. The passion for technology is shown on the massive effort which Dubai has put into organizing Gitex Technology Week... the largest ICT event in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) . This year's event is hosting more than 3,700 exhibiting companies from 61 countries and 142,000 visitors from 150 countries.
#Selfie madness
The following are some of issues which have been discussed in the last two days:
1. Oil and Gas
Instantly you would be thinking why is oil and gas being part of the discussion in a technology event. Yes, i did ask myself too at first. The growth in the region is basically fueled by oil and gas and any talk about the deployment of technology in managing resources means Oil and Gas. This is a fact that African countries need to be paying more attention to. As I came to learn from this article that nearly 30 percent of global oil and gas discoveries made in the past five years have been in sub-Saharan Africa, according to IEA's report. Many players at the Gitex event think that it is critical for the region to use more technology and solutions to process data, improve process efficiency, reduce cost and automate manual processes. Again Kenya and other African countries need to be learning about this. I am glad to see that Nigeria is the official country partner of the Gitex, hopefully they will manage their oil better in future.
2. Cloud and the cloud Infrastructure
The event started on the day when Edward Snowden advised people to get out of cloud. He specifically singled out Dropbox for not supporting encryption or put it plainly does not protect private files. For the average people Snowden think that Clouds are dangerous services . I guess many would agree with him following the events of the past few days where the pics of the celebs were leaked . Snowden is my hero in many ways, but still think the the advantages of cloud outweigh the disadvantages by far and I also believe that some of the issues like privacy will be sorted with time. And yes people will learn not store nude pics to devices which are beyond their control. That a side, cloud is a big topic at the Gitex technology week event. Many people believe that in the next few years, everything in the tech field will be on the cloud. That view has been made quite clear by the massive presence of the big cloud service providers at the Gitex ....
3.Big Data
Not long time ago, it used be just "data", but that was the good old days. Now you have to deal with the fancy word coined by the marketers ..the BIG DATA. How big is big or at what point should the data be classified as big data is a story for another day. Every country has her own big data issues to sort out and every company especially the big ones have their own big data issues to deal with. During one of the the panel discussions at the Gitex the moderator asked the panel whether big data is the next oil and gas. Well, such a question is taking it too far but if the rise of the social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat is to go by, then the importance of the big data can not be overemphasized.
4. Smart Governments.
Well, we have many dumb governments around and it is great that the organizers are trying do something. I hope a few will learn something. Unfortunately most Government present or countries present are those which are already doing well in technology front. By my own estimation, we will still remain with dumb governments for sometime...God help us all..
5. Display of the Latest Technology
There are over 3700 exhibiting companies and each of them has brought to the party their latest best, ranging from the Formula cars, to the cloud infrastructure, to the new mobile phones in the industry. The world technology at large brought together under one roof. Just amazing
I hope you keep it here for more..
No comments:
Post a Comment