Innovation is a fundamental element in today’s intelligent revolution and a key enabler for ICT development, said an industry expert.

“Innovation has played a key role in Huawei’s success and expansion over the last 30 years. The company has invested around $30 billion just in the last ten years on research and development, and has launched 16 R&D centers worldwide along with 36 joint innovation centers,” said Charles Yang, president of Huawei Middle East.

He was speaking at Huawei 1stInnovation Day in the Middle East, a conference organized on the sidelines of the ongoing Gitex Technology Week in Dubai, UAE. The event saw participation of key decision makers from the local, regional and international ICT and enterprise organizations who came together to discuss how ICT is shaping the future of the region.

“Innovation Day is a reflection of Huawei’s deep commitment to collaborate closely with all players from across the industry and to build an ecosystem that brings closer to a better connected world,” Yan added.

Under the theme “Leading New ICT – Shape the Future”, industry leaders discussed the role of ICT innovation in driving the digital transformation agenda, supporting the development of key sectors and contributing to the achievement of national initiatives and visions across the region.

The event kicked off with a welcome address by David Harmon, Vice-President of Global Public Affairs at Huawei, in which he praised GCC governments for setting a clear priority to encourage an entrepreneurial society that helps drive GDP growth, job prosperity and innovative services that solve everyday problems for their citizens.

Ahmed Al Ansari, acting CEO of Dubai South said: “It is a pleasure to be part of Huawei’s Innovation Day at GITEX, an exciting and relevant platform to showcase Dubai’s outstanding work at the forefront of technological innovation.”

“Dubai continues to pioneer advanced, cutting-edge technologies in the Middle East and one of our government’s most ambitious initiatives is the Smart City project, which sees technology only as an enabler, with the principal goal remaining the happiness of the city’s citizens, residents and visitors. At Dubai South we are pioneering an ambitious smart city transformation guided by people’s happiness, we are steadily reshaping the way services are structured to meet the needs of the customer and enable businesses to grow. We are creating a new blueprint for smart cities around the world,” he added.

The event included a panel discussion titled ‘Leading New ICT – Shape the Future’, led by Roland Sladek, vice president of International Media Affairs at Huawei, and included a number of leaders from across the spectrum of the ICT industry, from government entities, operators, channels, partners and academia.    

Huawei ME Innovation Day also saw the launch of Huawei’s Smart City Index, which was developed in collaboration with Navigant Research and provided an assessment on the state of smart readiness across Gulf States. The study looked at ICT infrastructure in major cities and evaluated their readiness for the next level of smart city adoption. – TradeArabia News Service