Dubai Internet City, a member of Tecom Investments, recently hosted a number of Google executives visiting the region to address ways they can improve users access to information through facilitating the growth of Arabic content online.

In line with its commitment to expand the Arabic content available on the internet, Dubai Internet City is keen to work with companies like Google to help achieve this objective, said a Internet City official.

Latest figures by the World Bank indicate there are more than 320 million Arabic speakers worldwide, while less than one per cent of all online content is in Arabic.

At the one day event hosted by Dubai Internet City at the ICT free zone, Google met a select group of 60 business executives to explore potential opportunities in the region and share knowledge and learnings from the local industry.

The online search engine firm aims to help users access information in Arabic while hosting training for entrepreneurs and developers to enhance the web.

The event keynoted by Gisel Hiscock, Google’s director for New Business Development in the Mena region, witnessed the participation of four other senior Google executives and a high profile audience of industry representatives from the education, media and government sectors.

Malek Al Malek, executive director, Dubai Internet City, said: "Dubai is successfully attracting entrepreneurs keen to be at the forefront of developing new technologies in the region."

"The number of internet users in the Middle East has jumped from 3.2 million users in 2000 to 41.9 million in 2008, according to the Internet World Statistics report."

"While the UAE takes the lead in Arab countries with an Internet penetration of 55 per cent, there are clearly opportunities for further development in the region’s IT sector."

"We believe Google initiatives in the UAE and Mena will undoubtedly help stimulate Dubai’s knowledge-based economy and result in strong future partnerships that will significantly contribute to the industry’s growth in the region," Al Malek added.
 
The Google team also met with a series of partners to assess the talent and technology available across the region including Lebanon, Jordan and Qatar.

Google has experience across the globe bringing added value in its expertise to the region. The current focus is on facilitating the growth of online Arabic content to accommodate the increasing number of internet users searching for information in the language.

The event was part of Dubai Internet City’s initiative to fruitfully engage the industry pioneers with the region’s technology professionals and entrepreneurs.

In December 2008, Dubai Internet City successfully hosted the region's first Google webmaster event in Dubai, facilitating greater understanding of the search engine technology while highlighting ways for web publishers to maximize their online visibility.

The ICT cluster aims to further intensify cooperation with the world's leading search engine provider to spur the growth of the industry in the Mena region.-TradeArabia News Service