Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 03 | Page 6

NEWS UAE IoT World Forum showcases smart city technologies and helped customers discover the competitive advantages that IoT can bring • Activate - which covered laying out roadmaps to IoT deployments, best practices and learnings from customer IoT case studies • Accelerate - focused on moving the industry forward quickly, and highlighted the roles that service providers and application developers must play in enabling this speed The third annual Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) 2015 in Dubai was a huge success with over 2,000 attendees from across the world getting awakened to the Internet of Things (IoT) possibilities. The event featured visionary keynotes byleaders and experts from top companies such as Etisalat, Emirates, Visa, Intel, Siemens AG, Rockwell Automation, GE, Schneider Electric to name some. The 2015 World Forums highlighted three key themes: • Awaken - which highlighted the opportunities across all industries, identified multiple business cases, The event saw more than 25 customers presenting on how IoT has changed their business. Through Dubai Smart City Experience Tours, attendees were able to learn first-hand how Dubai, one of the most digitally advanced cities in the world, has connected transportation, education and healthcare across the city for a better citizen experience. Umm Al Quwain eGovernment and Microsoft sign MoU Microsoft has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Umm Al Quwain eGovernment Department to offer its unrivalled solutions to various departments of the Emirate. The partnership is aimed at transforming the Ummal Quwain government’s services towards digitalisation. H.E. Eng. Khaled Sultan Al Shamsi, Director General of UAQ eGov Department said, “We live in an era where governments operate in a more global and connected world than ever before. This increases the need for greater collaboration between the government and private sector. Technology plays an important role in helping governments to serve citizens better, advance issues of social and economic development, and improve citizen safety and security. That is what Umm Al Quwain intends to achieve and we are certain that our partnership with Microsoft will help leverage their innovative solutions and expertise to enable us achieve our goals.” 6 INTELLIGENTCIO Jawad Al-Redha, Regional Director, Public Sector, Microsoft Gulf said “At Microsoft, we are determined to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more. We are committed to partnering with governments in the region and worldwide to help identify their real-time needs and to leverage technology in a way to address today’s pressing concerns. We are happy to offer our suite of solutions to Umm Al Quwain government, which will certainly enable them achieve their eGovernment goals to help engage citizens better and enhance service delivery.” www.intelligentcio.com