The region’s firstioT exhibition and conference held from 8th to 9th June 2015 at the Dubai World Trade Centre concluded successfully. The event which converged all the global technology giants together at one platform saw a thunderous response from the exhibitors as well as the visitors. His Excellency Ahmed Bin Humaidan, Director General, Dubai Smart Government officially inaugurated the Internet of Things Expo 2015 (ioTx). He was also accompanied by His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General, Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing (DTCM) and Dubai World Trade Centre Authority (DWTC Authority), and a host of local dignitaries and global technology executives.
The event which was spread across 6500 square meters area championed over 42 global technology firms alongside public sector entities like Dubai Smart Government, Smart Dubai and Dubai Internet City. His Excellency Bin Humaidan also delivered the welcome address at the ioTx Conference – a C-Level forum featuring specialist sessions on innovation, enterprise, investment, standards and protocols, security and privacy, and educational areas inherent across the Smart Cities, Internet of Things (ioT) and Big Data landscapes.
“Achieving and succeeding people’s expectations are the core pillars of the Dubai Smart Government vision,” said His Excellency. “Innovation is the primary driver of the knowledge economy and society in general; collaboration between government entities and the private sector is the key to providing value-added services to citizens. The Internet of Things is one of the enablers for Dubai Smart Government as technology is the vehicle to reach and please our consumers – the population of Dubai.”
Trixie LohMirmand, Senior Vice President, Exhibitions & Events Management, DWTC said, “The Internet of Things is no longer a futuristic buzz term – it is here, it is now and it is already improving our lives. With UAE cities and other GCC nations championing Smart City technologies, the battle for regional market share is at the forefront of global technology leaders’ attentions. ioTx 2015 has brought the industry’s major players under one roof to provide a glimpse at the technologies, products and services that will shape our cities of tomorrow,” he added.
Many international firms leveraged this platform to announce and demonstrate their newest ioT products. Huawei – the Lead Sponsor of ioTx 2015 demonstrated its comprehensive, integrated Smart City solution which included Cellular ioT (CIoT) technologies across transport, Smart homes, connected energy, Big Data, Cloud and city management. The firm recently announced 4.5G strategy for telecom operators and network management. Cisco demonstrated end-to-end solutions for Smart Cities which use umbrella ioT technology to allow city management and planning departments to enable and enhance citizen services.
EMC, via its federation of five companies, demonstrated technologies redefining the approach to Smart Cities. In particular, Pivotal’s Smart Grid and Connected Cars technology collected data from cars and used predictive analytics to calculate probabilities and predict potential destinations. A feedback-based mechanism allowed the driver to input information in real time. The Connected Cars software evaluated external factors such as position, traffic flow, accidents and fuel consumption before communicating the optimum route to the driver.
Tech giant Dell leveraged the specialist confex platforms to showcase its complete end-to-end software solutions for ioT and Big Data. In addition to demonstrating its new Gateways product – the small, wireless or connected devices that collect, secure and process sensor data at the edge of a network – Dell Software’s pioneering Boomi programme cleansed proprietary data via a Cloud-based integration platform that transfers data from source to target. The final step of the digital data journey was Dell Software’s Statistica, a predictive analytics programme which makes sense of data to foster automated decision-making.
The ioTx conference was buzzing with a series of influential figures and academic visionaries from global technology. A session entitled ‘How technology becomes nature – the seven steps’ which explored how new technologies are introduced, accepted or discarded within society conducted by Koert van Mensvoort, Managing Director of Next Nature Network was one of highlights of the show.
Carlo Ratti of MIT Senseable City Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discussed technologies, innovations and business integration in city-wide connected eco-system in a session entitled ‘Creating SENSEable Cities’; and Dr. Eric Feron, Expert of Cyber Physical Systems at the Centre for the Development and Application of ioT Technologies (CDAIT) at Georgia Tech spoke about dissecting cyber physical systems and their role in making intelligent connections in a session entitled ‘When trillions of things can be connected, which things should you connect?’.
The show truly witnessed how the world’s leading technology firms are vying to capitalize on regional Smart City projects. Global IoT opportunities are expected to reach US$19 trillion by 2020 and UAE is going to play a major role in this growth with the region strongly focusing on smart city technologies. IoTx 2015 was a perfect platform for technologists and strategists to converge together to discuss the endless opportunities this amazing technology has to offer and how we can move forward together in a smarter way.
