BSA invites the CEO of Dubai Internet City to speak at the Global Tech Summit in Washington

The invitation was in recognition of DIC's contribution to the development of the ICT sector in the UAE and the Middle East. As a panellist at the summit, Dr. Bin Sulaiman elaborated on Dubai's vision of a sophisticated eSociety and highlighted UAE's drive towards being a Knowledge-Based Economy. Participation in the summit was by invitation only. The event took place on Thursday, October 9, 2003 in Washington D.C., USA.

"Dubai is leading the region in the move towards becoming a Knowledge-Based Economy. The benefits of this technological drive can be seen in all sectors of the society, whether it is the consistent growth in the country's Gross Domestic Product, the increasingly sophisticated information technology-driven businesses or the technological advances that power the region's public services in the form of advanced eGovernance, and especially in fields like education and health care, where the ICT revolution has opened the doors to easy round-the-clock access to information" said Dr. Bin Sulaiman.

"However, the benefits that we see in our daily lives are just a very small measure of the possibilities waiting to be discovered. In this context, forums like the Global Tech Summit have an important role to play, since they provide the global community with the opportunity to highlight their IT needs, benefit from the experiences of the participating nations, generate new ideas and set new frontiers in technological research," added Dr. Bin Sulaiman.

"BSA's decision to extend an invitation to Dr. Omar Bin Sulaiman to be a panellist at the Global Tech Summit highlights DIC's contribution to the growth of the ICT sector in the UAE and Dubai's increasingly pre-eminent position as the IT hub of the Middle East region," said Jawad Al Redha, Co-Chairman, Middle East, Business Software Alliance. "The increasingly secure IT climate in the UAE has facilitated the growth of the IT sector in the region. While there is already a large cross-section of the IT industry leaders that are investing in customising solutions according to the IT needs of businesses in the Arab world, the needs are becoming increasingly dynamic and the potential for innovation is unlimited. Dr. Bin Sulaiman's participation in the Summit will open the door to a host of new ideas and give the leading IT companies around the world an in-depth understanding of the region's IT climate."

Dr. Omar Bin Sulaiman was appointed the CEO of DIC on March 24, 2002. Under his leadership, DIC has achieved more than 100 per cent growth in less than a year. At the summit, he was a panellist in the dialogue session on "The Great Digital Transformation".

The Summit was the third in a series of international forums hosted by BSA and examined new ideas, promises and challenges of advancing the networked economy. It brought together CEOs of leading IT companies, such as Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec, Network Associates and Autodesk, with international policy makers, inventors and leading thinkers and opinion makers that included among others Andy Grove, Chairman of the board, Intel; Dean Kamen, inventor and entrepreneur; and Tom Ridge, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Besides the dialogues session in which Dr. Bin Sulaiman participated, the Summit had two more dialogue sessions on its agenda on "The Next Wave of Innovation" and "Transforming Today's Challenges into Tomorrow's Realities."