DUBAI – It’s 10.30pm. The plane rests softly on the runway of Dubai Airport. I would like to look around and understand what awaits me outside but it is impossible. Karma has given me a wonderful central place and I see nothing. And then it’s dark outside (of course) and that doesn’t help. I surrender to the evidence, take the backpack from the capalier and abandon the Emirates A380.
I walk for a good twenty minutes before arriving at passport control. The automatic scanning machine refuses me and so one of the security guards invites me to line up for the manual check. The wait is short: a few minutes and I am in front of a man who looks at my passport, takes a picture of me and greets me.
I collect my luggage and look for the driver who should take me to the Fairmont Hotel. After a few empty laps I find a distinguished gentleman in a white shirt holding a sign with my name on it. I introduce myself, he greets me, takes my suitcase and invites me to follow him outside.
The heat of Dubai hits me suddenly. Unexpectedly.
Only 11.00 pm and there are still 28 ° C. The air is dry and sandy, nothing to do with the humid heat that Italy has given us this summer.
Up to here, up to this point – I think to myself – I could be in any other city in the world.
And instead I’m in Dubai.
I make it by car, while we reach the hotel. I look out the window and it is a succession of huge, very high, strange buildings. Illuminated by neon that enhance the line.
It is an incredible sight. And I’m in one of the largest cities in the UAE. Not for tourism, not for vacation, not for passing through. I’m in Dubai for the Gitex Global 2022what the organization describes as the biggest tech event in the world.
Gitex Global 2022: a new window on the world
5 days have passed since my arrival in Dubai, from my first encounter with this fascinating metropolis that at night looks like the Night City of Cyberpunk 2077. Five days that changed my perspective on the world of technology, that have given me new perspectives and that have broadened my horizons in a world that I never thought possible.
It sounds exaggerated, I understand, but I promise you that, as you proceed with the reading, all of this will make sense.
Let’s start from the basics. Gitex Global 2022 is an event dedicated to the world of technology and startups. Compared to the CES in Las Vegas and the IFA in Berlin, here you will find fewer products, fewer launches, less news. Nevertheless there are 20 pavilions, thousands of stands, as many companies and crowded corridors.
Why did people from all over the world take a plane to come here?
At first, I confess to you, I didn’t understand it. On the first day of the fair, confused and disoriented, I really struggled to understand the usefulness of this event hosted and organized by the Dubai World Trade Center.
I looked around without my brain being able to register useful information. I stared at the stands without being able to understand what they were doing or why I had to talk to someone from the staff to find out more. I was guided by our companions without really being able to focus on anything.
Then things started to make sense. Gradually, day after day, appointment after appointment, kilometer after kilometer, I began to outline the contours of the Gitex, to understand its meaning, purpose and usefulness.
Gitex is not CES.
Gitex is not the IFA.
The Gitex is not the ISE.
At the same time, however, Gitex is also all these things.
I’ll explain.
The Gitex is a hybrid. A mix made up of consumer products – those dedicated to end users -, B2B technologies – therefore designed for companies – and startups looking for funds and eager to expand.
Gitex is the gateway to the Middle East market. And vice versa.
Here the great American and European giants come to tell what they do and to make new agreements to grow and expand outside their respective territories. At the same time, however, local companies have the incredible opportunity to make themselves known by the West, to find people and funds to help them expand their business and grow.
The presentation of Gitex Africa Morocco
Once we understood this, once we found this key, everything made more sense. My wandering around the pavilions has become less casual, less confused.
I didn’t fly to Dubai to find technologies that don’t exist here, I took a 6-hour flight to realize that the technology I tell – and we tell – every day on these pages is often focused on what happens in Europe, in the United States and China. But the Middle East also has something to say. And not just him. From May 31 to June 2 Marrakesh will host the Gitex Africa Morocco, the first edition of Gitex in Africa. And not because they want to change locations or take people on vacation but because Africa has its startups, its technology companies. While we remain anchored to our borders, on the other side of the Mediterranean the African countries are advancing rapidly, passing from the almost total absence of communications to smartphones, from having no banks to digital banking.
Marrakesh – a spit from our home – is about to become a reference city in the business world, an incredible and super-connected gateway to the West.
The UAE is flying towards innovation and digitalization
Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, Minister of Economy of the United Arab Emirates
For three days I explored the Gitex, passing from one pavilion to another with the aim of finding something unusual to tell you about. What struck me, however, was actually the drive for innovation that animates the United Arab Emirates. For example, you know they have a Minister of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications?
Or again, you know that the Minister of Economy has the goal of to transform Dubai into one of the top 10 economies of the metaverse? But not only that: in a short time it introduced remote work for the country’s contact centers, pushed the accelerator on the use of technology to facilitate the opening of new companies and thought up incentives for startups and companies belonging to the technology sector.
There is also great attention to people’s daily lives. In Dubai, the police have an application that integrates a flood of services: you can pay fines, receive traffic and accident information in real time, request permits and certificates, report crime or abuse, volunteer if you have first aid skills… All with an app that is completely free and accessible. And to use it, you don’t have to create an account. Anyone, even tourists, can use it. On the other hand, residents can scan their electronic identity card for personalized information.
In Abu Dhabi, on the other hand, autonomous buses will debut in November: 4 vehicles with 7 seats each that for 12 hours a day will transport people on a route that includes 9 stops in strategic points of the city. And the transport is free.
But that’s not all. The government invests heavily in research and development, giving funds to research institutes such as the TII – Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi. Led by the TII researchers, we have discovered some very interesting projects they have been working on for some time. Among these, a drone able to “see” underground to find the mini anti-humans with the aim of helping to reclaim huge territories without risking any human life. And no, it’s not a slightly more advanced metal detector but a complex device that also detects other materials and uses artificial intelligence to identify the objects it finds.
Great attention is also paid to finding people in emergency situations, with ground and air robots that can move independently in dangerous environments to find people injured or involved in disasters and accidents and then facilitate rescue operations.
A lot of work is also done on the remote control of drones. TII researchers are experimenting with this technology from their Abu Dhabi center with drones located in Finland. The result? A delay of 500 ms in 4G and 300 ms in 5G for a practically real-time management of drones that reach even 100-120 km / h.
In the race for innovation and digitalization, the United Arab Emirates are undoubtedly at the top, and they do not intend to stop. Also because they have already reached Mars with the Hope space mission … Who knows what else they have in store for the future.