Huawei, a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, hosted global experts and leaders within the Kingdom's ICT field at its sixth annual Huawei Day KSA event held in the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Riyadh last Dec.9 to discuss the latest technologies and how they can be applied to lead the way into Saudi Arabia's digitally-driven future. Digital transformation is a key component of unlocking major economic value, and a significant contributor towards realizing the diversification efforts – as well as the societal ambitions – of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030. During Huawei Day KSA 2019, numerous discussions and roundtables were held to shed light on how digitization, with the help of new technologies, can contribute to achieving the targets of the National Transformation Program (NTP), which aims at achieving governmental operational excellence, improving economic enablers, and enhancing living standards through accelerating the implementation of primary and digital infrastructure projects and engaging stakeholders in identifying challenges, co-creating solutions, and contributing to the implementation of the program's initiatives. An ecosystem partners' roundtable discussed the importance of building the ICT ecosystem in the Kingdom, in order to foster more open collaboration between public and private sectors. It also saw discussions around engaging stakeholders to work towards facing the current challenges and addressing future requirements, ranging from building ICT talent ecosystem to making a progress towards creating the right ecosystem for the new key technologies such as AI, Big Data, Cloud, 5G, and more. Participants explored ways that these advanced technologies will facilitate more benefits for data management, analysis, and processing across all industries. Integration on this level can also further improve productivity, which will benefit both the public and private sectors and provides state-of-the-art services to the citizens. "A sophisticated digital infrastructure is integral to today's advanced industrial activities. The rapid application of digital technologies in the economy has produced wide-ranging benefits, which is especially evident in the digital economy—the highlight of the overall economy for many nations. The digital economy is becoming society's new driving force of economic development, and its growth rate in each country is higher than that of the overall traditional economy. Ubiquitous sensing, high-speed connections, and sharing of knowledge will lead to unprecedented growth and value creation. It is the path towards the digital economy and building a fully connected, intelligent world," said Dennis Zhang, CEO of Huawei Tech. Investment Saudi Arabia Co., Ltd. referencing the Saudi National Vision 2030. During the event, the Ministry of Health also signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with Huawei. The memorandum was signed by Dr. Ahmed Mohammed Balkhair, eHealth and Digital Transformation Deputy Minister, and Dennis Zhang, CEO of Huawei Tech. Investment Saudi Arabia Co., Ltd. The memorandum outlines a desire by the Ministry to adopt new models of care and to accelerate business transformation using digital infrastructure. Huawei in turn aims to introduce cutting-edge technologies to the Ministry, offering solutions and services in the area of smart healthcare. Saudi Telecom Company (STC) creatively launched with Huawei the first global joint Cloud Campus based Smart Network service to be offered to enterprise customers within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, signed ‘Cloud Campus based Managed WiFi Service Cooperation' memorandum of understanding and was awarded a Joint Creative Partner in the presence of Talal Albakr, VP Digital Solutions, STC Solutions, Vincent Liu, Vice President, Huawei Enterprise Middle East, and David Shi, General Manager, Enterprise Business, Huawei Saudi Arabia. — SG
