One of the world’s biggest tech shows, the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition, or GITEX, as widely known, returned with a bang in Dubai from 17th to 21st October 2021. One of the finest opportunities for the world to take a peek into the future, this exhibition empowers people to get a sense of advanced global innovations and know about the latest trends. The event exhibits the latest supercars, robots, mobile phones, and almost everything a tech geek fantasizes about. With its 41st edition this year, GITEX-21 opened in Dubai World Trade Center and had many big tech names like Epson, Huawei, and Dell Technologies, as participants and exhibitors.
Table of Contents
What is GITEX?
Gulf Information Technology Exhibition, or GITEX as people commonly call it, is an annual technology trade show and exhibition that takes place in Dubai, UAE. Various IT Professionals, Tech geeks, students, traders participate in this largest IT event in the world. Formerly known as GITE, this event launched in 1981 at Hall One of Dubai World Trade Center. A world-class event, GITEX is a must-attend event where tech leaders, startups, enterprises, and enthusiasts from around the globe come together and present before you the future of the tech industry.
Speakers and Exhibitors at GITEX-21
The 2021 edition of the tech expo had more than 3500 tech enterprises from over 140 countries making it to the GITEX Dubai 2021 exhibitor list. A few names from the list are Epson, Cisco, Erricson, Honeywell, and Dell Technologies. Apart from the IT industry, many government ministers, leaders, and tech stars showed their presence in this world-class event.
The tech expo welcomed more than 450 speakers from all the corners of the world. The Vice President and General Manager of machine learning at Intel, Wei Li, and Maxim Parshin, Russia’s deputy minister of digital communications, are a few of those who spoke at GITEX-21.
Key Highlights of GITEX-21
GITEX-21 Global Vision Summit
The local government presented its vision of the digital revolution at this summit on the occasion of UAE’S Golden Jubilee.
GITEX YouthX
The objective of this program was to bring young talent to the practitioner ecosystem. This platform encouraged the development of youth and its talent.
GITEX Data Economy
Another highlight of GITEX Dubai 2021, this platform discussed the most crucial features of Digital Transformation. Some of the features included in the talk were coding, data science, and development. GITEXDevSlam was the only event that objectified the growth of youth programmers. It also had three training sessions and two certified workshops.
Creative Economy
The objective of the project was to bring together change-makers and revolutionaries from the spheres of art, music, sports, and fashion. It partnered with some star names such as the University of the Arts, London, Studio of Brazil, London College of Fashion’s Fashion Innovation Agency.
Had Women and Youth in Focus
- The 2021 edition of GITEX focused on the involvement of women and the youth in technology. It witnessed the global finals of the TiE Women Pitch Contest on October 19th at GITEX Future Stars, where more than 40 global businesses competed against each other for a cash award, networking, and mentorship.
- The MENA Branch that educated more than 14,000 women across the globe also debuted in Dubai this year.
- The tech event also offered various data science and artificial intelligence programs.
GITEX Future Stars
GITEX Future Stars was the startup branch of GITEX Global featuring more than 700 businesses from more than 60 countries. The platform hosted international pavilions and brought together global innovators from countries like Japan, Nigeria, South Korea, Poland, and more. It provided regional firms the opportunity to get global visibility, and the global firms got the chance to access the region’s expanding tech market.
The week-long tech event witnessed the debut of GITEX YouthX Uniprenuer. It was the first-ever leadership and innovation program for young technology companies. The platform acknowledged University and Student startups and organized seminars for two days, Youth Pitch Battle, and a Display area to showcase innovative concepts.
Some prominent personalities who were a part of the event were Imad Hammad, CEO of CarSwitch, Sharif Al-Badawi, CEO of Stealth VC Fund, and many more.
AI Everything
The summit aimed to bring together the global artificial intelligence system and create the most beneficiary, visionary and inspired summit in the world. The event offers an inspiring platform for innovators to bring change to the AI world. AI Everything and GITEX offered infinite learning, networking, and business opportunities to innovators from all corners of the world.
It promised to use Artificial Intelligence to its full potential and create new business opportunities and business models. By considering the global pandemic as the most valuable lesson, this global artificial intelligence ecosystem gave a platform to various industry experts. The innovators came together at a conference and showcased various cross-tech events.
Future Blockchain Summit
Launched in 2018 by the Dubai Government, Future Blockchain Summit was the first Blockchain conference of MENA. It brought together investors and business personalities and discussed various subjects at the event. The discussed subjects were-
- Finance Blockchains that included Digital Currencies and DeFi.
- How can Blockchains be an alternative option for investment, like Crypto and NFT Investments?
- The role of Blockchain apart from being a cryptocurrency and how it can play a role in various other industries.
Fintech Surge
Said to be the most influential and visionary event of the fintech sector of North Africa and the Middle East, Fintech Surge was another highlight of GITEX-21. The summit discussed the financial sector’s revolutionary ideas presented by industry experts and business personalities. Some key subjects discussed at Fintech Surge were insuretech, paytech, wealth, and digital banking. Some famous names that were part of the summit were Beehive, YAP, Fardan Exchange, and Credolab.
Marketing Mania
Marketing Mania was another event hosted at GITEX Global for the marketers to discuss innovative ideas to engage consumers.
Other highlights of the event
- The UAE and Saudi Arabia governments emerged as the hub of innovation at the world’s most famous tech event. What made them stand apart were the factors to support public sector citizen services and digital services. Their vision to transform the nationwide digital services and smart cities agendas helped them outshine the rest of the tech stands.
- The event presented before us the latest trends that are most likely to enter 2022, like customer experience and e-commerce. Survey by YouGov shows that around 88% of North Africa and the Middle East brands changed their customer experience during the pandemic. It also shows that 91% of customers moved to e-commerce.
The finest tech event of Dubai, GITEX 2021, gave a platform to global tech enthusiasts and presented fascinating developments paving their way into the future. The factors that grabbed public attention were AI, Blockchain, FinTech. The 41st edition of the five-day-long event came to an end on October 21st, 2021.
