I’m name-checked in this opinion piece in The National today about the new Dubai drone law. The move certainly opens up new possibilities for the drone industry. I can’t wait to see how this is implemented and when we will see the first new urban air mobility trials under the new law.
Read the full article in The National here.
Abu Dhabi is moving its R&D strategy up a gear with the formation of a new Advanced Technology Research Council or ATRC, to be headed up by Dark Matter founder Faisal Albannai.
With a growing variety of R&D initiatives driven by the likes of ADNOC, DarkMatter, Group 42, Inception Institute of Artificial Intelligence and others, Abu Dhabi is starting to create a significant R&D ecosystem. Last year Abu Dhabi Investment Office and SenseTime announced that the AI unicorn would open an EMEA R&D centre in Abu Dhabi employing 600 engineers. More recently ADQ launched a $300 million startup fund aiming to bring promising Asian startups to set-up in Abu Dhabi. The mix of big tech, new startups and government-backed R&D initiatives could turn out to be a magic combination.
Read the full article in The National here.
CIO Middle East asked me how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is using technology to cope with impact of the novel coronavirus. The pandemic has, of course, put enormous pressure on business and government to change the way services are delivered and introduce alternatives that meet the health, safety and practical requirements of the emergency, However, Saudi’s previous technology investments have stood the country in good stead. Saudi has been able to move quickly to monitor public places, digitise healthcare processes and ramp up online education as a result of technology initiatives already put in place.
Read the full article here.
CIO Middle East recently asked me about recent moved by the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulation Authority (TRA) to unblock certain VoIP and video call apps. In March 2020, the TRA lifted a long-held ban on a few popular apps such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom as it announced measures to promote remote working.
It’s an interesting subject since, although the UAE is one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet, pressure from telecom service providers has effectively blocked the usage of most of the world’s most popular voice and video call apps, such as Facetime, Skype and Whatsapp. So, now having allowed access to a number of video call apps, what will happen when the coronavirus emergency ends? Will the TRA block those apps again or does this mark the beginning of a new era of policy?
Read the full article here.
I was delighted to be able to contribute to Damian Radcliffe‘s Middle East technology predictions feature for ZDNet, rounding up expert predictions for 2020 on 5G and 4G adoption, venture funding, retail tech and artificial intelligence.
I was asked: as the Middle East and North Africa’s spending on AI continues to grow, will the region ever become more than simply a consumer of artificial intelligence?
Read the full article here.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is seeking more partnerships globally as it endeavours to create a sustainable digital business and a share of global online voice. In the Middle East, it signed a partnershipw with Abu Dhabi Media-owned publication Al-Ittihad.
The Arab News asked for my take on why WSJ is trying to develop such partnerships and I made the point that the paper will be counting on deals like this to help push their own digital platform in front of more new eyeballs globally.
Read the full article here.
