Huawei hosts seminal Telecom Leaders’ Summit and unveils its Global Connectivity Index (GCI) report

Mobilk - Huawei, a global ICT solutions provider, will share its vision for the ICT industry, "Open ROADS to a Better Connected World", at the 2016 SAMENA Telecom Leaders’ Summit. Organised by SAMENA Telecommunications Council and hosted by Huawei for the third consecutive year, the SAMENA Leaders Summit is platform for collaboration by industry leaders who share a common interest in creating a roadmap for accelerated growth across the industry. The 10th Edition of the event will bring together top industry stakeholders from across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

The primary objective of the Summit will be to facilitate and drive cross-stakeholder participation and open communication by bringing together business decision-makers, investors, policy and regulatory authorities, as well as global institution-level leadership. The aim is to explore new avenues of progressive thinking and future planning for the benefit of both the ICT industry and its ultimate stakeholders – citizens and consumers in the SAMENA region. 

 

The rapid evolution of the Internet into a primarily mobile platform has significantly changed user behaviors. They now expect digital services to be seamlessly available anytime, anywhere, and on any device, according to Huawei. As a result, Huawei believes that telecommunications service providers must be able to deliver the ROADS experience to stay competitive. Huawei "Open ROADS to a Better Connected World”. encompasses five fundamental characteristics of the ultimate user experiences in a fully connected world - Real-time, On-demand, All-online, DIY, and Social – Huawei’s “ROADS” vision will foster an open industry ecosystem that enables agile innovations, advancing the ICT industry as well as all social sectors in the digital age. 

 

Commenting on Huawei’s participation, Mr. Sun Xiaofeng, Executive Vice President of Huawei Middle East said: “The SAMENA Leadership Summit is a gathering of all key stakeholders from the telecommunications industry to exchange ideas and provide solutions that will take our industry forward into the new digital era. Huawei is proud to once again host this important industry event which is now in its 10th year.” 

Huawei will launch its annual Global Connectivity Index Report (GCI Report) at the SAMENA Summit; a study that assesses the connectivity capabilities of different countries across four dimensions – availability, bandwidth, affordability and ease of use. It also contains 38 indicators covering the entire ICT spectrum including datacenters, e-commerce and e-governance, among others. 

Huawei’s 2016 Global Connectivity Index (GCI) benchmarks 50 economies in terms of connectivity, ICT usage, and digital transformation, providing an indicator of which countries are best poised for development and growth, and an ICT planning reference for policymakers looking to embrace the digital economy. 

According to the report, the digital economy requires balanced development in supply, demand, experience, and potential. Countries with different levels of connectivity should have different development focuses. GCI 2016 reveals that investing in broadband is the main requirement for industries to build a digital economy. The 2016 GCI Rankings found that The United Arab Emirates, Qatar And Saudi Arabia are adopters; therefore well on their way to adopting a digital economy. Adopter nations see the biggest GDP growth from GCI. Their focus is on increasing ICT demand to facilitate industry digitization and high-quality economic growth. The United Arab Emirates was found to be amongst the top three developing countries in the rankings and is 19th by GCI; Qatar followed with the 21st place and Saudi Arabia took the 28th place. 

"The telecom industry needs to rapidly move towards an open digital ecosystem. Huawei is committed to collaborating with customers and industry partners to build an enhanced, fully-connected world.” Mr. Sun added. “Huawei’s Open ROADS initiative, supported by GCI Report brings together leading voices from across the ICT industry to answer the questions posed in our digital transformation era.” he ended.

Overall, the 2016 GCI shows that 20% growth in ICT investment will increase a country’s GDP by 1%. It also identifies five enablers of digital transformation – data centers, cloud services, Big Data, broadband, and the Internet of Things. These technologies represent the targets that stakeholders should focus their investments on in order to most efficiently transform their economies for the digital age. 

SAMENA Telecommunication Summit theme this year is rooted in the firm belief that in today’s digital economy, a better connected world is more important than ever before, particularly in the broadband space. The Summit will also review innovations that support the digital transformation of a variety of industries and how they can leverage new ICT technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud Computing.

 

During the Summit, Huawei will also invite the audience to explore industry trends, review challenges brought on by the advanced developments in video, operations, partnerships and innovation. Huawei will also welcome industry participants to collaborate on building win-win scenarios in order to envision a better industry for all.