FINAL WORD
and a diversification of its underlying economy. Oil wealth has resulted in a highly developed energy sector, but with prosperity has come burgeoning financial services, vast overseas investments and significant growth in the tourism and hospitality business.
A business oasis The UAE is also an attractive place in which to do business. There are significant tax advantages for businesses setting up in the UAE. The GITEX Technology conference – held in Dubai last October – attracted thousands of early-stage business owners and hundreds of startups from right across the region. Venture capital funds are increasingly attracted to a start-up environment that is low-cost, can more rapidly attract talent( wherever in the world it happens to be), and can offer a very high quality standard of living.
This underlying dynamic – of an economy and a region on the move – creates huge opportunities for the tech sector. The UAE economy is one that’ s underpinned by the energy and petrochemicals sectors – even if the longer term strategic plan is to make the economy much more diverse. Rapid growth has been enabled by technology. One look at the skyline of Dubai or Abu Dhabi will very quickly convince any visitor of that. Smarter ways of getting things done With city growth and infrastructure development has come the associated need to create smarter systems. The UAE’ s major cities are now some of the most advanced‘ smart cities’ on the planet. And the intention is to make them even smarter. Some of the planet’ s most ambitious plans for eGovernment and citizens’ access to government eServices are being developed in the UAE and wider Gulf region – vital, of course, for nations and cities with such rapid population growth projections.
There are obvious security implications associated with all of this. The UAE is an important part of the Gulf region’ s oil supply chain. The region is also a vital transportation hub and provides digital connectivity to support ever more complex systems and trading. Greater dependence of civic society on digital systems also builds vulnerability into the systems upon which so many citizens and businesses depend.
Beyond the UAE other nations, and the major enterprises that feed their economies, have similar needs. The region will need emerging specialisms and professional services teams that can service the requirement for global class security.
Genius needed Therefore, the cyber security challenges are more complex than in many other regions with even greater populations. Building resilience into the systems that underpin the wider Gulf region is a critical role that’ s increasingly being played by technology specialists. Skills are needed to build, for example, nationwide citizen identity systems that are interconnected with government and private sector systems. There’ s a requirement to select talent – that’ s proven and vetted – to build these next-generation and futureproof solutions.
The landscape is ever-evolving. Complex transactional systems or government services are being built to utilise new,
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