Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 38 | Page 10

NEWS KSA’s CITC focuses on managing Internet resources to drive growth He added that KSA is keen to tap the developments in the Internet sector to accelerate growth and continuously diversify the economy in the country and the region. Paul Rendek, Director of External relations at the RIPE NCC, said: “At the RIPE NCC we’re committed to working with stakeholders in the Arab countries to help them advance their Internet sectors. T he RIPE Network Coordination Centre (NCC) has hosted a roundtable meeting in KSA, hosted by the country’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC). The meeting focused on the current opportunities and challenges across the Middle East in managing Internet resources, including trends, statistics and recent developments in the region, and was themed ‘Managing Internet Resources in Arab Countries’. H.E. Al-Ruwais said: “The CITC remains committed in boosting the engagement of government regulators in the discussions related to Internet resources.” “We commend the work of KSA’s CITC in taking a leadership role and developing new initiatives to support the growth of networks in their country. These meetings are an ideal platform to address some of the pressing challenges facing information sharing and Internet security today.” Among the countries participating in the meeting were the KSA, the UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Yemen and Egypt. ////////////////// Robotic and data driven solutions presented at Materials Handling Saudi Arabia S wisslog, a leader in robotic, data-driven and flexible automated solutions, has participated at the second edition of Materials Handling Saudi Arabia. Alain Kaddoum, General Manager, Swisslog Middle East, said the expo was important as the company has been active in the region for more than five years. Swisslog met with business leaders to discuss material handling issues and answer questions related to fast, high-quality distribution and logistical processes. Some of the company’s recent customer wins include Almarai and Mai Dubai among others, including the recently secured new projects in Saudi Arabia. Alain Kaddoum, General Manager at Swisslog Middle East, said: “Future-ready warehousing and distribution solutions will enable companies to stay ahead of the competition. At Swisslog, we are constantly innovating our competitive technology to meet the demands of today’s omni- channel storage and distribution. “We are extremely proud to demonstrate the power of Big Data with Industry 4.0 while laying the foundations for Artificial Intelligence to achieve new levels of warehouse automation dynamics.” According to a YouGov study, KSA retailers state that the IoT (38%) and Big Data (34%) will have the biggest impact in shaping the industry, furthermore, 87% of retailers in the UAE and 89% in Saudi Arabia, who have adopted new automation technologies, said they have seen a positive impact on productivity. 10 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com