200+ CIOs and IT executives attend Global CIO Forum’s World CIO Summit in Ajman

The world CIO 200 Roadshow 2021 culminated its grand finale on 6^th December. It brought together some of the major names in technology and included a series of insightful presentations, tech talks, round table meetings, fireside chat and incisive panel discussions at Topaz Ballroom, Fairmont Ajman in UAE with the theme of event #ChangeX.

This year, the roadshow has covered 36+ countries and provided a platform to a large number of exhibitors with foremost engaging sessions. Over 4,000 C-Level executives have been recognised in the 2021 edition.

The World CIO 200 Summit event partners were Dell Technologies, Mindware, Automation Anywhere, Arcon, Logitech, AWS, Redington, Zero&One, Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Pure Storage, VAD, Akamai, Veritas, BMB, Exclusive Networks, F5, StorIT, Infoblox, Citrix, Laserfiche, TechnePlus, Spectrum Networks, Infinite Blue, BITS, Paessler, Secure Net, Finesse, Commvault, PROW at the Forefront and RNS Technology Services. The summit built roadmaps for strategic decision making and identified yardsticks that are the key drivers of growth in the digital world.

The World CIO 200 Summit 2021 grand finale was inaugurated by Ronak Samantaray, CEO, Global CIO Forum and Anushree Dixit, Global Head of Content and Strategic Alliances, Global CIO Forum with their welcome address.

The first day of the event was joined by the top industry’s leaders including Sandrine El Khodry, Vice president Middle East and Africa, Alcatel Lucent Enterprise; Krishnan Gopi, CEO, TMRW; Venkatesh Mahadevan, CIO, Dubai Investments; Dinesh Chandra, Regional VP and Head of ME, Automation Anywhere; Faisil Syed, Digital Transformation Manager, SEHA Abu Dhabi; Samer Semaan, Channel Manager Middle East, Pure Storage; Loubna IMENCHAL, Vice-President and Head of Logitech for Enterprise business AMECA at Logitech Africa Middle East Turkey Central Asia; and Soheyl Kadjani, SVP and Head of Technology Strategy, Transformation and Fabric First Abu Dhabi Bank.

The The UAE Tech Panel included Qusai Almeqdadi, Senior Manager, Ernst and Young; Jayakumar Mohanachandran, Group Chief Information Officer, Easa Saleh Al Gurg; Arul Jose Vigin, Head of Information Technology, DIFC Courts; and Walid Elsaher, Director of Information Technology, Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone.

Further, there was another panel discussion on AI Transforming the Future: Promises, Opportunities, and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence with panelists including Dr Jassim Haji, President, Artificial Intelligence Society; Emmanuel R – Co-Director, Global AI Ethics Institute; Aco Momcilovik, Co-Director – Global AI Ethics Institute and Co-Founder – IGOAI Country Advisor : Croatia; Dr Thiago Felipe S. Avanci, Lawyer, Professor of Law, Board Member – CEST, POLI, USP; IGOAI; GAIEI; FISP; Jamal Berrich, Professor and Member of ‘Maison de l’intelligence artificielle’ – Mohammed First University Oujda; Jorge Sebastiao, Co-Founder – Global Blockchain Organisation; Moderator Dr Manal Jalloul – Founder, AI Lab; Certified Instructor and University Ambassador, NVIDIA; Lecturer, American University of Beirut.

The second day of the event started with morning yoga and wellness session with Ektaa Sibal, Global Wellness Ambassador – Global CIO Forum and India’s #1 Inner-Self Transformation Specialist.

Later, the event was also joined by top keynote speakers including Anil Bhandari, Chief Mentor ANB and Arcon; Adeshola Onadipe, World Peace Ambasaddor; Abidali Neemuchwala, Chairman and CEO, Compass Digital Acquisition Corporation and Venkatesh Mahadevan, CIO, Dubai Investments; Ali El Kontar, Founder and CEO, Zero&One; Setiaji Setiaji, ICT Department of West Java Province Head of Department; Gaurav Mazumdar, Grammy Nominated Sitarist and Music Composer and Educator; Abidali Neemuchwala, Chairman and CEO, Compass Digital Acquisition Corpotation and Venkatesh Mahadevan, CIO, Dubai Investments; Abdul Rahim; Spectrum Networks; Natalie Hore, Founder, Azraq; Wissam Al Adany, CIO, Ghabbour Auto; Selestin Thomas, Nissan Digital General Manager – Digital Technology and IT Infra; and Ektaa Sibal, Global Wellness Ambassador – Global CIO Forum | India’s #1 Inner-Self Transformation Specialist.

The World CIO 200 Roadshow 2021 has four award categories including Legend CIO, Leader CIO, Master CIO, and Next-generation CIO:

Legend CIO: Lifetime achievement awards.
Master CIO: Experience of more than 15-20 years and unparalleled technological experience in a career life span.
Legend CIO: Experience of 10-15 years and multiple domain expertise.
Next-generation CIO: Experience of 5-10 years or less and undertaken mammoth projects in a less span of time.

The announced winners of The World CIO 200 Summit Legend category include Yahyah Pandor, Venkatesh Mahadevan, Mamoun Alhomssey, Fahad Deshmukh, Jaleel Rahiman, Mohammed Shakeel Ahmed, Jacob Mathew, Atul Aggarwal, Umesh Moolchandani, Lt. Col. Dr. Hamad Khalifa Al Nuaimi, Frank Watts, Aditya Kaushik, Mohamed Taleb, Jayesh Maganlal, Naghman Rafique Akhtar, Jayakumar Mohanachandran, Ahmed Ebrahim Alahmad, Vinay Sharma, Shailesh Mani, Damian O’Gara, Abdalla Al Ali, Mubarik Hussain, Manish Bindra, Mario Foster, Walid Elsahar, Madhukar Chaturvedi, Zaheer Kazi, Mustansir Aziz, Dr. Syed Mahsud Ali, Soheyl Kadjani, Mohamed Absar, Ayman Mohammed Alqudsi, Jayakrishnan AK, Suresh Muthuvanath, Aiman Othman, Rawad Bader, Kashif Rana, Pankaj Bajaj, Nitin Bhargava, Aiedh Al-Zahrani, Fayaz Ahamed Badubhai, Omar Al Shaiba, Aslam Rashid Khan, Anup Das, Dr. Kadeeja Mansoor, Anindo Banerjee, Santosh Shetty, Roger Tabbal, Sunando Chaudhuri, Vimal Dev, Himanshu Srivastava, and Jasim Mohamed.

The announced winners of The World CIO 200 Summit Leader category include Shah E Room Khan, Muhamed Noufel, Qusai Almeqdadi, Nithin Geo Thomas, Yoosaf Lulu, Yousif Al Ali, Sabin Subramannian, Pragnesh Menon, Marwan Al Ahmad, Sheridan Moodley, Vivek Chandran, Ahmed Mahrous, Sulaiman Alhenaki, Suliman Enizi, Lijeesh Rajan, Shrenik Jain and Mohammed Al-Dhufairi.

The announced winners of The World CIO 200 Summit Master category include Shijin Prasad, Sunil Nair, Aliasgar Bohari, Mohammad Shahzad, Himanshu Puri, Fady Sleiman, Adam Docrat, Siddiqui Altaf, Hafeez Sheikh Muhammad, Samit Jha, Saif Al Siksek, Srinivasa Narasimhaiah, Ali Ghunaim, Ayman Medakka, Hasnain Juzer Ali, Radi Karnib, Arul Vigin, Syed Naqvi, Pradeep Nair, Ahmed Shawky, Eyad Kashkash, Ahmed Nabil Mahmoud, Vibin Vijayakumar, Omar Al Marzooqi, Jacobus Coenraad Burger, Asad Mehmood, Ashraf Kittaneh, Ringsun Raghavan Nair, Kanesan Pandi, Omar Bamatrif, Ziyad Saleh, Gigi Mathew Thomas, Robert Araniego, and Krishan Kant Srivastava.

The announced winners of The World CIO 200 Summit Next-generation category Oliver Chester De Maiwat, Awais Bin Imran, Turki Othman AlDubaykhi, and Mithun Nair.

BOTS 4.0

The World CIO 200 Roadshow 2021 grand finale was also an occasion to release BOTS, the Book of Titans, that features CIOs who have executed exemplary projects during the year. The handbook features 200 CIOs whose projects stood out from huge nominations that came in from 36+ countries. In short, BOTS is not only about the highest-valued projects or projects that involved complex decision making and multiple stakeholders.

BOTS 4.0 was launched by the inspire committee of Dr Jassim Haji, President, Artificial Intelligence Society; Emmanuel Goffi, Co-Director Global AI Ethics Institute; Dr Erdal Ozkaya, Management Global CISO Forum; Raymond Comvalius, IT Infrastructure Architect and Trainer; and Abdulaziz A. Aloraij, Chairman of Saudi Developers Society.

The World Finalists Presentation Ceremony award winners include Shaker AlOwainati, Khalid Jalal, Hasan Murad, Ali Alaradi, Anas Kamaluddin, Mohammed Al Sharqawy, Mohamed Albenjasim, Sohaib Alabdi, Kgomotso Mantu, Wissam Al Adany, Hossam Abbas Barakat, Abdelrahman Kamal, Mohammad Musharraf, Mohamed Hamed, Hans-Jörg Bauer, Emmanuel Morka, Suk-Wah Kwok, Sunil Pandey, Anand Sinha, Hilal Khan, Selestin Thomas, Pratap Patjoshi, Indranil Chatterjee, Setiaji Setiaji, Ichwan Peryana, Bernard Rono, Bravine Otieno, Sulaiman AlKharashi, Sajid Riaz, Imdath Nazim, Syed Fakruddin Albeez, Mirza R Baig, Dr Maher Aldukheil, Abdul Aziz Al-Oraij, Eng Khaled Alnuaimi, Dr Ayad, Aldaijy, Abdullah Alothman, Praful Thummar, Thangaswamy Jacob, Husain Alnakkas, Dr Anis Mattur, Sanjeev Madavi, Micheal Selva Kumar, Abdul Rahim Ahmad, Syed Asif Shah, M Umar Ilyas, Faisal Anwar, Muhammad Yasir Khan, Aladdin Saqer, Faizal Babu, Saiful Bakhtiar, Mailan Kumar, Khaled Ben Driss, Imen Hbiri, Özcan Ayyildiz, Uday Awasthi, Derrick Loius, Sainath Katkoori, Hasan Isam Naser Muhi, Golok Kumar Simli, Anto Pius, Juliana Chua, Dr Deepak Kalambkar, Yahyah Pandor, Fahad Deshmukh, Dr Kadeeja Mansoor, Shijin Prasad, Jaleel Rahiman, Muhamed Noufel, Mohammed Al-Dhufairi, Mohammed Shakeel Ahmed, Jacob Mathew, Sunil Nair, Atul Aggarwal, Santosh Shetty, Umesh Moolchandani, Qusai Almeqdadi, Nithin Geo Thomas, Lt. Col. Dr Hamad Khalifa Al Nuaimi, Oliver Chester De Maiwat, Frank Watts, Aditya Kaushik, Mohamed Taleb, Aliasgar Bohari, Jayesh Maganlal, Mohammad Shahzad, Himanshu Puri, Naghman Rafique Akhtar, Fady Sleiman, Wael El Khatib, Ahmed Ebrahim Alahmad, Faisil Syed, Madhukar Chaturvedi, Adam Docrat, Dr. Syed, Mahsud Ali, Hafeez Sheikh Muhammad, Samit Jha, Saif Al Siksek, Jayakumar Mohanachandran, Vinay Sharma, Shrenik Jain, Shailesh Mani, Damian O’Gara, Ali Ghunaim, Ayman Medakka, Hasnain Juzer Ali, Radi Karnib, Yousif Al Ali, Arul Vigin, Syed, Naqvi, Abdalla Al Ali, Shah e Room Khan, Pradeep Nair, Sabin Subramannian, Mubarik Hussain, Manish Bindra, Ahmed Shawky, Mario Foster, Anindo Banerjee, Venkatesh Mahadevan, Mamoun Alhomssey, Ahmed Nabil Mahmoud, Zaheer Kazi, and Dr Syed Mahsud Ali.

DX Inspire 2021 Awards recognised path-breaking organisations that have redefined Digital Transformation to its core and the winners include Gopi Krish, Emmanuel Morka, Praful Thummar, Setiaji Setiaji, Pratap Patjoshi, Qusai Almeqdadi, Damian O’Gara, Uday Awasthi, Suk-Wah Kwok, Mohamed Absar, Bahmini Mohamed, Albenjasim Transforming, Higher Education and M Umar Ilyas.

The Global CIO Forum preferred partner award winners include Automation Anywhere, Dell Technologies, SAP, Huawei, and Oracle.

About The World CIO 200 Summit

Established in 2017, The CIO 200 Summit is a multi-country CIO felicitation ceremony that recognises the achievements of digital leaders. The CIO 200 Awards are not a competition but a celebration of the amazing lives of CIOs and their game-changing careers.

2020 was an extraordinary year for almost every organisation, as it grappled with the fallout from the pandemic. The CIO 200 Summit 2020 toured 26 countries and gathered over 3000+ representatives in few months. Key stakeholders tabled roadmaps for strategic decision making and identified yardsticks that are the key drivers of growth in the digital world.

The World CIO 200 Roadshow 2020 featured exclusive invitations for country-specific briefings, celebrated the contributions of local CIOs and offered post-event networking opportunities. Moreover, participants were tapped into the collective wisdom of advisory boards and subject matter experts.

However, CIOs from organisations in the UAE, who have been the catalyst in bringing about change in this challenging year, were honoured with this award. The winners also received blockchain certificates.