While technology players and vendors have long been offering their products on the service or pay-for-use model, the primary drivers of enterprise technology or CIOs have always been restricted in their roles within an organisation. Similarly, organisations too have been limited in their ability to benefit from the globally available pool of technology experts.
To help enterprises meet their technology challenges, a group of technology experts launched CaaS or CIO-as-a-Service
To help enterprises meet their technology challenges, a group of technology experts launched CaaS or CIO-as-a-Service at the sixth World CIO 200 Summit at the Grand Fourwings Convention Hotel in Bangkok.
The global platform, designed to serve as a one-stop-shop and a go-to-platform for meeting all enterprise ICT needs, was launched on the inaugural day of the summit by Venkatesh Mahadevan, CIO of Dubai Investment. The others to join the launch included Basil Ayass, Sales Leader, Google; Pratap Pat Joshi, Global CIO Manufacturing Forum; Manoj Saxena, Chairman, RosettaNet Singapore GS1 Digital standards; Patrick Doliny, Retired US Marine Officer and Career CIO, CISO; Mohammed Mahnashi, Digital Transformation Advisor, Saudi Electronic University; Darren Shaffer, former Military Board Member and CTO.
Set up as a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, CaaS is a community-led entity with no central authority
The second day’s proceeding at the summit also saw the announcement of the partners who joined hands with CaaS, just a day after its launch, which was a testament to the strong relevance that it brings to today’s market. The discussion was led by Venkatesh Mahadevan, CIO at Dubai Investments, along with Henry Santos, Founder and Board Member of OPX America, and Uday Birajda, CEO and Co-Founder of Automation Edge.
How it began
In 2022, two technology evangelists met at an airport lounge and got talking, since their flight was delayed by a few hours. The discussion led them to come out with the concept of a one-stop shop or a platform that could help organisations get information, expert service, and consultation for their technology needs and projects.
It will be driven by smart contracts to lay the foundational rules and execute agreed-upon decisions
Set up as an ultra-modern and state-of-the-art DAO or Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, CaaS is a community-led entity with no central authority. It will be driven by an independent group of experts as an autonomous and transparent platform, complete with smart contracts to lay the foundational rules and execute agreed-upon decisions. The platform also plans to get the codes publicly audited by the community.
The platform aims to build a community of people who trust each other and offer solutions to clients
The platform aims to build a community of people who trust each other and offer solutions to clients by leveraging the power of collaboration, competency, and trust. The platform will also help businesses leverage the best and most appropriate technology solutions by building stronger relationships between technology champions and enterprises, product vendors and integrators with clients, and the community itself.
Established in 2017, the World CIO200 Summit is a multi-country CIO felicitation ceremony that recognises the achievements of digital leaders of today who have transformed the IT infrastructure of their organisations driving growth and change. The summit in Bangkok is the culmination of the year-long face-to-face and virtual celebrations across Africa, Europe, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, KSA, Oman, Egypt, India, Singapore, and Pakistan editions of the event.
The grand finale of the World CIO 200 Summit in Bangkok was sponsored by CAAS as the strategic partner and StorIT, Automation Edge, Dell Technologies, Mindware, Redington, Logitech, and OPX Technology as platinum partners. It was supported by Veritas, Alteryx, Infinite Blue, and 3i Infotech as gold partners.
The silver partners included Western Digital, Forcespot, Accops, Veeam, NetApp, Logicom, Pure Storage, TechnePlus, Kissflow, DLlink, Exotel, and Finesse. The summit was supported by Infoblox, HTP, BITS Secure, SecureNet; RNS Technology Services, and MetaO.