Global CIO Forum kicks off World CIO 200 Summit with Bahrain event

Global CIO Forum launched the 2021 edition of The World CIO 200 Summit with a theme #Change. The first virtual event of the World CIO 200 Summit Bahrain edition was successfully held on 7^th September. The event witnessed highly interactive sessions with keynote speakers at the GCF Virtual Arena.

Carrying forward its legacy of the past five years, this year, the annual summit is going to cover 36+ countries and provide a platform for 200+ exhibitors with 300+ engaging sessions. Over 4,000 C-Level executives will be recognised in the 2021 edition.

The event partners of The World CIO 200 Summit were Infoblox, F5, Exclusive Networks, BMB, Laserfiche, Veritas, Finesse and Arcon.

The World CIO 200 Summit 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 World CIO 200 Summit- Bahrain edition was opened by CEO Ronak Samantaray, Global Head, Content and Strategic Alliances, Anushree Dixit, and Dr Jassim Haji, President, International Group of Artificial Intelligence – IGOAI.

During the event, there were four speaker keynote speakers and one panel discussion. The event was followed by The World CIO 200 awards. The event was streamed live from the virtual arena and on Vimeo also.

Here are the highlights of the various speaker keynote presentations.

Digital Acceleration

In the opening keynote address Ahmed Mohamed Buhazza, Vice Chairman, Bahrain ICT Society talked about digital acceleration and the impact of pandemic.

Inspire 10 on 10

Speaking at the event, Rajiv Arora, Global CIO, Siemens discussed the future role of CIOs and the upcoming role of IT in the future.

World CIO 200 Country IT Outlook

Shibu Abraham, Head of IT and Logistics, Bahrain Duty Free talked about travel retail and how dynamic it is.

Cross Border panel: Leadership in Post Pandemic – cross-border view

The panel discussion was moderated by Arun Shankar, Editor, GEC Media Group with panelists including Samuel Amanor, CEO, BlueSPACE, Africa, Khalid Jalal, Senior Group ICT Manager of GARMCO and Munir Ahmad, Executive Director and CIO United Company of Pakistan on leadership in post pandemic – cross-border view.

Businesses led by their technology heads are revamping their infrastructure and application stack looking at vastly improved customer experience, higher returns from sales, business resilience and business continuity. Failed organisations and industries are experiencing consolidations, shakeouts, and exits for being laggards in technology adoption.

• In your opinion, based on your organisation’s experiences and the market sector that you operate in, which specific technologies and applications have helped your organisation build resilience, agility, and leadership in the last 18 months.
• As the head of technology decision making, responsible for pulling your organisation through the challenges of the last 18 months, tell us about your engagement with business and other peers, who worked closely to revamp operations and processes, and facilitate further digitisation and cloud migration.
• As we move into the recovery phase of the pandemic and further, many business opportunities are appearing ahead. In your opinion, what technology initiatives should organisations put in place to further build leadership and resilience in their markets and industries.

2021 Outlook

Ahmed Farid, Territory Account Manager, Infoblox spoke about digital transformation and said for every organisation this is a need to take it for survival in today’s world.

The announced winners of The World CIO 200 Summit – Bahrain edition include:

Critical Elements of World CIO 200

• BOTS- The Annual CIO Handbook.
• Grand Finale with 2 days of networking, collaboration, knowledge sharing and CAC.
• Tech Talk: The most novel way of making your presentations come alive.
• DX Inspire Awards: Global 20 Recognition for the most Transformative Projects and Solutions.

What is new this year

The 2021 edition is ready to build roadmaps for strategic decision making and identify yardsticks that are the key drivers of growth in the digital world. While CIOs can pick on sessions to help them fast-track their growth, the solution providers can build their brand, present their solutions and network with 500+ relevant C-level IT decision-makers flown in from 14 countries.

The top CIOs from respective countries will arrive in the United Arab Emirates for the grand finale in an all-expense-paid trip, on 5-6^th December 2021 at Topaz Ballroom, Fairmont Ajman. The event will also be part of the Dubai Expo 2020.

With the successful completion of The World CIO 200 Summit- Bahrain edition, the next event will take place in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia- edition on 9^th September through the Global CIO Forum virtual arena.