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'Internet of Things forum in Dubai a huge success'

Dubai - The event saw more than 25 customers presenting on how IoT has changed their business.

Cisco announced that the third annual Internet of Things World Forum, or IoTWF 2015, in Dubai was a huge success with over 2000 attendees from across the world getting awakened to the Internet of Things, or IoT, possibilities. The event featured visionary keynotes byleaders and experts from top companies such as Etisalat, Emirates, Visa, Intel, Siemens AG, Rockwell Automation, GE, Schneider Electric to name some.
The 2015 World Forums highlighted three key themes: Awaken - which highlighted the opportunities across all industries, identified multiple business cases, and helped customers discover the competitive advantages that IoT can bring; Activate - which covered laying out roadmaps to IoT deployments, best practices and learnings from customer IoT case studies and Accelerate - focused on moving the industry forward quickly, and highlighted the roles that service providers and application developers must play in enabling this speed.
In addition to the keynotes, the World Forum also featured breakout sessions, a hackathon, a startup showcase, and smart-city tours of Dubai.John Chambers, executive chairman of the Board at Cisco met with the country's leadership, key government officials, regional customers and media and delivered a keynote on how the IoT is creating a new world of possibilities through digitisation.
The event saw more than 25 customers presenting on how IoT has changed their business. Through Dubai Smart City Experience Tours, attendees were able to learn first-hand how Dubai, one of the most digitally advanced cities in the world, has connected transportation, education and healthcare across the city for a better citizen experience.
A special bus tour was arranged to the Dubai Design District (D3), which has implemented a wide spectrum of smart solutions and applicationsthat use IoT technologies, which include lighting solutions, clean energy, surveillance cameras as well as environment sensors to measure carbon dioxide to limit emissions. These applications are instrumental in making Dubai Design District one of the green fields for IoT and Smart and Connect Cities solutions.
The IoTWF 2015 also featured a Research and Innovation Symposium, where some of the world's leading technology researchers and scholars talked about the New Frontiers of IoT research enabling a connected world. The World Forum held an IoT Hackathon - a learning session and coding competition, which took place on the weekend preceding IoTWF. The Cisco Innovation Grand Challenge, which recognizes, promotes, and accelerates the adoption of breakthrough IoT technologies and products, brought together six amazing startups to Dubai to compete for their share of $250,000 in cash prizes. These six finalists, who were narrowed down from15 semi-finalists, got an opportunity to give their pitches live, on stage before the closing ceremony.  The winners for the IoT Hackathon and Cisco Innovation Grand Challenge were announced during the event.
Rabih Dabboussi, managing director and general manager, Cisco UAE, said: "Talking with government and industry leaders at the Internet of Things World Forum, it is clear that we are seeing a whole new wave of innovations in IoT and digitisation that are already transforming business and society today. There was a real sense of excitement at the event as leaders from across many industries inspire one another on what is possible, as well as what's already been achieved in Dubai's journey towards its vision of being the smartest cities in the world by 2017." - sandhya@khaleejtimes.com