Cisco honors the UAE’s extraordinary achievements as a young country that leads innovation and technology and inspires people and countries to build a better future as it celebrates its golden jubilee milestone.
The United Arab Emirates has established a fertile setting for explorers, innovators, and investors from around the world to congregate and build cities of the future since 1971, when the union was formed.
Commenting on the celebration, Cisco‘s Managing Director in the Gulf Region, Shukri Eid, said: “Innovation has been at the heart of this nation’s vision, and it continues to be the north star for designing the next 50 years. Through determination, perseverance and wise leadership, the UAE is consistently at the top of regional rankings in global competitive indices and technology has played a pivotal role towards this status.”
“As the nation celebrates its golden jubilee,we at Cisco stand ready to enable the UAE towards crafting the next phase of development over the next 50 years by creating a knowledge-driven economy focused on growth, progress and prosperity,” Shukri added.
Cisco built its first office in Dubai in 1994, and its business in the UAE has developed steadily since then. Cisco increased its footprint in the Middle East in 2009, with two new locations in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Cisco has been honored to contribute a part in the UAE’s drive to fast-track digitalization across areas such as Business Innovation, Smart Cities, and Talent Development for nearly three decades. Collaborations that are important include:
Cisco’s Networking Academy (NetAcad) program has been empowering UAE residents to develop their IT skills in order to enter or advance in occupations including networking, cybersecurity, and the Internet of Things (IoT) since 1999. Cisco has 44 active networking academies in the UAE alone, training over 88,700 students, with 49 percent of them female.
Tecom has worked with Cisco as a key partner in the development of Dubai Internet City and Dubai Media City since its inception, providing critical solutions such as Cisco IP Telephones and Ethernet and knowledge transfer by training its team of engineers to meet global qualification standards. In addition, Dubai Internet City (DIC) secured a deal with Cisco in 2002 to implement modern Internet and telecommunications infrastructure throughout the complex. Cisco assisted DIC in improving its internet architecture and expanding its company to provide next-generation telecommunication services as part of the arrangement.
Cisco has been a part of many future-agenda projects in the UAE, from assisting Masdar in developing smart-grid projects in 2009 to transforming Abu Dhabi into a sustainable knowledge-based society with (ADSIC) in 2010. Cisco has also been a part of many future-agenda projects in the UAE, which have helped the country become the most digitally ready in the region.
Cisco also opened its Innovation and Experience Center in Dubai in 2017 — a facility that combines the company’s technology capabilities with a customer experience center, demonstrating how digitization can benefit industries such as education, healthcare, retail, and finance.
Cisco has been working with the UAE government, local industry, and academia for nearly four years to accelerate technology adoption and deliver impactful digital outcomes as part of its Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program, which focuses on many of the aspects explored in the Digital Readiness Index.
Since 2018, Cisco has worked closely with Expo 2020 as a Digital Network Partner to assist create extremely immersive digital experiences for Expo 2020 Dubai, the region’s most anticipated event. Thanks to Cisco, the world is experiencing the most technologically connected and immersive event in Expo history.
Cisco has been chosen as a trusted partner to help the UAE achieve its goal of adding 3,000 coders to the country’s workforce every month since the preparation for the next 50 years was revealed. Cisco is also cooperating with the UAE’s Ministry of Industrial and Advanced Technology on a series of initiatives to assist UAE’s industry and advanced technology SMEs in their digitization efforts and offer them with capabilities critical to their success, prosperity, and competitiveness.
