Etisalat Digital concluded its participation as the strategic partner at the inaugural Future Blockchain Summit which brought together over 7,000 chiefs of industry and visionary technologists from around the world to accelerate blockchain application in Dubai and beyond.
Hosted by the Smart Dubai Office at the Dubai World Trade Center, the inaugural Future Blockchain Summit held on May 2-3 was the world's first experiential blockchain festival hosted by a city.
Salvador Anglada, Chief Business Officer, Etisalat who was a keynote speaker at the event. He highlighted how Etisalat is using blockchain-enabled services to deliver value to customers in various industries and Etisalat's own internal use cases around the technology. He also discussed how individuals increasingly find themselves living in a world of accelerated change where people, businesses and governments exist in a digital mesh, bound together by data.
Anglada also stressed how companies need to transform themselves, positioning digital at the core in order to succeed in this new environment, and discussed how Etisalat had gone through this journey and actively contributed to the digital transformation market.
The summit is in line with the Dubai Blockchain Strategy, announced by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council, which mandates that Dubai becomes the world's first-ever government to execute all applicable transactions using blockchain technology by 2020.
The two-day event featured over 70 sessions which delved into real-world applications, creating opportunities and catalyzing adoption across a range of sectors - retail and ecommerce, creative economy, healthcare, transportation, education, food, hospitality and tourism, energy, fintech and banking as well as safety and security.
It also included the world's first Global Leaders Exchange program, closed door sessions gathering senior government blockchain champions and C-Level industry enablers resulting in a white paper report; a free to the public, experiential exhibition set to showcase pilot projects and innovative advancements from over 60 government and private organizations and; the grand finale of the Smart Dubai Blockchain Challenge, a startup pitch competition for blockchain-powered entrepreneurs. Further, the event will offer complimentary workshops, such as Blockchain 101, designed to demystify blockchain technology.
The flagship event hosted over 60 speakers, with over 50 percent making their regional debut, including blockchain entrepreneurs and tech world headliners Imogen Heap, 2x Grammy Winner and Founder of Mycelia, an experimental music distribution platform using blockchain-based technology and Dr. Larry Sanger, Co-Founder of Wikipedia and CIO, Everipedia, a Wikipedia 2.0 built on the blockchain.
