Arabnet Digital Summit 2017 Preview

Posted on May 7, 2017

It’s event season. Last week it was Seamless, and next week it will be the fifth edition of the ArabNet Digital Summit, an event focused on digital business and innovation. Taking place on May 16-17, at the Madinat Jumeirah Conference and Events Center in Dubai.

The concept of putting 4 different conferences in one seems to be a trend, but it is not a good one. While it might help with the economics of putting on an event for the organiser, it creates a substandard event experience for the delegate. Making delegates choose between competing streams often leads to sessions being empty and missing out on content when competing sessions are scheduled against each other.

Organisers say, 4 separate Forums: AdTech, Smart Economy, Digital Commerce, and Innovation & Investment and will bring together 80 speakers, 50 exhibitors, 1200+ attendees, over 50 international and regional investors, as well as 35+ key talks and sessions.

The AdTech Forum on May 16

Divided into a further two full tracks covering the trends in digital media and advertising. Speakers include:

Scott Lamb, Vice President of International at BuzzFeed
Lauren Maillian, serial entrepreneur and best-selling author
Tim Wolfs, Chief Digital Officer at Altavia Group
John Stoneman, General Manager – Europe at Triplelift.

The Digital Commerce Forum (Also on May 16)

Will cram emerging trends and opportunities in e-commerce, e-retail, payments, banking sector, and fintech innovations into a stream. Frankly, these sessions look like they have absolutely nothing to do with Digital Commerce and everything to do with a bunch of bankers. Speakers include:

Faisal Khan, Banking & Payments Consultant and FinTech Scout for VCs/PE
Alpesh Doshi, Founder and CEO at Fintricity
Matthew Gardiner, Founder at Catch London
Rasool Hujair, CEO at Najm
Ronit Ghose, Managing Director – Global Banks Sector Head at Citi Research.

The Innovation & Investment Forum (May 17)

Focusing on the emerging Entrepreneurial trends in the region, fuelled by the success of companies like Souq.com and Careem, this stream is aimed at investors, Start-Ups will share their experience highlighting cross border growth, raising capital, acquisition, and building teams. Investors/innovator speakers include:

Nabil Borhanu, President and Managing Member at Graphene Ventures
Chris Adelsbach, Managing Director at Techstars
Jeff Lynn, CEO at Seedrs
Luke Krueger, President at VA Angels International
Ovais Naqvi, Managing Director at Abraaj Group.

Finally, the Summit will feature the ArabNet Startup Championship, powered by PepsiCo, with pitches from 18 of the most promising startups from across MENA, hand-picked through local pitching rounds.

The Smart Economy Forum (May 17)

It seems you can’t have an event in 2017 without including smart cities, smart governments, the future of cars and transportation, and the digital enterprise. Get your ‘Buzzword Bingo’ cards ready for topics like blockchain and machine learning. No doubt Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT) will also be thrown in for good measure. Strange that Dubai is one of the leaders in the ‘Smart City’ scene, but instead ‘Global’ experts will be speaking: