A clear, unambiguous, and widely communicated AI strategy is critical to the successful transformation of any IT organization; especially in this new normal. Pandemic or no pandemic - MENA had already witnessed an unprecedented adoption of AI over the past few years, and it continues to be one of the most vital and fast-growing businesses across MENA.

To discuss this in detail, Trescon hosted more than 20 thought leaders and early adopters of future-tech who presented their ideas, innovations and case studies to an audience of IT Decision Makers, alongside leading solution providers such as Darktrace, Incorta, yellow.ai, Happiest Minds, and Uniphore to discuss the MENA region's AI prospects.

The event focused on key topics such as Defensive AI technologies uniquely positioned to fight back, overcoming challenges of legacy infrastructure, data protection policy, skilled labour, and of course the pandemic situation which made shifting to Work from Home situations, Implementation of AI and RPA making the Govt. Operations more efficient, and much more.

Some of the top speakers who attended the event included:

- Eng Isha Aljassmy, IT Director, Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure, UAE

- Latifa Saleh Alshehhi, Head of Algorithms Development and Analysis, Future of Data Department, Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Center (FCSC), Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, UAE

- Dr Khaled Alhazmi, Director of the National Center for Robotics and Internet of Things Technology, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Saudi Arabia

- Al-qahtani Fawaz, IP Commercialization Manager for ICT Portfolio, Qatar Foundation Research, Development and Innovation RDI, Qatar

- Fayez Aldosari, Cyber and Information Security Audit Head, VP at the Saudi National Bank

- Hariprasad Chede, CIS, National Bank of Fujairah, UAE

Key highlights and takeaways from World AI & RPA Show included:

Mr Salem Al Gharbi, General Manager, Energy-AI Advisory, SDAIA, Riyadh Saudi Arabia conducting his keynote spoke about the impact of AI and ML in our lives. He also shared his insights on how an individual or an organization can start their journey into AI/Ml.

Max Heinemeyer, Director of Threat Hunting, Darktrace discussed how rapidly AI-based technological advancements are evolving and how cyber-criminals are leveraging AI tools to create sophisticated cyberweapons. Max spoke about why defensive AI technologies are uniquely positioned to fight back this AI-enhanced malware. He said, "In the face of quickly changing, unforeseen conditions, the old way of handling security - setting rules for what employees are authorized to do and trying to predict what might go wrong based on history - is useless."

In an interesting panel discussion on the topic "The impacts of AI and RPA on the customer experience," the thought leaders discussed the importance of AI in developing a superior customer-focused business. They spoke about how content personalization, using AI, drives predictive analytics and improves one's long-term customer retention, and how the evolution of voice technology & conversational AI is stepping into the spotlight.

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