Dubai Internet City’s executive director Ammar Al Malik has praised the arrival of Cisco’s Innovation and Experience Centre – the 10th of its kind in the free zone.
The latest investment, Cisco’s 9,000 square-foot facility, which is valued at more than AED36 million, integrates an innovation hub with a customer experience centre that features solutions for 24 industry verticals, including retail, education, healthcare, transportation, oil and gas, and smart city, among others.
“As a key contributor to achieving the objectives of the UAE Vision 2021, Dubai Internet City is at the very core of the innovation mandate,” Al Malik said. “Hosting the 10th innovation centre is testament to DIC’s growing significance in the global technology sphere and we are delighted to provide platforms for companies to set their bases and open innovation centres of various specialisations, such as the Cisco Innovation and Experience Centre.”
He added, “This new centre joins a cluster of nine other forward-looking DIC-based facilities that encourage collaboration between industry partners, support young entrepreneurs, drive growth, and generate new business and jobs. The intermingling of ideas and best practices in an enabling environment is exactly what our region needs to be at the vanguard of innovation.”
In September 2017, Canon Middle East launched its innovation centre, an evolved showroom concept to inspire customers and provide businesses with live demonstrations of Canon’s latest software and hardware technologies.
Huawei also launched the Huawei OpenLab Dubai in May, which aims to collaborate with partners for industry solutions that promote digital transformation and ecosystem development.
SAP announced plans in March 2017 to build its Cloud Data Centre that will facilitate organisations in harnessing the capabilities of cloud solutions.
As Dubai Internet City looks ahead to its next phase of growth, the launch of its Innovation Hub, a 1.8 million square feet development, located at the crossroads of Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City and Dubai Knowledge Park, aims to transform these business parks into innovation-driven platforms and enablers.
Supporting a workforce of 15,000 professionals, the Innovation Hub will offer companies of all sizes, including multinational corporations, start-ups and SMEs, world-class facilities and services, robust and adaptable state-of-the-art infrastructure and a vibrant working environment. Launched across several phases, the entire development is set to open doors in 2019.
