2022 Saudi edition of Future Workspace Summit & Awards held successfully

The second annual edition of the Future Workspace Summit & Awards held on the 14^th of September at the Movenpick Hotel in Riyadh, attended by a large gathering of IT heads from several leading enterprises, threw further light on how technologies are reshaping the future of work.

The one-day long summit & awards had several keynotes and 3 panel discussions that covered several aspects of the transformation.

Asgar Ali Mudassir, Product Manager at Al-Falak and Istvan Jakab, Modern Work with Surface Lead KSA, MEC at Microsoft together spoke on Enable flexible work with surface. Their presentation was followed by Harish Menon, CEO at Accops who spoke on the topic Digital workspace Road ahead.

Following this, Zeeshan Panjwani, Senior Business Solutions Consultant, Zoho presented on ‘Empowering and creating the Sustainable Business Model’. The next speaker, Jamil Ahmad, Aruba Country Manager, HPE spoke on “Transforming Digital Workplace at the EDGE’. Rami Kahil, Associate Director of Sales – Middle East, Yellow.ai gave his keynote address on ‘ Delighter Customers, Happier Employees.’ The final address was on ‘Be Unstoppable’ by Devashu Jasoria, Lead- Solution Engineer at Freshworks.

Besides the keynotes, there were three panel discussions.

The first panel discussed ‘Evolution of the digital workplace in the past year and learnings whose panellists included by Mr. Hany Almansour, Mr. Talha Rais Akhtar, Mr. Ali Saif and Rami Kahil

The second panel discussed Components of a Digital Workplace znd the particpants inclyde Ms. Aljawarah Alqahtani, Mr. Mahmoud R Farhan, Dr. Ahmed Darwish Elsayed, Mr. Qasim Nadeem, Mr. Moaz al sibaai, Mr. Ahmad Zeeshan and Mr. Istvan Jakab

The final discussion was on Redefining Cybersecurity to Secure the Hybrid Workplace. The panelists for this session were Mr. Abdullah Faisal Biary, Mr. Mohammed abdulwahab, Mr. Harish Menon and Mr. Imran Hashim, Director Information Technology, Medgulf, Saudi Arabia.

The event also had an elaborate exhibition of latest solutions by the sponsors of the event. It provided a great opportunity for purposedfule conversations around Technology between the exhibitors and majority of the event attendees

Awards were presented to several oustanding IT leaders and companies. The IT leaders were recognized across categories such as ‘Technology Transformer of the year’, CIO of the year as well as CISO of the Year. The full list of winners is as follows:

CIO Category Winners

• Abdullah Hamidah, CIO, Elite Hospital
• Yosef Asfour, CIO, Saudia Auctions
• Aijaz Regoo, CIO, MIS FORWARD
• Mousa al anizi, CIO-VP Digital health, Director E-Health King saud medical city
• Imran Hashim, Director Information Technology, Medgulf saudi arabia
• Anwar Shaikh, Director of technology, Solana Living
• Gamal Mokhtar, Group CIO, El-Ajou Group Holding
• Asim Badhuralam, IT Director, Food Industries Polytechnic
• Syed Fakruddin Albeez, Sr. Director, Corporate IT King Abdullah Economic City
• Saad Alhowaimel, Nadec Foods
• Yousef Abdulraqeeb, Head of IT, Mqsorh-Al rajhi family foundation
• Qasim Nadeem, IT Head, ABANA Enterprises Group
• Syed Taha Mustafa, IT Director, IHG goverment hotels
• Ahmed Taman, IT Director, Al Sayed Sons
• Najmus Saqib, IT Director, Maestro Group
• Saud AlAbdulaziz, Head of IT, The Financial Academy
• Abdullah Alfahaid,Group IT Head, Alajlan & bros – Abilitii
• Hany Almansour,GM Information Technology, Saudi general authority of foreign trade
• Hussain Aljahdali, Deputy Governer’s advisor (CITC), Saudi Electronic University
• Mashari AlMussaed, Director ICT, Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee
• Moaz al Aibaai, Digital Transformation Expert

CISO Category Winners

• Abdullah Faisal Biary, CISO, United Cooperative Assurance
• Mirza R. Baig, CIO, Finzey Finance Company
• Abdul Rahim Shaikh, CISO, Sulfah Fintech
• Waleed AlMufaraj, CISO, EMKAN
• Hamad al Gafees, Cyber Security Manager, SABB
• Abdulrahman AlOlagy, VP Cybersecurity, Electron Tech
• Majed al Shodari, CISO, ACIG Salama Cooperative Insurance Co
• Mahmoud R Farhan, cyber security supply chain manager, Arab national bank
• Mohsin Alhilal, GM-Cyber security, STC
• Mohammed Abdulwahab, Cybersecurity Monitoring and Response Specialist, SDAIA

IT Transformer of the Year Winners        

• Hassan Ali Khan, Applications Development Manager, alfanar Co.
• Waseem Ahmed, IT Manager, Bahamdan Group Holding
• Wail Mohamed Abdelaal, IT Manager, Al Rajhi Endowment
• Ashak Ali Khan, Senior Technical Manager, Ministry of Finance/NCGR
• Talha Rais Akhtar, BRM Vehicle Mobility and Emerging Technology, Abdul Latif Jameel Motors
• Ali Saif, Deputy Head of Information Technology, Almarai
• Ahmed Darwish, Head of digital solutions delivery, Bank Albilad
• Aljawarah Alqahtani, Head of innovation & Experience dept, WSMCO
• Abdallah Gafar, IT Manager, Alkaffary Group
• Mohamad Abdulhalim Alsoufi, IT Manager, Motoon Real Estate Co

Vendor Awards

• Dell Technologies – Digital Transformation Vendor of the Year
• Microsoft Surface – Laptop Brand of the Year
• Zoho – Business Productivity Solutions Vendor of the Year
• Freshworks – Digital Workspace Software Vendor of the Year
• ai – AI Chatbot Vendor of the Year
• Accops – Hybrid Work Security Vendor of the Year
• Aruba – Cloud Managed Networking Vendor of the Year
• Fanvil – Emerging IP Telephony Brand of the Year
• Paessler – Enterprise Network Monitoring Vendor of the Year
• Toshiba – Storage Vendor of the Year
• Sophos – Cybersecurity Vendor of the Year

Distributor & SI Awards

• Al Falak Distribution – Software Solutions VAD of the Year
• Electron Tech – IP Telephony Solutions VAD of the Year
• Barq Systems – System Integrator of the Year
• Mindfire Technologies – Emerging MSSP of the Year
• Redington – Enterprise VAD of the Year
• Prestige Saudi co. Ltd – Security & Surveillance Solutions SI of the Year
• Assuretek – Cloud Solution Provider of the Year