‘Investments in Technology Innovation Key to Creating Smart Cities and Environments'

•    Schneider Electric Urges Adoption of IT Innovation as Core Strategy Ahead of Company’s Participation in Eighth IDC CIO Summit
•    Industry Experts To Share Strategy on ‘Building Next Generation Datacentres’ at Panel Discussion

Dubai-UAE: 22 February, 2015 – Regional governments must adopt innovation in technology as a core strategy to enhance IT capabilities and datacentre offerings that articulate the vision for a better connected, highly operational national infrastructure, according to Ziad Youssef, Vice President-IT Business at Schneider Electric.

Youssef’s comments were made ahead of Schneider Electric’s participation at the eighth IDC Middle East CIO Summit that is set to run from 25 - 26 February, 2015 at Atlantis-the Palm in Dubai.

As gold sponsors of the event, APC by Schneider Electric will showcase its suite of integrated ICT solutions applicable to various regional verticals including banking and finance, hospitality, transportation, healthcare and telecommunications. Jonathan Duncan, IT Business Director- Central and North East Africa at Schneider Electric will be part of a panel discussion discussing holistic approaches toward datacentre development.

Ziad Youssef said: “With continued investments in Research and Development (R&D), and our Center of Excellence in Barcelona providing us guidance and expertise along the way, we hope to embed information technology into the fabric of this city and the daily lives of residents. At the upcoming edition of IDC’s CIO Summit, we look forward to networking with like-minded industry professionals to discuss how our collective ideas can fast-track the shaping of smart cities.”

Datacentres play a critical role in converging smart solutions in energy, water, construction, public services and mobility to create a smart city through efficient integration of technology. With over 1,000,000 configurations of products and services for large datacentres, Schneider Electric has been actively engaged in new builds, extending the life of an existing datacentre or building new private or public cloud ready facilities.

Jonathan Duncan, IT Business Director- Central and North East Africa at Schneider Electric said: “Over the past decade, Schneider Electric has invested resources and global expertise to infuse smart technologies and advanced datacentre processing into the heart of a city- this is best achieved through a collaborative effort and a combination of ideas from industry stakeholders. To this end, the panel discussion will be an ideal space to enable our peers and customers to really understand what we do. As aspirants of urban transformation, we are proud to mark our presence at IDC’s CIO Summit 2015.”

Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC’s Group VP and Regional Managing Director (Middle East, Turkey and Africa, said: “"The adoption of advanced technology across the Middle East reflects the growing maturity of the region's ICT landscape, with increasing numbers of enterprises across the vertical spectrum embracing new datacenter models based around cloud and virtualization. As a consequence, issues relating to data and storage are now a key priority in the region, with CIOs striving to leverage data positively and in the most energy efficient manner possible. Given this backdrop, we are delighted to be welcoming Schneider Electric as a Gold Partner at the IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2015."

The IDC Middle East CIO Summit is one of the largest gatherings of CIOs in the region, providing an excellent platform for the exchange of best-in-class practices, ideas, advisory services, and establishing a peer-to-peer community. In 2014, the event attracted more than 300 specialist attendees from the trade sector.