Hello from Abu Dhabi,
In this month’s newsletter, the LTIO for the Gulf would like to get back to the ICT Spring fair that took place in Luxembourg at the end of June, also this year with participation from the UAE.
During this event, it became again overwhelmingly clear that Luxembourg possesses remarkable ICT potential, boasting a robust data-driven economy, a sovereign public cloud, and a thriving and innovative startup ecosystem.
In his official speech, Luxembourg’s Minister of the Economy, Franz Fayot, said he was intrigued by this year’s ICT Spring motto “Time for change”, noting that the world and globalisation today have indeed changed over the last few years. The Minister acknowledged the shifting times in his address while emphasising that these changes were ultimately positive. Today, we face a choice: either deny the transformative power of technology and its impact on our world or embrace these advancements and their challenges.
He noted having witnessed the “dramatic effects” of climate change in the southern hemisphere on his frequent working visits abroad and stressed that those effects feed into other issues, constituting a major challenge for humanity. Change today, Minister Fayot stressed, is also about the climate crisis and the crisis of biodiversity. The minister expressed his trust that the ICT community can help find solutions and that generative AI and its recent exponential growth has huge potential. In this context, he recalled the need to use and promote AI in a “virtuous” and “civilised” manner in compliance with “human rights” and “privacy rights”. The minister also highlighted that Luxembourg can become a hub for tech startups to “find a home in Europe and deploy to European markets”. He pointed out the Luxembourg’s plans to build a Cloud operator and the country’s interest in strong cybersecurity.
Inaction is not an option, but together we need to forge a responsible path ahead, i.e. it is “Time for change”.
Jean-Marie Frentz,
Executive Director, LTIO Abu Dhabi