AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – The 2013 Abu Dhabi Media Summit was conducted in the United Arab Emirates’ capital last week to discuss the world’s ongoing digital revolution. With Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) as an event partner, this three-day occasion focused on advancing the digital proficiency of the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, East Asia, and China.
With an emphasis on its overall motif of “Leveraging the Digital Age,” the conference brought together many “top-tier global media players and their emerging-market counterparts” who discussed the positive impact of the Internet’s advancement in regions of the world with budding market potential. This annual forum considers media in its myriad of forms and determines the most effective way of shifting into a “fully networked new world.”
Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, executive-general of TRA, said that the, “Middle East shows the highest Internet user growth rate in the world,” tapping into a pool of Internet users totaling 3,284,000 in 2000 and climbing to more than 90 million this year. In the UAE specifically, 73 percent of the population accesses the Internet, mainly using smartphones.
The 2013 Abu Dhabi Media Summit served as a stage to “address high-level, forthcoming trends that are influencing this digital transition,” Al Ghanim also noted. As new digital possibilities continue to materialize, Al Ghanim said that TRA plans to face the unknown digital frontier with its “aim to stay ahead of the trend as a regulator in one of the most digitally advanced countries of the Gulf.” Perhaps space is not the final frontier after all.