GITEX playing at home, and a brief history of Dubai.

GITEX is one of the most important IT exhibitions in the world. In terms of size, it’s probably still second behind Barcelona’s MWC, but not by much (while on its website, GITEX confidently claims it’s the biggest). And considering that beyond its original event in Dubai they’ve also launched satellite exhibitions in Berlin, Singapore, and Marrakesh, with plans also for Vietnam, Kenya, Kazakhstan, and who knows where else… well, all such action seems to be turning GITEXes into the world’s main IT-exhibition places-to-be. But let’s talk just about GITEX Dubai today…

The size of the exhibition is pretty impressive: the “footprint” of the halls covers an area of about 700×400 meters ->

But even that’s not enough! There are so many exhibiting companies and visitors, they hardly all fitted in! ->

As since it’s so tight, next year the event’s moving to the Expo 2020 venue (which, thanks to covid, was actually Expo 2021 (been, done, wrote about & snapped)), which is twice as big both horizontally and vertically – meaning with four times the area. Oh my grandiose-GITEX! Best come in running shoes next time )…

And here’s us ->

With a two-story booth, no less ->

Here’s the view from the second floor:

I got a bit nostalgic for good old CeBIT back in the day – where we also had big booths. Like these:

But one mustn’t dwell on the past; and anyway, it’s not that GITEX isn’t cool too. However, it’s still not as big as CeBIT (it really was a monster!), and doesn’t have the same craziness or wild parties at the booths. Oh – there I go again with the nostalgia. Enough!…

Back to GITEX in 2025… it’s the place to be: any IT company with international ambitions simply must take part.

But, I won’t go into any more detail about this venue, (i) so as to not steal IT journalists’ thunder; and (mainly) (ii) since I honestly didn’t have time for much anyway, as in two days I had dozens of meetings, presentations, interviews, plus endless handshakes and running back and forth.

To my surprise, there were a lot of Russian developers present:

On my brief walkabouts I saw all sorts of interesting machines I just had to snap a picture of. For example this brutal cybercar:

A drone-carrier:

And this ->

Yep, another drone-carrier!

Here’s the kind of setup this car has inside:

So, basically – if you’re sick of sitting in traffic, just release your helodrone and fly away!

Here’s a bigger plane-drone: the idea is it should take off vertically, then fly like a regular plane:

And here’s a look at all the exhibition halls from the window of my hotel room – handily next-door:

I also dropped by our Dubai office. The team has grown (in line with our regional business growth), so they moved five floors up to a bigger space in the same building. The interior is in our traditional corporate style:

Views from the window:

Kitchen-cafeteria:

It was a weekend, so the office was empty:

But I suspect it was empty during the week too, since everyone was at the expo:

And to finish up the Dubai story, here are a few colorful shots from where I was staying – different directions, different times of day:

A unique place. From nothing – on a barren desert. They took the risk and built this megapolis! Respect…

Sunset scenes through my hotel window:

It’s amazing… Dubai as a new economic project started around 40-50 years ago. But earlier than that – more than 70 years ago in the 1950s, oil was discovered in neighboring Abu Dhabi, and that started to change everything. And oil, of course, means money – lots of it!

At first, the financial flows apparently didn’t do much for the local economy or the standard of living – just enriched the family of the then-Emir of Abu Dhabi. But eventually everything changed. They got lucky because among the Emir’s descendants was a real visionary: Sheikh Zayed. Thanks to him, the “Arab Emirates” united (-> the “United Arab Emirates”). They say he used to drive his old American car (some say it was a Ford, others a Chevy, but everyone agrees there weren’t many cars on the roads back then) around the neighboring emirates, convincing the rulers to unite, which they eventually did.

// And it seems he really was incredibly smart – including as a politician. His role in building a new state was just as important as Lee Kuan Yew’s was in building Singapore.

Now Dubai is famously luxurious and fancy. But how exactly? Let’s dig a little deeper…

The United Arab Emirates is a unique country. It’s a federation of absolute monarchies! Have you ever heard of such a political arrangement? Of course not. So, they’re all together – yet each independent. And each sets its own policies and rules.

And then there’s Dubai (with no oil or gas), which decided to take a risk and invest in the future. And it worked! But it took a long time… about 50 years (up to today).

// Actually, I’ll hardly dig deeper here – I don’t have the time; so I’ll stop here with my “digging” :-)

Anyway – here’s the result! Dubai – one of the world’s top business capitals, built on bare sand from scratch and with zero resources. Truly amazing!

And here’s the view from my window before flying home:

And that’s it from Dubai. Time to get back on the road…