Saudi consumers are quickly connecting to the Internet — be it via mobile or fixed broadband — and are purchasing ever increasing sophisticated smart phones. Saudi companies are rapidly adopting unified communications solutions and providing customers user-friendly, online access to their services. Saudi universities and hospitals are quickly digitizing their curriculum and health records and are providing "e" solutions to students and patients. The Kingdom is not only developing smarter and interactive online government services, but also developing highly advanced infrastructure within the economic cities, Matboly told the ICT 2010 conference, which opened at the Jeddah Centre for Forums and Events on Monday night.

However, he added, the ICT revolution needs the collaboration and cooperation of each and every stakeholder in the Kingdom. The two-day Saudi ICT conference, which runs alongside the four-day ICT exhibition and Office Expo organized by Al-Harithy Company for Exhibitions, was opened by Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Secretary General Adnan Mandourah.

Matboly, who gave the opening keynote presentation, said the beginning of the ICT revolution is now. Every month, some 40 million people are joining the existing 4.7 billion global mobile-phone users — nearly 500 million people a year. Today, some two billion people are connected to the Internet and this number is forecast to exceed four billion by 2015. And every 18 months, the capacity of the world's international fiber optic cables is doubling to support the ever-increasing Internet traffic, Matboly said.

The world today is witnessing the beginning of a new type of revolution: The complete convergence of the real and digital worlds. "The ICT revolution will significantly impact the way we live, interact, shop, bank, do business, receive health care, get educated, deal with governments, travel or consume energy. It will add the necessary intelligence, standardization and automation to render economies and its infrastructure far more efficient than it ever was before. This 21st century revolution will be an unprecedented phenomenon that will create a complete new ecosystem of opportunities only to be fully revealed and understood in the near future," Matboly added.