DUBAI, 28 November 2006 — The big name vendors have the flashiest exhibits at GITEX, but some of the most interesting technology can be found on at the national pavilions. Sadly, that technology was probably seen by very few attendees of the show.
“Today, the fourth day of GITEX, we had more visitors than on earlier days, but it has been difficult for us,” said Ahmad Gomaa, CEO, IDEAVELOPERS, part of the Technology Development Fund (TDF) exhibiting with the Egyptian Pavilion. “People have a very limited amount of time to spend at GITEX, so they spend most of it at the stands of the multinationals who have ‘interesting’ marketing. Our pavilion is more creative than those of the Americans, German or Chinese, but it’s still tough to get people to come over to our location.”
TDF was promoting nine Egyptian companies which have received venture capital funding from the organization. One company in particular, Ostaz Online (www.ostazonline.com), could hold huge promise for the Saudi market. Ostaz Online is a supplemental after school program that offers tutoring to students in Grades 4 through 12 studying the Egyptian curricula. This e-learning service consists of teachers explaining lessons live to online students using modern tools such as animated multimedia graphics and online whiteboards. Students are able to ask questions during the tutoring session and they complete a quiz at the end of every session to ensure that they’ve paid attention and understand the material.
Ostaz Online employs the best teachers from Egypt’s schools in the program. All the teachers receive intensive training in the modern education techniques used to tutor online. Now in it’s third year of active operation, Ostaz Online has proven its worth. Examining the final marks of students enrolled in the program showed that last year 88 percent of the tutored students scored above 80 percent and 39 percent scored above 90 percent in their final school reports. The online program has a cost saving of 60 percent over in-person tutoring and works with either DSL or dial-up Internet connections to the students’ homes.
“The time has come to begin offering the program to other countries, especially those in the Middle East,” said Gomaa. “Every nation is finding it difficult to give students the individual attention they need to succeed. With only 15 students per online class, Ostaz Online can help students receive individualized instruction so they easily learn the material and succeed. In many national schools, class sizes are well above 15 students and teachers are overwhelmed. At home parents are overwhelmed too. Explaining modern math and science can be beyond the competency of some parents. And not all students respond to standard classroom teaching methods. That’s where the multimedia approach of Ostaz Online is important.”
Gomaa stated that it would take just a few months to set up the program to be able to tutor any national curriculum. He hoped that the education authorities in countries such as Saudi Arabia would consider the positive benefits that Ostaz Online could bring to local students.
While the Egyptians were interested in offering IT services and solutions, the Asian nations exhibiting at GITEX were into hardware in a big way. Most of these companies were looking for distributors for goods manufactured in the Far East. JoJo Lee was the project manager for Ace Marketing, the authorized sales agent for GITEX in Taiwan, Korea and China. The Republic of China (Taiwan) had 90 companies exhibiting at GITEX and from the People’s Republic of China (China) there were almost 100 companies at the show. A separate pavilion had been set up for companies from Shenzhen, a manufacturing hub in southern China.
“The companies come here looking for distributors to take their products into new markets,” Lee said. “About 70 percent of the companies here this year have exhibited at GITEX before. The companies from China and Taiwan pay all their own costs but the South Korea government sponsors more than half of the Korean companies at the show. Even with the subsidy, the Koreans are here in much fewer numbers than the mainland Chinese.” The average Chinese company paid $7,000 to exhibit at GITEX. That cost covered booth space, minimal decoration and some promotion. Lee pointed out that more companies would come, but it is expensive for them to book space at GITEX.
“Chinese companies pay about $5,000 to exhibit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and only $3,000 to exhibit at the Hong Kong Electronics Show. Only CeBIT is more expensive than GITEX for these exhibitors,” Lee explained. “In addition, the companies attending GITEX must arrange for airline tickets, freight forwarding and all their expenses for the week in Dubai. The costs can mount.”
There were many Saudis in the area of the China Pavilion. Hardware distribution is an attractive commercial opportunity for many conservative businessmen in the Kingdom. Those Saudis were pleased that the Asian national pavilions were far away from the loud music and entertainment being offered at the exhibits of the consumer electronics vendors.
Not every national pavilion was focused on doing the immediate deal. The resources at Malaysia’s Pavilion were being used in part to promote the 16th World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2008) which will take place in Kuala Lumpur May 18-22, 2008. The Malaysians believe that as the event in being held in Asia, more than half the delegates will come from that region. Less than 10 percent of the delegates to the event are expected from Europe, South American and Africa, and with so many companies from Europe and Africa exhibiting at GITEX, the Malaysians wanted to reach out to those companies as well as the Middle Eastern IT professionals.
The Malaysians see WCIT 2008 as being particularly relevant for emerging ICT nations, including the economies of the Middle East, looking to tap into the many business opportunities of East and South Asia, whose ICT industries are some of the fastest growing in the world.
To discuss all the innovations being demonstrated at the various national pavilions at GITEX is impossible in CompuNet’s limited space. The pavilions need to do more to promote themselves or they get lost amid all the other exhibitors. Taiwan, China and Korea took a prominent, full color section in GITEX’s Official Show Catalog to highlight their product offerings. A good, lower cost way to reach out to the region would be for national pavilions to design web pages in English and Arabic specifically for the event. Exhibiting at GITEX should be just a part of the marketing plan for companies interested in doing business in the Middle East. It’s certainly not a total business development solution.
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