H.E. Eng. Abdullah Amer Al-Swaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, patronized the launch of GovX as a new Global Digital Government Summit. The launch was organized on Monday 29 April 2019 by Saudi Arabia’s e-Government Program (Yesser), and was held at the Grand Hall of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Riyadh.
Attended by more than 200 executive directors in Information Technology from various government entities in Saudi Arabia, H.E. Al-Swaha affirmed the importance of GovX as a global event that contributes to raising awareness of the importance of digital worldwide, and an international gathering for the elite of the Information Technology experts, to make Saudi Arabia a leader in digital transformation and the Saudi government a leading digital government.
GovX represents an important platform to exchange the expertise and experiences in order to build partnerships with advanced international institutions to accelerate the application of digitization in Saudi Arabia and the world. Additionally, it will stimulate ideas among participants to attract many digital investment opportunities and inspire ideas worldwide, as well as to create new opportunities in global markets.
Eng. Ali Nasser Al-Asiri, Director General of e-Government Program (Yesser), underlined that GovX strives to approach the concept of digitization in the public sector and to allow governments to make optimum use of it. Al-Asiri noted that GovX would have annual summits where all those who are interested in digital governments are welcome to attend.
Al-Asiri added that GovX would feature a series of technical presentations, workshops and fruitful interactive sessions geared toward finding solutions to the most significant challenges facing digitization. It will also present global best practices and be a platform to influence leaders, policymakers and entrepreneurs, and together understand the possibilities, trends and mechanisms of digital transformation in government, and change the leadership concepts related to digitization to benefit from them in areas that affect the economic revival of nations and evolution of societies.
During the launch event, attendees were challenged by Andreas Ekstrom, renowned author, journalist and futurist, in a presentation on the future course of digital transformation and the impact on humanity. Among the topics Ekstrom addressed were the unified digital identity and citizen’s personal identity, as part of digital transformation in public service provision, and policy making related to digitization for governments.
Yesser e-Government Program is the leading institution for the Saudi government to guide the digital transformation process and, with the launch of GovX, assumes a global role in this field.