Rashed Al-Mansoori: "The Private Sector is a key partner for realizing Abu Dhabi Government's vision for a knowledge-based economy"
Abu Dhabi, June 20, 2010: On behalf of the Government of Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre (ADSIC) signed on Thursday June 17, 2010 a Frame Agreement with CISCO Systems International in the field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Signed at ADSIC's headquarters, the agreement facilitates the transformation of Abu Dhabi into a sustainable knowledge based and connected Emirate by supporting the ICT modernization initiatives of key government sectors, including but not limited to social services, education, and healthcare sectors.
The agreement is also in line with the electronic services transformation strategy for the Emirate's governmental services to provide businesses and citizens with a distinguished world class customer experience, and aims to further boost Abu Dhabi's competitiveness, accelerate worker productivity, and help governmental entities, businesses, and citizens build a better future through the intelligent application of ICT.
The agreement was signed by H.E. Rashed Lahej Al-Mansoori, the ADSIC Director General, and Wayne Hull, Director and General Manager, Cisco UAE in the presence of senior executives from both organizations.
"This agreement reinforces Abu Dhabi Government commitment to build strategic relationships with the private sector in order to meet the long term objectives of the eGovernment Program initiated by ADSIC in 2005, which aims in part to modernize the services of government entities to be more effective and efficient and to enable the delivery of world class electronic services to an increasingly diversified client base through the deployment of advanced ICT solutions. This strategic initiative is in line with the electronic services transformation trend witnessed in most advanced world governments and will be a key enabler to achieving Abu Dhabi's 2030 Vision of becoming one of the world's best five governments", said H.E. Rashed Lahej Al-Mansoori.
"Through this Frame Agreement, CISCO will contribute to ADISC's e-Literacy program by establishing a Cisco® Networking Academy®, in Abu Dhabi, and to develop citizens' career and economic opportunities and leverage advanced network infrastructure solutions for the main sectors like healthcare, education and social services, while also driving Abu Dhabi's competitiveness, accelerating worker productivity, securing affordable broadband networking to facilitate instant information access for businesses, and to enable world-class citizen services", added H.E. Al-Mansoori.
For his part, Mr. Wayne Hull, Director and General Manager, Cisco UAE, highlighted this collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Government and ADSIC represents a major step forward and stated that this association clearly demonstrates the Government's confidence in Cisco as a leader and trusted business partner in the ICT industry in the region. Technology plays a fundamental role in continuously improving productivity and competitiveness, leading to sustainable economic success and increasing standards of living.
· H.E. Rashed Lahej Al-Mansoori, Director General, ADSIC, recently met with John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco Systems, to discuss strategic initiatives to enhance socio-economic development, contribute to the human capital development and enhance citizen services in education, healthcare, and broadband connectivity in the Emirate through ICT. Moreover, this agreement illustrates Abu Dhabi Government commitment to strike strategic partnership with the private sector.
· As a core part of this agreement, Cisco will contribute to ADSIC's e-Literacy program by establishing a Cisco® Networking Academy®, in Abu Dhabi. Cisco will work towards adding ADSIC as a local training academy through its NetAcad program to contribute in developing Abu Dhabi citizens' career and economic opportunities. This initiative will play a key role in helping to address the shortfall of local technology talent in the Emirate. Cisco supports 60 networking academies throughout the UAE, which develop an educated pool of local talent to build and manage sustained networks in the future. The program has already graduated nearly 1,000 students in the UAE.
· To further develop human capital in Abu Dhabi, Cisco and ADSIC will explore utilizing the Cisco Entrepreneur Institute to support ADSIC's initiatives for resource development to harness the power of entrepreneurship for economic and social prosperity across the UAE. This will help entrepreneurs from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) improve their use of ICT to enhance business acumen.
· Knowing how important network performance would be to the ongoing success of this technology implementation, Abu Dhabi Government will utilize Cisco's SMARTnet Service. SMARTnet gives Abu Dhabi Government Entities around-the-clock access to a team of highly skilled Cisco engineers, online technical resources, operating system upgrades, and advanced hardware replacement to help keep its network running optimally.
· Cisco's system engineers will offer to conduct technology reviews to ensure that the technology deployment remains in line with industry standards. This is in addition to focused business and technical sessions that will assist ADSIC and Abu Dhabi Government Entities in adopting the e-learning concept. Cisco will also provide Abu Dhabi Government IT staff and students access to its Technical Lab facility for product demonstration, software testing, and proof of concept designs.
· Cisco will also offer to provide ADSIC and Abu Dhabi Government Entities consultancy services on the design and specifications for network infrastructure, network security, telecommunications, collaboration, rich-media video and conferencing, and other related subjects for all ADSIC and Abu Dhabi Government Entities projects.
· Cisco has three offices and more than 400 employees located in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
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About Cisco
Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, this year celebrates 25 years of technology innovation, operational excellence and corporate social responsibility. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com. Cisco products in the Middle East are supplied by Cisco Systems International BV, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc.
Cisco, the Cisco logo, Cisco Systems and Cisco TelePresence are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.
The Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre (ADSIC) was created as a committee in October 2005 by Executive Council Decree No. 33, issued by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, and established as a centre in 2008 by Law No. 18. ADSIC's role is to develop, drive, and support various initiatives within the Government to transform government services in the Emirate. A key objective of this transformation is to establish a modern, efficient, and citizen-centric e-Government platform to match the best in the world.
The Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre Mandate
The Centre is the governmental organization that is responsible for the IT agenda of the Emirate and has the authority to:
· Supervise the implementation of the e-Government program in Abu Dhabi Government entities
· Sponsor initiatives and mature assets and competencies that it deems of critical importance for the e-Government project
· Propose policies and technology standards for government and relevant entities to achieve overall quality in reaching the highest levels of efficiency, confidentiality, and safety in the e-Government project
· Issue rules and guidelines regarding the implementation of IT policies and technical specifications, and communicate them to all government entities
· Submit the guidelines to the Council regarding the IT sector and the e-Government
For more information, please contact:
Batoul Al Husseini
Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre
Corporate PR Manager
P.O. Box: 3133
Tel: 02- 6961660
Fax: 02 6717333
E-mail: pr@adsic.abudhabi.ae
Web site: www.abudhabi.ae
Analyst Contact:
Investor Relations Contact:
Jumana Akkawi
Cisco
Tel: +971 55 5010881
Email: jakkawi@cisco.com
Carter Cromwell
Cisco
Tel: +1 408 526 6914
Email: ccromwel@cisco.com
Matt Hardwick
Cisco
Tel: +44 20 8824 1970
Email: mahardwi@cisco.com
© Press Release 2010
