Dubai, UAE, December 13, 2009 - The first Open Group Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference held in the Middle East took place at the Atlantis Hotel, Palm Jumeriah on December 13th 2009. The event was hosted by Shift Technologies and the newly formed Open Group Arabia and was attended by over 70 executives who shared their experiences on the event theme "Government Excellence through Enterprise Architecture". The event also recognized outstanding achievements of industry professionals in the field of Enterprise Architecture and relevant excellence practices through the awarding of The Open Group Awards for Enterprise Architecture Excellence.
Enterprise Architecture is an international best practice that has been adopted by key organizations in the Middle East region that provides a discipline, methodology, and practice for translating business vision and strategy into the fundamental structures and dynamics of an enterprise at various levels of abstraction. The models, principles, guidelines, and policies focus the creativity of the organization in areas that need innovation and transformation to establish organizational capabilities aligned with the business strategic intents.
The event featured global leaders in the Enterprise Architecture field including Allen Brown, the President of The Open Group, Abdallah El Kadi, Managing Director of Open Group Arabia and CEO of Shift Technologies, Jim Hietala, the Vice President of Security for The Open Group, and Dr. Pallab Saha, of the National University of Singapore, who is the primary author of the Methodology for AGency ENTerprise Architecture (MAGENTA) for the Government of Singapore. The event also featured implementation testimonies from organizations including the Abu Dhabi Judiciary Department and Dubai Customs that have endorsed an Enterprise Architecture driven approach to deliver successful transformation results. To complement these topics the event also featured IBM, the international leader in Enterprise Architecture solutions, who demonstrated how effective tooling is used to achieve effective Enterprise Architecture results.
The event celebrated the outstanding achievements of industry professionals in the field of Enterprise Architecture and relevant excellence practices through the awarding of The Open Group Arabia Awards. The winners of the awards included Ministry of Labor in the category of Organizational Excellence, Dubai Police in the category of Strategic Planning, Dubai Customs in the category of Corporate Performance Management, Dubai Roads and Transport Authority in the category of Organizational Development, and Abu Dhabi Judiciary Department in the category of Technology Excellence.
"This event represents the starting point of a long term engagement for The Open Group in the Arab world. Our mission at The Open Group Arabia is to work closely with regional professionals to develop a working group that can effectively contribute to the initiatives of the architecture forum. In the process, The Open Group Arabia will focus on raising the awareness of the local governments and private companies about the value of enterprise architecture and its associated methods, processes and tools" said Abdallah El Kadi, Managing Director of The Open Group Arabia. "We are planning monthly activities for the new members of The Open Group Arabia and a number of seminars and workshops around the Arab world to help establish a common understanding of what enterprise architecture means and how it can be applied effectively to provide a solid platform for effective organizational transformation" he added.
About The Open Group:
The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral international consortium that works towards enabling integrated access to information within and between enterprises based on open standards and global interoperability.
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About Shift Technologies
Shift Technologies is a pioneering IT and Business consulting firm that enables government and commercial clients to transform best practice concepts into effective organizational capabilities. Shift Technologies has for some time been an established member of The Open Group in the United Arab Emirates through the TOGAF training and certification program it provides. Shift Technologies has now partnered with The Open Group to launch The Open Group Arabia to promote global standards to companies in the region. This is an important step toward The Open Group's goal of facilitating better access to information among different enterprises, firewalls and borders.
About The Open Group Arabia
The Open Group Arabia is the latest branch of The Open Group that provides localized access to information such as The Open Group Architecture Framework™ (TOGAF™), as well as hosting conferences and events that bring executives and practitioners in the region together to share and learn how enterprise architecture frameworks and security standards can be of benefit to company operations. The Open Group Arabia is open for members to join from the Arabic speaking countries of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen.
© Press Release 2009
