15th Annual Ankabut Users' Meeting at Khalifa University Highlights Role of Technology in Creating New Products and Services to Enrich Academic Sector

Abu Dhabi: The role of technology that is sweeping through classrooms as educators and developers create new products and services designed to enrich the academic sector was emphasized during a panel discussion by experts that was hosted as part of the 15^th annual Emirates Advanced National Research and Education Network (Ankabut) meeting that was held at the Khalifa University of Science and Technology Main Campus.

The annual meeting that was themed ‘Inspire the Next', was attended by more than 300 stakeholders from the UAE higher education sector and representatives from over 100 organizations including 50 from different post-secondary institutions. In addition, officials from government entities and senior management from major corporate sector who are involved in higher education were also present at the event.

Dr Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice President, Khalifa University, said: “We are delighted to host the Ankabut users meeting at our campus. As a higher education institution, Khalifa University remains vigilant about adopting and incorporating technology advancements. This is one of the main reasons why we have research centers that cover an entire gamut of technology sectors. We believe this could be one way to keep ourselves updated and be prepared in advance to tackle challenges in the academic arena.”

In his annual update, Fahem Al-Nuaimi, Chief Executive Officer, Ankabut, said: “The fruitful knowledge exchange by stakeholders during the Ankabut users meeting will surely help us in consistently elevating our services to match the industry expectations. The rapid technology changes call for swifter approach to creating new solutions, and we believe our expertise and resources will help us excel in our service offerings.”

The panel discussion on ‘What's Next for Educational Technology?’ had participants from technology leaders such as VMWare, Schneider Electric, Huawei and Trend Micro. Panelists agreed that new technologies including AI, machine learning, and educational software are shaking up not only the students but also the role of educators, creating dynamic shifts in approaches to teaching, and remodeling the classroom. They also analyzed some of the technologies that could become trend setters in the coming years.

Other sessions at the event included a keynote by Harb Bou-Harb, Senior Director-Education, Microsoft Middle East, as well as a talk by Iqbal Ali Kham, Program Director, Blockchains and Innovation, IBM Middle East and Africa, and a speech by Don Ouyang, Managing Director, Huawei.

Other sessions covered cyber security, cloud computing, and digital transformation in public education. The day’s activities wound up with a tour of the Ankabut facilities.

Managed by Khalifa University, the Ankabut project is jointly funded by the TRA through the ICT Fund. It offers academic institutions connectivity to other education networks around the world. It also connects schools and public institutions together across the UAE. Ankabut cooperates on a national, GCC, regional and international arena, representing the UAE in conferences, exhibitions and forums.

-Ends-

About Ankabut
Ankabut is the United Arab Emirates’ Advanced National Research and Education Network (NREN) offering academic institutions connectivity to other education networks around the world. In addition to connecting universities, Ankabut can connect schools and public institutions together across the UAE with an effective cost model. Ankabut also co-operates on a national, GCC, regional and international arena representing the UAE in conferences, exhibitions and forums. Ankabut aims to offer professional and innovative IT services with a focus on the research and educational sector. Services includes Cloud, Connectivity, IT infrastructure, manage service and professional services such as IT Consultancy, Project Management, Licenses, Training and Development.

Ankabut interconnects more than 80 tenants with a 10G backbone and 1G access links.  It enables a closed community network that allows the transfer of real-time services such as voice and video communication, time-critical services such as grid computing interconnect (cloud computing), public internet services, web hosting (C panel), co- locating, Edu- roam, High Performance Computing (HPC), Learning Management System (LMS), Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI), Mozoon system and Sierra Library Management System.

Ankabut supports initiatives in the e-learning environment, library content and distribution systems and research collaboration.  Ankabut believes that identifying these initiatives and offering network, processing and storage support is the best way to develop a collective collaborative approach to research and education.

About Khalifa University of Science and Technology
The Khalifa University of Science and Technology merges the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research and the Petroleum Institute into one world-class, research-intensive institution, producing world leaders and critical thinkers in applied science and engineering. The Khalifa University of Science and Technology endeavors to be a catalyst to the growth of Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s rapidly developing knowledge economy as an education destination of choice and a global leader among research intensive universities.

For more information, please visit: http://www.ku.ac.ae/ 

© Press Release 2019