22 March 2018, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Event website: www.telematics-conference.com/mea

The 4th Telematics Conference Middle East & Africa was held on 22 March 2018 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This annual international conference and exhibition that focuses on telematics for fleet management and commercial vehicles hosts 150 delegates from more than 20 countries from around the globe and brings together key stakeholders and decision makers from telematics for fleet management and the transportation industry. The 2018 event focused on smart fleets and the future of transportation and mobility. The topics were covered by globally and regionally recognized speakers from Continental Middle East, Gurtam, IBM Middle East, Africa and Turkey, Mercedes-Benz Consulting, Omnicomm, Restrata, RTA, Sygic, Teltonika, and others. The event offered many networking possibilities, particularly during the exhibition, where 12 companies presented their latest products and solutions.

Re-Inventing Mobility with IoT

Keynote speaker Sania Abbas, Business Unit Executive at Watson Internet of Things, IBM Middle East, Africa & Turkey, explained how the Internet of Things is digitizing the physical world. She presented many examples of how IoT is changing the world. One such example was “olly”, the first self-driving vehicle, which speaks to its passengers by using IBM Watson Internet of Things technology. Ms. Abbas also presented an example of how a good partnership can add value to a better service; she presented an IBM and Box collaboration, where best technologies and resources are combined to transform work in the cloud, extend enterprise security, and deliver next-generation content-rich apps and solutions.

Panel discussion: Smart Mobility and Transportation - New Initiatives and Trends

At the first panel, guests discussed new initiatives and trends in mobility and transportation. Walied Albasheer, Founder & CEO at Inbound, Hicham F. Chatila, President at Transpo Group, Ksystof Korbutovis, Chief Business Development Officer at Teltonika, and Dr. Ismail Zohdy, Chief Specialist/Program Manager of Self-Driving Transport at RTA, shared their points of view on future global and regional developments, where new opportunities can be found, and which main challenges and threads will accompany these new trends and approaches. The panel was moderated by Volha Smirnova, Business Development Associate at Location Solutions.

Smart Track System

Mohamed Bebars, Project Manager at Drivers Licensing Department at RTA, described the importance of telematics for the Road and Transport Authority Licensing Agency in Dubai. He claimed that the main objectives of the Licensing Agency are environmental sustainability and enhancing transport and traffic safety in order to reduce accidents and fatalities. In terms of telematics trends, he focused on vehicle safety services, smart track systems, a centralized training system, and driving behaviors.

Telematics Today and Tomorrow

Aliaksandr Smirnou, Business Development Director for Middle East at Gurtam, spoke about the current and future states of telematics. He presented some main advantages of today's telematics, like collecting data from people, vehicles, and infrastructure, enabling data analysis for the purpose of making informed decisions and implementing policies, reducing costs, and improving business efficiency by making enterprises “smart” and “connected”. He identified the 3 main challenges of tomorrow: human failure factors, heavy traffic, and waste of energy. He suggested that human mistakes or failure factors can be minimized by artificial intelligence, that heavy traffic can be reduced with the development of mobility as a service, and that waste of energy issues can be resolved with IoT integration.

Revealing Secrets for Telematics Growth

Ksystof Korbutovic, Chief Business Development Officer at Teltonika, presented the key business growth factors from Teltonika's perspective and discussed the future of the telematics industry. He expects cellular and satellite connectivity to work together. He also presented the vehicle CAN data transmission, some devices designed for insurance telematics and discussed about eco/green behavior driver’s ranking.

Panel discussion: The Fleets of the Future and the Changing Role of IoT and Telematics

At the second panel, guests discussed how mobility will change in the future, and how transportation and infrastructure will be modified with the deployment of new technologies. Wael Alkadamani, General Sales Manager at Trakker Middle East, Charles Azrak, Regional Business Development Manager at Location Solutions, Hamadou Hamidou, IoT Consultant for Africa Countries, and Aliaksandr Smirnou, Business Development Director for Middle East at Gurtam, shared their experiences and compared the fleet management situation in Middle East and Africa with global trends in the industry. The panel was moderated by Dominique Bonte, Vice President, Verticals/End Markets at ABI Research.

When Souq Rings Twice – Blessing or Curse? About the Impact and Challenges of a Digitalized World on Urban Traffic

Dr. Jörg Monschau, Senior Consultant, and Stefan Schnitzler, Management Consultant, both from Mercedes-Benz Consulting, discussed how purchasing behavior has changed, as nowadays the number of orders placed and deliveries made keeps increasing. Based on that, they expect transport to lose some value and become cheaper or, eventually, free of charge. In contrast, space will become more valuable, which is likely to result in an extreme rise in traffic volume. Consequently, many players will have an interest in running transport fleets. The question is whether that will lead us to see even more delivery drones and robots in our neighborhoods.

Industry insights

In short, 15-minute presentations, 4 companies presented their points of view on the latest trends in the industry and told us just how smart they expect future fleets to become. Insights within the fleet management industry were presented by Juan Uruburu Alonso, Head of Sales, Commercial Vehicle Tires (CVT) at Continental Middle East, Boris Pankov, Founder & CEO at Omnicomm, Botan Osman, Managing Director at Restrata, and Jakub Turan, Sales and Business Development for MEA at Sygic Enterprise.

SESSION: When Souq Rings Twice – Blessing or Curse? About the Impact and Challenges of a Digitalized World on Urban Traffic

The conference agenda concluded with an interactive workshop hosted by Jörg Monschau, Senior Consultant and Stefan Schnitzler, Management Consultant, both from Mercedes-Benz Consulting. They guided participants through exercises on identifying and analyzing the challenges of future urban transportation from three perspectives: the perspective of transport and logistics operators, of urban society and urban politics, and that of relevant solution creators, meaning the various industries and service providers such as the automotive industry and telematics service providers.

See you in March 2019!

The event concluded with a reception and exhibition, which gave delegates an opportunity for one-on-one meetings and networking, and where exhibitors had the final chance to showcase their solutions to the telematics audience. Event organizers also announced the next event, which will be held in March 2019 in Dubai.

PR and media contact: Nevena Knezevic, +386 68 154 413, nevena@telematics-conference.com

© Press Release 2018