Jeddah is expected to host the Global Internet Forum and Exhibition which will be organized mid-March 2017. The event, organized by Arab Rinad Exhibitions and Conferences Group, targets those interested in the Internet and information technology. The forum aims at creating a platform that allows users to meet service providers.
Khalid Nagro, CEO of the group, said the forum and exhibition comes to empower people from Saudi Arabia, Arab states or other countries and allow them to present their innovations and their distinguished ideas. He also added that they seek to allow participants to build strong relations to enhance the Arabic content on the Internet, and to overcome the challenges to move forward toward a knowledge economy that meets 2030 vision objectives.
Internet users in Saudi Arabia add up to 21.6 million which indicates that 68% of the population both Saudis and expatriates are using Internet at a high rate. The spread of the use of the has increased from 41% in 2014 to reach 68.5% by the end of 2015, Nagro said.
Moreover, he said new findings reveal that Saudi Arabia is becoming the number one in the Middle East in term of the use of social media. Nagro noted that 32% of the users of the Internet in Saudi Arabia are actively using Twitter, and they send up to 1.5 million tweets a day. Facebook however has 6 million users in the Kingdom and 1 million users are registered for LinkedIn. Saudis are also are active users of Youtube and other smart social media applications. This increase is attributed to the spread of smart phones.
Naqro further said the forum is going to be the first specialized forum in the Kingdom that will address the new advancements in the technology and Internet in order to share experiences. He noted that the Arab use of the Internet has witnessed a jump despite the poor presence of the Arabic content on the Internet. On a global scale, some 3.2 billion out of the 7.2 billion people in the world are using the Internet.
By Fatima Sidiya
