Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre (ADSIC), the information and communications technology (ICT) arm of Abu Dhabi Government, today announced that they have entered into a frame agreement to help transform Abu Dhabi into a sustainable knowledge based connected Emirate. This agreement enables Abu Dhabi Government to benefit from Cisco's leading ICT experience to support the modernization initiatives of key government sectors, including but not limited to the upgrading of the social, education, and healthcare sectors network infrastructures, helping to empower the national economy through ICT.
Cisco and ADSIC are aiming, through this agreement, to drive Abu Dhabi's competitiveness, accelerate workers' productivity and help governmental entities, businesses, and citizens build a better future through the intelligent application of ICT, enabling the Abu Dhabi Government to use advanced network infrastructure solutions to deliver world class quality services. This collaboration also delivers on Cisco's vision whose objective is to connect the nation by utilizing ICT to drive sustainable socioeconomic progress, to secure affordable broadband networking, to facilitate instant information access for businesses, and to enable world-class citizen services with better access to healthcare, education, and social services.
Highlights / Key Facts:
The agreement was signed by His Excellency Rashed Lahej Al-Mansoori, director general, for ADSIC. Wayne Hull, director and general manager, Cisco UAE represented Cisco during the ceremony which took place on Thursday 17th of June 2010 at ADSIC offices in Abu Dhabi. His Excellency Rashed Lahej Al-Mansoori recently met with John Chambers, Cisco chairman and CEO, 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 the development of strategic relations with the private sector.
As a core part of this agreement, Cisco hopes to 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 to contribute to 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 Abu Dhabi Government 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 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 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 in the UAE and more than 400 employees in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
