Digitisation has the potential to propel economies in the Middle East, and elsewhere, into a bright future, as long as governments and companies have the courage to dream and innovate, John Chambers, Executive Chairman & former CEO of CISCO Systems, told delegates during the final day of the World Government Summit (WGS) 2017.

Digitisation has the potential to propel economies in the Middle East, and elsewhere, into a bright future, as long as governments and companies have the courage to dream and innovate, John Chambers, Executive Chairman & former CEO of CISCO Systems, told delegates during the final day of the World Government Summit (WGS) 2017.

“Achieving peace in the Middle East via the power of digitisation is an exciting opportunity, it can improve the market economy, reduce unemployment, double income at least every ten years. Capture the imagination of citizens, then you can change a region and the world,” he stated.

For this to happen leaders in government and business had to have the courage to dream, getting market transitions right, innovate, and accept challenges and setbacks along the way, according to Chambers.

“Certain jobs will be displaced, so you have to have the courage to make the move to digitisation, create role models and inspire young people that they have an economic future. We have to retrain the workforce, and create a strong ‘start-ups’ engine, where job creation occurs, and help small business that may fail."

France had done it, India, Egypt, KSA, Jordan, Qatar could all do it, Chambers remarked.

“The UAE has already embarked on digitisation, and can use Dubai Expo 2020 to generate a strong innovation engine for the future like other countries hosting the event have done before,” he said.

Chambers pointed out that digitisation wasn’t about numbers of devices, and volume of data, connecting, but about how to bring the physical and virtual together.

“You can capture all the data you like, but it’s about getting the right information at the right time to the right person, or machine, to make the right decision,” he concluded.