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https://youtu.be/povVU7HyR_A
One of the people I wanted to speak to while I was at “Power to the Cloud” was Tushar Choudhury, Marketing Manager, Gulf Region, Schneider Electric as the event, which he’s been instrumental in putting together, in only its second year has become the largest of its kind in the Middle East.
Whilst Tushar talked me through the event and walked me around to show me what was on display to interest attendees he was very keen to stress the quality and quantity of content for attendees as well as the many displays, with speakers having flown in from all over the globe.
“Power to the Cloud” did indeed have a substantial area of displays covering around 1400 square meters split into two areas. One area was for the Partner community including Schneider Electric’s full alliance partners of HP, Dell, IBM and Cisco. In total there were displays from 19 partners. There was then also 80 Square metres of Data center space. The third significant range of displays were focused on Smart Cities and were intended to show an in-depth range of the solutions Schneider Electric can offer to optimise resources in a smart city upgrade. These particular displays we to show “hhow we can bring energy efficiency to critical infrastructure” according to Tushar.
Smart City displays included an Airport, a University, a bank, a teleco, a hospital and a Smart integration are where Schneider Electric were demonstrating how the company can integrate everything together and deliver optimised smart city solutions.
In addition to the displays above there were also Water and waste water mockup solutions and a power grid mockup. Again these were to show how Schneider Electric can bring energy efficiency to critical infrastructure.
The Smart Cities focus is particularly appropriate thanks to both Dubai and UAE having stated ambitions to become smart cities/countries and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai speaking at Power to the Cloud specifically about this ambition. Tushar agreed “Managing resources and optimising and resources are absolutely key in this part of the world. We say in our presentations that a smart city is a collaborative effort between government and industry with both private and public entrepreneurs”. This in turn further explained the importance of the data center on display.
“The reason behind the large 80 square meter data center display is that they are a key component for smart cities where data is collected analysed and acted on. Smart cities need smart data centers. This particular data center display showed the full range of offerings Schneider Electric can provide so it was a very full representation of everything to CCTV, raised flooring, to racks, to cooling, to partner infrastructure including Uniflair, LV panels, software and servers. Everything is being covered to give people attending the chance to see the full range of solutions to pick and choose from with a vendor neutral display”.
From speaking to Tushar is was very clear that partners were also a key aspect of Power to the Cloud and an important pillar of Schneider Electrics platform for business.
“15 partners from across the region have grasped the opportunity to attend and are very enthusiastic about participating and excellent support from local Gulf region partners as well as the larger global alliance partners” Tushar told me. He went on to add “Reseller interest is a testament to the quality of the event and to the reseller community’s commitment to the Middle Eastern markets and customers. I’m not sure if an event has been held to this scale before. We’ve had an excellent commitment from partners from the Gulf region, Saudi and Pakistan. They’ve all wanted to be part of this initiative and it’s a great feeling to have them all on board”.
I asked Tushar if he felt that Schneider Electric’s messaging around Smart Cities has more reasonance in a region where it’s easy to see resource constraints applying to water as an example. Tushar said “Absolutely, A smart city is still a concept in a lot of the world and you can’t really build a new city in most places, so you optimise. You take elements like Smart Energy and optimise your energy use and likewise with public transport and infrastructure and these elements brought together help create a smart city. People have grabbed the concept now but not many in the industry can offer the portfolio of solutions that we have here at Schneider Electric”.
