Tech event of the city of Dubai, the Gitex Global 2022 sees things in a very big way, not without stammering.
“Still a little chaotic”… Vice-president of the Dubai World Trade Center, organizer of Gitex Global, Trixie LohMirmand is brutally honest when presenting Dubai’s great tech mass to the media present on site, including the JDN, invited by the ‘organization.
Despite a stammering opening with the morning’s schedule mishandled without anyone really knowing why, the Gitex does not hide its ambitions: “in the middle of the desert (…) Dubai is one of the most active cities in the world in terms of technology” and takes a certain “‘pride” from it, notes Trixie LohMirmand. On its communication, the Gitex claims its position as “the most important tech event in the world”, ahead of the CES in Las Vegas, therefore. The government takes a very special place there with “more than 250 stands” to present “technological innovations at the service of the country”.
A flying electric car as the highlight of the first day
Always armed with a rather refreshing outspokenness, the vice-president warns the media that “the United Arab Emirates are different countries” culturally and therefore asks to adopt “a different state of mind about what it means. progress here”. The culture shock had already taken place when the French journalists had tried to escape the opening speech, to the chagrin of the local press attachés, visibly unaccustomed to effrontery.
With a whimsical coordination, repetitive schedule changes and events that follow one another on both sides despite several tens of kilometers between them, we had to be conciliatory in any case in this opening of Gitex Global 2022, whose highlight of the day was to be the very first public flight of the XPeng Aeroht X2, a electric car flying car, the first iterations of which saw the light of day in 2016. After nearly an hour’s journey on the 2×6 lanes of Dubai to reach the Skydive, the place of the feat, we were able to witness 90 seconds of hovering flight of this car obviously still in development: according to our information, the Chinese company did not have the authorization of the local authorities to show more for security reasons but in view of the exclamation of the XPeng team after the successful landing, this summary public presentation was perhaps the most relevant, if frustrating.
At the end of this first day of Gitex Global, the impression is very mixed and it is to be hoped that this great showroom will find its cruising speed. This event prides itself on welcoming more than 4000 companies (including more than a hundred French) and more than 100,000 people, an anthill that extends over several kilometers around the DBWC, metaverse, cybersecurity, data management and storage are the most obvious themes this year. The environment ? It will be for “the Gitex Impact in May 2023”, promises Trixie LohMirmand, promoter of a brand that is constantly developing and which should very quickly announce the launch of another event on the African continent.