Alibaba to boost local eco-system

Yiping Gong, General Manager of AliCloud MENA and India

Dubai's economic environment is superb and is considered as a regional hub for global businesses, said Yiping Gong, general manager, Alibaba Cloud, Middle East and North Africa and India, on the sidelines of the Middle East finals of Create@Alibaba Cloud Start-up Contest (CACSC) at the Dubai Technology Entrepreneur Centre (DTEC) on Wednesday.
"We are very committed to the Middle East and Africa market. We already set up a joint venture company called Yvolv in Q4 of 2015, which was an agreement signed between Meraas and AliCloud to offer state-of-the-art and customised solutions in cloud computing, project-based services, training and support," said Gong.
"Yvolv has a mission here to upgrade and set up the data centre for Alibaba Cloud which will be operational by the year end. A lot of Chinese businesses will want to use our data centre and that would help both UAE and China to boost joint trade. Alibaba has immense confidence in the start-ups here and are very sure about the potential they have to display. We are moving from traditional IT to data IT."
Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA), the regulatory body for Dubai Silicon Oasis, and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, jointly hosted the Middle East finals of Create@Alibaba Cloud Start-up Contest at the DTEC - DSOA's wholly owned technology incubation centre in the region.
The Dubai session drew the participation of 10 regional technology start-ups spanning multimedia, gaming, e-commerce, online-to-offline (O2O), social media and Internet of Things (IoT). Marhabababy.com, founded by Pieter Sleeboom and Evelyn Sleeboom, was selected as the winner of the regional finals and invited to compete in the world final in China later this year. Dubai was chosen to host the regional session of CACSC due to its leading status and the significant advancements achieved by enterprises in the city in the cloud computing domain.
The start-up culture in the Middle East has witnessed unprecedented growth in recent years with a surge in the number of developers and businesses inspired by technological innovations. Prashant (PK) Gulati, a leading technology evangelist, was one of the judges. He has been involved with the start-up community as a mentor, investor and founder and has helped get many initiatives off the ground, including many of the incubation/acceleration efforts.
"It is awesome to see enthusiasm and participation from regional start-ups and support from DTEC and Dubai Future Accelerators is making Dubai a very entrepreneurial city," said Gulati
CACSC is part of the Alibaba Cloud's global start-up programme - Create@Alibaba Cloud. The programme champions start-ups and encourages them to maximise their potential through Alibaba's support network and suite of cloud infrastructure services.
Shahla Ahmed Abdul Razak, deputy CEO of DSOA, said: "DSOA remains committed to supporting the local technology entrepreneurship landscape and our collaboration in this innovative contest for start-ups reflects our efforts in this domain. Since establishment, the DTEC has enhanced the status of entrepreneurship in the UAE and the wider region through providing an ideal environment for start-ups and tech-enterprises. We were delighted to work closely with Alibaba Cloud on this initiative and provide entrepreneurs with a great opportunity to network and access global resources."
CACSC demonstrates Alibaba Cloud's commitment in providing sophisticated cloud computing technologies and services for the Middle East region, and follows the establishment of a joint venture between Alibaba Cloud and Meraas, the Dubai-based holding company in 2015. Alibaba Cloud also collaborated with other region-based start-ups such as Souq, Careem, Payfort, Entrepreneur Middle East, Pegasus FZ LLC, Dubai Internet City, In5, Flat6labs, CH9 and CBH at the Dubai session.
Sicheng Yu, vice-president of Alibaba Group and general manager of Alibaba Cloud Global, said: "We see great potential for the technology sector in the Middle East. Local start-ups and entrepreneurs are a critical component in driving market growth. Alibaba Cloud supports business of all sizes through empowering global customers with cloud infrastructure and intelligence. As the largest facility of its kind in the region and the top supporter of technology entrepreneurship, DTEC was the perfect partner to host the Dubai session of this contest."
 - sandhya@khaleejtimes.com