It is the first time I go to the Jordan ICT Forum, and I must say, it’s quite different than I expected it to be; I guess I was hoping it would be more “informational” (um, geeky?) and less corporate.

I could only catch the morning half of the first day’s sessions, as I was really tired by 3:00. Most of the speakers in this session were unfortunately not very eloquent, and with my short attention span, I had to put extra effort to understand what they were saying. I was also Really hoping to live blog from there, but believe it or not, the region’s biggest ICT forum didn’t have wi-fi in the halls. How ironic.

They mentioned some of the main factors that make Jordan’s ICT industry, and also went over the National ICT Strategy for the next 5 years. They talked about how Jordan has the only fully privatized telecommunication industry in the region, and how the level of mobile penetration in Jordan is 60%. They also discussed about the plans to connect Jordan’s public education sector with next generation high speed fiber optics broadband network, including 3000 public schools and the 8 public universities. This makes me wonder, as I have heard (from first hand sources) that there are villages where there are brand new computers still in their boxes because no one knows how to use them.

The “Big News” of the day though was the unveiling of the identity of the Forum’s sponsor and Jordan’s newest IT player; Optimiza, management, IT solutions, and outsourcing. With 25 million dollar’s worth of capital and aims to become the leading regional player, it should be interesting to see what they can do. I must say that my favorite part about the conference was their booth, which had some really entertaining interactive machines such as mall maps, cinema guides, etc.

I did find their marketing quite a disappointment though. Almost everything relating to the ICT Forum this year could have been branded with the platinum sponsor’s logo, such as the posters, the advertisements, the ICT website, and many other things including long-lasting goodies like the bag given out and stationary. Instead, Optimiza opted to launch with an air of mysteriousness, using a pictogram of an egg and a question mark, neither of which has anything to do with their visual branding. Personally, I find that ill-advised as the brand literally didn’t exist before. So now, I have a plethora of corporate goodies with an egg on them and nothing that says “Optimiza”.

That is it for this year’s ICT Forum from me I guess, but do check out Lina’s blog as well as Ahmad’s blog for more scoop. Many bloggers were actually there, including Isam Bayazidi, Oula Farawati, Mohammad Khawaja, Laith Zreikat, Lubna Taimeh, Ameen Malhas, and Momma Bean.

Some pictures:

Introduction to ITC Forum:

Introduction to Optimiza:

Introduction to ITC Forum: