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| Roshan D’Silva Regional Manager LA-3, Jebel Ali Free Zone Dubai United Arab Emirates Tel: +9714 8830600 Mobile: +971 50 5508553 Fax: +9714 8830601 E-mail: rdsilva@theyorkgroup.com |
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Roshan has a depth of experience in selling complex services into
the Financial Services, Government and Telecom sectors in the Middle
East. He graduated from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology
- Bombay with a Bachelor of Technology (EE).
Among his recent experiences, Roshan played a key role in the restructuring of two of the largest Middle Eastern Call Center initiatives - Mace W.L.L. in Qatar and Global Tech FZ LLC in Dubai Internet City. Prior to this, Roshan founded Myzus - a cellular products company based out of Bombay, India with direct presence in the Middle East, Asia Pacific and CIS. Myzus was recently named by Business Today as one of "Ten Companies for Tomorrow".
Roshan grew up in Qatar and is widely traveled in the U.S., Western
and Eastern Europe as well as Asia-Pacific. He is a member of the IIT
Bombay alumni association, TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) and the SVASE
(Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs). He is also on
the advisory team of the Entrepreneurship cell at IIT-Bombay.
Regional
Spending on Information and Communications Technology
(Data provided by WITSA - www.witsa.org/digitalplanet
)
| Spending ($millions) | |||
| Technology Sectors | Kuwait | Saudi Arabia | Egypt |
| Hardware | 134 | 664 | 211 |
| Software | 72 | 222 | 158 |
| Services | 191 | 818 | 257 |
| Communications | 434 | 3,934 | 475 |
| TOTAL ICT Spend | 830 | 5,637 | 1,099 |
| Vertical Markets | |||
| Agriculture | - | 34 | 15 |
| Manufacturing | 70 | 393 | 90 |
| Utilities | 5 | 10 | 15 |
| Construction | 8 | 100 | 8 |
| Wholesale & Retail | 48 | 292 | 175 |
| Transportation & Communication | 58 | 485 | 164 |
| Finance & Bus. Services | 83 | 322 | 13 |
| Other Services | 76 | 134 | 193 |
| Government | 253 | 2,191 | 156 |
| Consumer | 189 | 1,292 | 263 |
| Software Piracy | 68% | 54% | 69% |
Regional Overview
The Middle
East is a region comprised of the lands that extend from the eastern
Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. It defines a cultural area, so
it does not have precise borders but is generally taken to include:
Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey, Iran (Persia), Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait,
Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab
Emirates and Yemen.
The countries of the Maghreb (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia) are frequently linked to the Middle East due to their strong historical and cultural associations, as is Sudan. The African countries Mauritania and Somalia also have links to the region.
The region is home to the world's largest reserves of Oil and Natural Gas and esp. the Gulf countries have some of the highest per capita incomes in the world.
Surprisingly, though, the regions have lagged the rest of the world with regards to the adoption of technology and the percentage of GDP spent on research and development. This has been identified as a serious problem by local governments and they are making a significant effort to ensure that this is corrected in the long term.
Some interesting facts: