SAMENA Telecommunications Council successfully held its second edition of the SAMENA Leadership and Excellence Awards in Digital-development (“SAMENA LEADs”) on October 15th at the One&Only Royal Mirage, Dubai, UAE. SAMENA LEADs recognized telecom operators and regulators across South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia in the categories of Innovation Excellence, Business Leadership, User Experience Delivery, Fixed Wireless Access Success, and Regulatory Enablement.
The 2024 edition of the SAMENA LEAD awards highlighted and recognized advanced ICT success in the region, including but not limited to 5G and 5G-Advanced development, optical fiber broadband, datacom, cloud-based transformation, and mobile finance. LEADs also recognized and promoted development and success achieved in monetizing 5G and 5G-Advanced investments through the adoption of Fixed Wireless Access technology. Various technologies, including cloud transformation, IPv6-Enhanced implementation, regulatory enablement with regards to networks for industries and child online protection, and business milestones, such as business acquisition strategies and mobile finance solutions were identified with accolades.
At the SAMENA LEAD Awards 2024, Richard Liu, President, ICT Marketing and Solution Sales, Huawei honored telecom pioneers and highlighted the crucial role of regional governments in advancing 5G, AI, and digital transformation. He reaffirmed Huawei’s commitment to collaborating with operators to boost Middle East's global ICT standing. “The pioneering initiatives in 5G, AI, and digital transformation by the regional carriers are helping to boost the entire region’s economy and advancing the transformation goals,” said Liu.
SAMENA LEADs serve as a platform to recognize regulatory achievements, actions and approaches that are supporting the private sector and enabling sustainable investment avenues. Moreover, SAMENA LEAD awards help foster and propagate new best practices and inspire similar successes in neighboring regions while enabling both businesses and regulators to create new cross-border synergies and opportunities for growth. Commenting on the awards, Bocar BA, CEO & Board Member of SAMENA Council said, “SAMENA Leadership & Excellence Awards in Digital Development are designed to identify key strengths and showcase how a company’s greatness can be harnessed to achieve equally great milestones at the ecosystem level.”
Since 2018, there has been much progress made on fifth-generation mobile network deployment in the region, with operators having achieved significant milestones and regulatory authorities having supported market and technology development as well as customer-centric service offerings through impressive new initiatives that support the market and the end-user.