As physical events continue to dominate the tech industry in a post-pandemic era, the in-person Tech Week Singapore brought together seven co-located events recently.
The seven events consisting of Big Data & AI World, Cloud Expo Asia, Cyber Security World, Data Centre World Asia, DevOps Live, eCommerce Expo Asia and Technology for Marketing saw brands from all over the world participating in them.
From large enterprises like Huawei, Seagate, Siemens and Grab to startups, each tech company showcased their unique offerings, with some even announcing new products during the expo. The event which was first launched in 2013, saw over 22,000 attendees throughout the week.
Apart from the tech vendors showcasing their products at Tech Week Singapore, there were also various talks, presentations and forums discussing the key topics that are shaping the industry today. Among the topics highly discussed included the metaverse, cybersecurity as well as logistics.
In Data Centre World Asia, there were live displays of data centres showcasing their capabilities. This included rack design to cooling technologies.
The Cloud and Cybersecurity halls were filled with activities as companies ran product demos and shared insights on the various issues most businesses in the region are currently facing such as ransomware and tightening data privacy regulation.
Across the three sessions, Huawei presented the leading trends in digital transformation and what’s next in a post-cloud native world across critical industries, answering some of the biggest questions facing industry leaders today. Including how to deal with the emergence of quantum computing, AI and machine learning and climate change through developments in cloud and digital transformation technologies.
In addition, to the main stage and breakaway events, Huawei hosted guests at its booth at Cloud Expo Asia. At the stand, guests met with experts behind technologies like Digital Bank, Voice AI, Blockchain and Virtual Human services teams, the Web 3.0 Cloud Foundation, Cloud-Cloud Synergy Centre and Spark Start-up Initiative.
Besides Huawei, Seagate also announced the launch of Lyve Cloud Analytics platform, a complete cloud-based analytics solution that includes storage, compute, and analytics, to help Lyve Cloud customers lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) and accelerate time to value with their DataOps and MLOps (machine learning operations).
Huawei’s presentations and Seagate’s launch are just some of the many sessions that took place during the summit. Sustainability and climate change, supply chain constraints, technology skills shortages, gender equality and diversity, and creating personalised customer experiences were also among the many talking points led by experts and visionaries. In total, Tech Week Singapore featured over 500 industry-leading speakers across the event’s seven co-located events.
CloserStill Media’s Managing Director for the Asia Pacific, Andy Kiwanuka said, “It’s incredible to be back for our first in-person event in Asia since 2019! The thousands that have gathered here today prove without a doubt the appetite for collaborating with peers, finding the latest innovations, and discovering key insights that will transform businesses into future-ready powerhouses.”
Judging by the crowd throughout the event period, it is also clear that many are getting tired of attending virtual events. Tech Wire Asia, a media partner for the event, spoke to several attendees during the summit, all of whom felt that physical events were less tiring despite the need to travel compared to virtual events.
While there are still those who are concerned and prefer to not join crowded events, the reality is, the world is going back to pre-pandemic levels. For countries like Singapore, with events happening almost every week, there is now a question among some whether virtual events can still generate the outcome a physical event does.
Perhaps in the future, hybrid events might just be the answer to ensure everyone gets to participate in their preferred method. Physical in-person events like Tech Week Singapore have proven to be a success and will only lead to more soon.
