The fifth edition of the ArabNet Digital Summit will be held on May 16-17 - at the Madinat Jumeirah Conference and Events Centre in Dubai -  bringing together 80 speakers, 50 exhibitors, 1200+ attendees, over 50 international and regional investors, as well as 35+ key talks and sessions.

The summit is spread across four separate forums: AdTech, Smart Economy, Digital Commerce, and Innovation & Investment.

On the first day of the event,  the AdTech Forum will focus on the latest trends in digital media and advertising, including the AdTech Showcase - a convergence of new advertising and media technologies from around the world to improve the impact and efficiency of campaigns, and help publishers maximise revenues.
 

Speakers include Scott Lamb, vice president of International at BuzzFeed; Lauren Maillian, serial entrepreneur and best-selling author; Tim Wolfs, chief digital officer at Altavia Group; as well as John Stoneman, general manager - Europe at Triplelift.

On the same day, the Digital Commerce Forum will explore the emerging trends and opportunities in e-commerce, e-retail and payments in MENA, as well as the digital transformations taking place in the banking sector, and the fintech innovations changing the financial services industry.

Experts include Faisal Khan, Banking & Payments consultant and FinTech Scout for VCs/PE; Alpesh Doshi, founder and CEO at Fintricity; Matthew Gardiner, founder at Catch London; Rasool Hujair, CEO at Najm and Ronit Ghose, managing director - Global Banks Sector head at Citi Research.

On May 17, the Innovation & Investment Forum will feature a full track for investors, with discussions that include LPs, private equity investors and family offices. It will also feature a full track where successful startups will share their experience highlighting cross border growth, raising capital, acquisition, and building teams.

Investors/innovator speakers include Nabil Borhanu, president and managing member at Graphene Ventures; Chris Adelsbach, managing director at Techstars; Jeff Lynn, CEO at Seedrs; Luke Krueger, president at VA Angels International and Ovais Naqvi, managing director at Abraaj Group.

Simultaneously, the Smart Economy Forum will cover smart cities, smart governments, the future of cars and transportation, and the digital enterprise - as well as the blockchain and machine learning technologies that are driving this transformation.

Global experts who will be speaking include Simon Sylvester-Chaudhuri, managing director at Smart Cities NYC; Tim Lea, CEO at Veredictum.io; Ussal Şahbaz, innovation leader - Turkey at GE and Todd OBrien, managing director at Startup Bootcamp.

The Digital Summit will also be hosting for the second consecutive year, the Smartpreneur Competition final pitches and awards ceremony, organised by Dubai Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the Smart Dubai Office, to support the transformation of Dubai into a ‘Smart City’.