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AL MALEK: DIC has achieved its aim of attracting the world’s top IT talent, but it aims to increase the number further.

The transitional companies from the UK, Europe and the US normally start very conservatively but with time they keep expanding and adding more of their complex activities to this region.

That is why they have more value than the new activities. But this is changing now, the new clients are already aware of the market needs.

The other companies just wanted to see the market before they enter fully fledged, or develop certain products for this market. The equation has changed now because the market is the fastest growing market in the world.

Are there any plans to increase the amount of bandwidth available for enterprises in DIC to account for this expected growth?

Obviously the telecom provision is being done by two operators: Etisalat and du. From our perspective I think bringing more business means asking for more bandwidth and broadband. We have been very successful in attracting businesses that require huge bandwidth and broadband, so it's an indirect contribution to the telecom sector from our side.

What other services are you looking to implement aside from broadband, to further encourage more IT businesses to come to DIC?

We have a lot of services. The government services such as administration and licensing, the property that we extend to our business partners, and the telecom service we partner with du.

And looking forward, we are in the process of implementing a lot of services that will make existence here easier for our clients. We are also bringing new value adding services which we will be announcing very soon. One of those things is the automated online service which does not exist today to a full extent, so we are expanding our online presence.

With the growth you have mentioned will come the need for better transport to DIC and more parking. What is being done to address this need?

When the Dubai Metro is completed we will have a station opposite to us, which will have a bridge connecting the metro station to our zone and we have already started work on this, in conjunction with our internal shuttle services.

At this stage we are in a good position to judge our parking needs because most of the site has been developed. So we will base the amount we need on experience. I think the decision now is to implement the solution we have because we know exactly how much parking we need.

How would you respond to the suggestion that DIC fulfills simply a landlord role, and should become more deeply involved in research and development?

Many people were misled because of the boom that happened with real estate and property. If you look at the first three or four years we were developing ourselves and our facility. So maybe yes we were busy building and attracting IT companies but that doesn't mean we were simply a landlord.

Companies like du - the UAE's second telco are expanding internationally, and began here based in our cluster, so there are opportunities that we have created. We are more focused on the industry rather than just being a landlord. We will soon be announcing more industry research for our clients, and even more of this will be coming in the future.

Has Dubai Internet City achieved its ultimate goal of attracting the world's best technology talent?

I would say yes, seeing the number of the companies and IT specialists that we have brought here I think we have very much achieved our target, and we will continue to attract more and more.

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