Leap Conference 2023

Riyadh, 10 February 2023 – Calzavara has successfully concluded its participation in Leap23, Saudi Arabia’s most important event on technology. Held from 6 to 9 February at the Riyadh Front Expo Centre, the event saw the presence of over 100,000 technology innovators from all over the world who came to hear the opinion of over 700 expert speakers on various topics ranging from the creative economy and fintech to the fourth industrial revolution, from the metaverse to sustainable energy, from solutions for the Smart City to the development of its infrastructure.

On the topic of the Smart City, Calzavara was the absolute protagonist with its smart tower Dicecell, installed by Tawal in its booth with the aim of letting customers and partners touch the potential of a structure that rationalizes in a single installation heterogeneous technologies such as antennas for 5G connectivity, screens for digital signage, environmental sensors for monitoring air quality, charging systems for electric vehicles and smartphones, anti-panic systems for emergency management. Smart cities are an essential component in Saudi Arabia’s development plans and Tawal has a very clear path to develop them: connectivity, without which people, organizations and devices could not be connected, and a hardware layer capable of offering advanced services for the citizens. Abdulaziz Al Harbi, responsible for commercializing smart ICT products for mobile network operators and big infrastructure Mega-projects within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, summed up this vision in his keynote speech “ICT Infrastructure for Ultra High Speed and Low latency, 5G mmWave for cognitive cities” (photo 1).

During the 4 days of the event, visitors to the Tawal booth were able to test the antennas integrated in the Dicecell and to verify the radio-transparency of the coating. As a matter of fact, Ericsson‘s 5G mmWave antennas, operating the 26 GHz band and connected by STC, the main mobile operator in Saudi Arabia, ran the Ookla Speedtest with a record result of 6.5 Gbps throughput and 1.9 Gbps of UL (photo 2).

Dicecell offered a live demonstration of what it means to collect, process and provide data. From one of the displays of the structure, visitors could interact with the management software (photo 3) displaying real-time data and statistics on the weather (temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity), air quality (PM2.5 and PM10 fine dust), energy consumptions, crowd statistics (gender, average age, people count). Furthermore  Dicecell has also made available to visitors a series of citizen services including digital signage, recharging station for electric vehicles and smartphones, panic button system that can be connected to a SOC (security operation center).

Saudi Arabia to be the largest digital economy in the Middle East

Leap23 was the stage from which Saudi Arabia unveiled specific investments to support future technologies and emerging companies in the Kingdom. During a keynote speech at the event, Eng. Abdullah Alsawaha, Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology, announced investments worth $9 billion to support future technologies in order to enhance the Kingdom’s position as the largest digital economy in the Middle East and North Africa region.