News

IDC Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2022 Will Explore KSA’s Digital Transformation

The two-day event will explore the Kingdom’s accelerated pace of innovation, its evolving technology landscape, and present-day strategies.

Published

4 years ago

September 2, 2022

David Morelo

idc saudi arabia cio summit 2022 will explore ksa's digital transformation

Saudi Arabia is undergoing a remarkable digital transformation guided by its Saudi Vision 2030 strategic framework, whose overarching goal is to lessen the country’s dependence on oil by diversifying its economy and enhancing innovation. The IDC Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2022 edition will explore the Kingdom’s digital transformation over the course of two days filled with discussions, panel sessions, and keynote presentations from regional and global technology experts alike.

“This event will explore the Kingdom’s accelerated pace of innovation, its evolving technology landscape, and present-day strategies that the country’s organizations are implementing to transform into digitally resilient future enterprises,” states International Data Corporation (IDC) on its website.

The in-person event will be hosted on September 19 & 20, 2022 at the Fairmont Hotel Riyadh, a luxurious five-star hotel located in the Business Gate Complex, and those who would like to attend it can register free of charge to learn how the Kingdom’s CIOs and their international partners are building resilient digital infrastructures to make Saudi Arabia a leading ICT nation within the next decade.

Hamza Naqshbandi, Associate Vice President (Saudi Arabia & Bahrain) at IDC, will kick off the event with a welcome address, and his speech will be followed by a talk about tech strategies for a digital-first world given by Steven Frantzen, IDC’s Senior Vice President & Regional Managing Director (EMEA).

The long list of confirmed speakers who will share their valuable experience with the attendees of the IDC Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2022 edition includes experts in the field, respected practitioners, and leaders from the industry, including:

Jason Roos, CIO of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
Phil Andrews, Regional Vice President of Northern and Eastern Europe for Red Hat.
Stephane Monboisset, Business Development Manager at Fortinet.
Zaid Ghattas, Senior Commercial Lead at AMD.
Turki Aldahmash, Executive Director of Business Technology (CTO) at National Center for Performance Measurement (Adaa).
Neil Harbisson, the world’s first officially recognized human cyborg.

In addition to its main agenda, the IDC Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2022 edition will also play host to the IDC Excellence Awards to recognize the efforts of the country’s leading technology executives across 3 categories (CISO of the Year, CIO of the Year, and Women in Technology & Business), with a winner and 10 finalists named in each. A live awards ceremony will be held on Day 2 and hosted on a virtual platform.

As a premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology sector, IDC is deeply familiar with the impact of technology on the world around us. Its worldwide network of 1,300 analysts spans 110 countries, helping public and private sector decision-makers alike make fact-based technology decisions to achieve their key business objectives.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.