ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Erbil began hosting the second round of the HITEX fair for technology on Wednesday, showcasing innovation and cutting edge tech development as businesses and the government in the Kurdistan Region go digital. 

The four-day event consists of dozens of different companies, universities and businesses that work in the field of technology, along with panels that discuss technological development in the Kurdistan Region and e-governance. 

The fair hosted several local and international companies and each company presented their products and services to visitors, and spoke on strengthening their own networks. 

“It is mostly about the networking, as a company we are involved in two panels. The panel I will be moderating will be talking about joint ventures, which is something that this event is promoting, where companies that are competitors work together to take on international projects,” Lavin Luqman, a technical sales supervisor at Plus the Edge company told Rudaw English on Wednesday.

“This is something as the Kurdistan Region and Iraq we need to do to be able to create a good image of the region abroad, because people always think that Kurdistan and Iraq is just bombs and terrorism, but we have technology, we have companies, and we have talent in the companies,” she added.

Plus the Edge is a Kurdish company working in the fields of digital marketing, software development, hosting websites, along with offering consultancy and training in different fields of technology and business.

Different companies emphasized the importance of such events, stating technology is an ever developing field and events like HITEX fair would update everyone on the latest developments.

“I believe that these kind of events should be held even more than once a year, as technology keeps getting broader, and everyone needs to stay updated on the latest progress in the field,” head of media department at NassWallet, Kardo Dler told Rudaw English.

“As an international company, we are very proud to join this event … we already collaborate with many local companies in the region such as Korek and Fastlink, we also cooperate with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research,” Shawn Xie, Chief Technology Officer at Huawei Iraq told Rudaw English.

In another section of the fair, different universities were provided with booths to showcase their work in the IT department and also talk to high school students with an interest in pursuing a degree in the field.

“This event was actually right on point for two of our departments, the IT/Software Engineering department and our engineering department, in these two areas we can show what we can do with tech in a substantial way,” Barzy Bahzad, IT lab assistant and adjunct lecturer at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani told Rudaw English, adding that their department provides 40 to 50 fresh graduates to the industry each semester.

Just a few meters from the booths, different universities showcased various student projects in the field of technology.

“This is a service application for Erbil province, where through it you can in a simple way file your complaint about service issues going on in your neighborhood, such as sewage problems, electricity, roads, and many others,” Soran University lecturer Sarhad Baez told Rudaw English, while speaking on an application created by their students.

“This application will be available in English, Arabic, and Kurdish, and people will be aware of the entire process through the application,” Baez said adding, the application has already been confirmed by Erbil province and they are now training staff at the provincial office and the municipality office on the application.

Baez added their aim was to not only bring the service application to Erbil, but also for all other provinces in the future. 

Photos by Bilind T. Abdullah/Rudaw