Total 522 words used.
LEAP
Technology conference
1-3 February 2022
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
One Eye on the Stars
LEAP is a kinetic verb that evokes immediate ideas of motion and energy, it symbolises the movement from one place to another. This is symbolic of the great pace of change in Saudi Arabia, of the advancement of humankind made possible by tech innovation. When our event LEAP was conceptualised, its objective was to become the go-to platform to discover new technologies and where emerging tech gets adopted first.
LEAP set out to become a three-day world-leading technology conference. After months of preparation and build, we welcomed to the stage 513 global CEOs and tech powerhouses including Eugene Kaspersky (CEO & Co-Founder of Kaspersky), Peggy Johnson (CEO of Magic Leap), Christian Klein (CEO of SAP), Maëlle Gavet (CEO of Techstars), Steven Bartlett (Founder of Social Chain and Newest Dragon on BBC’s Dragons’ Den), Dr Makaziwe Mandela (Founder of House of Mandela Foundation), Luis Figo (Ballon d’OR winning footballer) and more.
Our production team worked tirelessly to onboard outstanding speakers. Covering 10 tech verticals, our speaker line-up included never-before-seen in the region investors and experts including Stéphane Houdet (World’s #1 Paralympic Tennis Player), Björn Öste (Founder of OATLY) and Jennison Asuncion (Head, Accessibility Engineering at LinkedIn).
LEAP’s Stellar Keynote Stage hosted the world’s leading thinkers, futurists and visionaries and aimed to inspire a technology revolution. Speakers ranged from world renowned technology gurus to senior enterprise representatives and celebrities. With panel sessions and keynotes covering The Possibilities of a Sustainable Digital Future; How Technology Can Turn Challenges into Opportunities; Cyber Immunity for the Cyber Age; Leadership and the Future of Space Exploration and more. The Saudi government and partners announced $6.4 billion in signed deals on the Keynote Stage, and Saudi Arabia become the first country ever mapped into the Metaverse which attendees could witness.
The Orbital Talks stages were dotted around the event’s exhibition floor. These stages hosted highly focused sessions led by renowned presenters delving into the strategic priorities most countries are facing. The stages explored cutting-edge tech including the latest progressions in fintech, future economy, creative economy, health tech, edutech, smart cities, retails, 4IR and more.
To further the attendee’s experience at the conference, we launched the inaugural Rocket Fuel Start-up Competition with a prize fund of $1,000,000 USD. This competition took place over the three days of the event, with attendees able to watch 220 start-ups battle it out on stage to join the final with a celebrity judging panel featuring Dragons' Den Investors James Caan and Steven Bartlett, and BBC's The Apprentice judge Karren Brady.
This was the first edition of LEAP and we set targets that we believed to be realistic and achievable. We ended up smashing all the targets, for example:
- The sponsorship revenue target was $4,500,000 USD. We closed $19,100,000 USD
- We aimed for 80,000+ preregistrations and achieved 137,473
- The onsite attendee target was 40,000+ and we achieved over 100,000 visits
- We set out to close 500 exhibitors and brought in 713
- We aimed for 400 global speakers and obtained 506
Nomination Title: LEAP, Informa Markets PLC
