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The World Advanced Manufacturing & Future Mobility Exhibition (WAM Morocco) convenes 60+ global leaders as United Nations (UN) Chief AI Officer and billion-dollar investors make first regional appearance

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WAM Morocco

The World Advanced Manufacturing & Future Mobility Exhibition (WAM Morocco) has secured over 60 speakers from 20+ countries delivering 45+ hours of strategic content across three days, positioning the event as the region’s most influential platform for industrial transformation.

The conference marks the first regional speaking appearance for world-class leaders including Dr. Mehdi Snène, Chief AI Officer of the United Nations (Switzerland); Alain Sanchez, Chief Information & Security Officer for EMEA at Fortinet (France); Maxime de Bonrepos, Vice President of Asset Management Renewables at ENGIE; Isaac Chetrit, Board Director of Blazie Holdings (USA); and Pavlo Stergard, Deputy Head for MENA at Bpifrance.

Trixie LohMirmand, CEO of KAOUN International, said: ” The calibre of speakers choosing WAM Morocco for their first appearance in the region reflects the extraordinary strategic importance of this moment. These are the architects of global industrial transformation, the custodians of billion-dollar portfolios, and the decision-makers shaping the future of manufacturing across continents. Their presence in Casablanca signals that Morocco has moved from potential to performance, from ambition to execution.”

Dr. Mehdi Snène, the UN’s top AI executive, manages the largest European neuroscience project valued at over €1 billion. Alain Sanchez leads cybersecurity for Fortinet’s $65 billion enterprise, advising Fortune 500 boards on the $10 trillion digital economy. Maxime de Bonrepos leads ENGIE’s green energy portfolio and architected the 1.5 GW Khazna Solar project in the UAE. Isaac Chetrit commands a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio as one of New York’s most sought-after investors. Pavlo Stergard represents Bpifrance’s €57.3 billion in assets under management, supporting 80,000+ companies across 1,150+ direct investments.

WAM Morocco provides the ideal platform to build resilient, secure industrial ecosystems that can compete on the global stage

Additional first-time speakers include Fabrizio Lodovico, Managing Director of Vigel (Italy), with 5,500 machines installed globally; Jorge Sebastião, Co-Founder and CTO of Ecox (Portugal), advisor to Dubai government on blockchain; and Amine Sounni, Co-Founder of Terabase Energy (USA), delivering 250 projects representing $10 billion in investment.

Dr. Mehdi Snène, Chief AI Officer of the United Nations, stated: “Artificial intelligence is the foundation upon which the next generation of industrial ecosystems will be built. Morocco’s strategic vision creates an exceptional environment for AI-driven manufacturing transformation. WAM Morocco represents a critical moment where policy, technology and industrial ambition converge to accelerate Africa’s intelligent manufacturing revolution.”

Alain Sanchez, Chief Information & Security Officer for EMEA at Fortinet, added: “As manufacturing becomes increasingly digitised, cybersecurity is fundamental to industrial competitiveness and national security. Morocco’s ambition to become a regional manufacturing hub demands world-class digital infrastructure. WAM Morocco provides the ideal platform to build resilient, secure industrial ecosystems that can compete on the global stage.”

The conference tackles critical priorities including data centres for future-ready industries, global capital flows, green manufacturing, AI deployment, supply chain sovereignty, and energy transition.

Organised by KAOUN International (DWTC) in partnership with MSC Pro, CDD, UM6P, Advantage Austria and Der Mittelstand. BVMW (Germany), WAM Morocco takes place in Casablanca from 20 to 22 January.

For more information, visit www.WAMMorocco.com

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of KAOUN International.

 

Business

CEM Africa Awards 2026 set to recognise Africa’s leading Customer Experience (CX) talent and innovation

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CEM Africa Awards

The 2025 awards attracted more than 80 entries and 31 finalists, culminating in eight award winners

The calibre of organisations and individuals recognised through the CEM Africa Awards demonstrates just how much extraordinary CX work is being done across the continent

 




 
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, September 25, 2026/APO Group/ –Customer experience professionals, teams and organisations across Africa have just days remaining to enter the 2026 CEM Africa Awards, with free applications closing on 30 September 2026.

 

Taking place on 10 November 2026 at the NH Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg, the Customer Experience Africa Awards form part of the CEM Africa platform and recognise the individuals, teams, technologies and initiatives raising the standard of customer experience across the continent.

For organisations considering whether to enter, the company they could be keeping provides a compelling indication of the calibre of the awards.

A growing roll call of African CX leaders

The 2025 awards attracted more than 80 entries and 31 finalists, culminating in eight award winners. Finalists represented organisations spanning financial services, technology, telecommunications, retail, insurance, public services and social impact.

Among them were Absa, Capitec Bank, Santam, Telesure Investment Holdings, Equity Bank, Takealot.com, NTT DATA, Frogfoot, Telviva, Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, the University of Pretoria and South Africa’s Department of Social Development.

The 2025 winners included Serisha Iyer of Absa Corporate and Investment Banking, named Rising Star in CX; Alma Angela Olela of Jubilee Health Insurance, named CX Leader of the Year; and Franco Cotumaccio of Shadow Global, winner of Breaking Barriers in CX.

Corporate winners included Telesure Investment Holdings for Best Overall CX Solution, Krisp for Best Use of AI, Telviva for Best Enterprise Contact Centre Platform, Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator for Best Customer Experience Team of the Year and the University of Pretoria for Best Citizen Experience Initiative.

That follows a 2024 edition in which winners included NCBA Bank, MultiChoice, Digital Solutions Group, Absa Bank and Telviva, alongside individual CX leaders from across the continent.

More than a trophy

For entrants, recognition through the CEM Africa Awards puts their work in front of a wider African CX community and an independent judging panel drawn from across the industry.

The 2026 judging panel includes global CX specialist Ian Golding; Andrew (Dré) Enebeli, Head of CX & Engagement at Access Bank; Dr Oliver Museka, President and Founder of IRDM College Eswatini; Jonathan Daniels, Managing Director of CX Centric; Joven Pillay, Partner and Head of Customer Consulting at KPMG; and Qaalfa Dibeehi, Managing Partner at Human2Outcome.

This year’s awards recognise excellence across four broad pillars – People, Innovation, Transformation and Government – covering categories including CX Leader of the Year, Rising Star in CX, Breaking Barriers in CX, Best Overall CX Solution, Best Use of AI, Best Enterprise Contact Centre Platform, Best Customer Experience Team of the Year, Best Digital Transformation in Public Services and Best Citizen Experience Initiative.

“The calibre of organisations and individuals recognised through the CEM Africa Awards demonstrates just how much extraordinary CX work is being done across the continent. These awards give that work a platform. Whether it is a major transformation programme, an innovative use of technology or an individual changing how their organisation thinks about the customer, we want to make sure Africa’s best work is being seen and recognised.”

  • Briteny Price, Event Manager and CEM Africa Awards Director

Final opportunity to enter

Applications for the 2026 CEM Africa Awards are free and remain open until 30 September 2026. Finalists will be announced in October, ahead of the awards ceremony on 10 November at the NH Hotel, Sandton.

Organisations, teams and individuals working to improve customer and citizen experience across Africa are encouraged to submit their entries before the deadline.

Apply for the CEM Africa Awards 2026 by 30 September 2026

Submit your application (https://apo-opa.co/4hdcimx)

Explore the CEM Africa Awards

Visit the CEM Africa Awards website (https://apo-opa.co/4iNXzzM)

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of VUKA Group.

 




  

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Optics Valley Launches Corporate International Communication Alliance to Empower Tech Companies’ High-Quality Global Expansion

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Optics Valley

WUHAN, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 17 September 2026 – On September 13, the inauguration ceremony of the Optics Valley International Communication Alliance was held. Representatives of 13 founding member companies — including FiberHome, China Construction Third Engineering Bureau, HGTECH, YHKT Entertainment, Huakang Clean and Shenglong Electric — and of more than 100 other Optics Valley enterprises attended the event.

 




 
 

The ceremony was held under the theme “Chasing the Light, Connecting the World.” In recent years, Optics Valley’s innovations have been reaching the world at an accelerating pace. The overseas social media matrix of “Optics Valley of China” has continued to attract attention, and “made in Optics Valley” products such as the Optics Valley Photon sky rail and driverless minibuses have been repeatedly applauded by spokespersons of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, becoming a “calling card for China” in the eyes of overseas netizens. To help companies move from “product export” to “brand export,” Optics Valley has worked with the News & Information Service Center of Xinhua News Agency and other partners to establish the Optics Valley International Communication Alliance, opening international communication resources to Optics Valley companies and providing them with one-stop services such as overseas public opinion response and multilingual content production, so as to serve as a “navigator” for companies going global. As the national news agency of China, Xinhua News Agency has 184 overseas branches and has established cooperative links with more than 2,000 media outlets around the world.

Speaking as a representative of the founding members, Li Lei, vice president of FiberHome, said that FiberHome’s business now covers more than 100 countries and regions, with wholly owned subsidiaries in 36 countries and three overseas optical cable plants in Ecuador, Thailand and Hungary; at its Philippine subsidiary, locally hired employees account for more than 95 percent of the workforce. “We will stay committed to high-quality global expansion and to deepening localized operations, and, with the platform of the Optics Valley International Communication Alliance, we will not only export China’s advanced communication technologies and solutions, but also serve as a bridge for industrial cooperation and people-to-people connectivity between China and the rest of the world,” he said.

Huakang Clean, also a founding member, is a leading enterprise in China’s cleanroom industry. It has made going global a core strategy for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, completed its market layout in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa, and exported mature cleanroom technology solutions. It looks forward to deepening cross-border collaboration and strengthening brand building through the alliance platform.

At the ceremony, a think tank report was released — “Going Global, Competing Worldwide: How ‘Optics Valley of China’ Polishes Its International Calling Card in Service of Building a Strong Nation in Science and Technology — Practices and Insights,” written by Reference News Press · Reference Think Tank. According to the report, leading enterprises represented by the “Seven Stars of Optics Valley” have seen average annual growth in overseas revenue of more than 30 percent. The report sums up Optics Valley’s global communication path as “one strategic direction and ten keywords”: Optics Valley takes serving the building of a strong nation in science and technology as its strategic direction, and adheres to central-local coordination, AI empowerment, going global as a team, and tailored measures for different markets.

The report states that Optics Valley has witnessed and written the confidence and determination of a brand of a strong nation in science and technology going global, and that when the light of “Optics Valley of China” illuminates the global industrial landscape, it conveys the narrative of the times in which China takes part in global competition through technological self-reliance and self-strengthening and shares its opportunities with the world. The report suggests that, for Optics Valley to keep polishing its international calling card in service of building a strong nation in science and technology, three things need to be fully considered: first, elevating the Optics Valley story from “corporate behavior” to a “national narrative”; second, making full use of AI, a global knowledge-service infrastructure, to carry out global communication; and third, moving from “communication empowering industry” to “communication as an industrial capability.”

A training session on overseas communication capacity building was held alongside the inauguration ceremony, with David Wei, founder of Vision Knight Capital, and Cao Yang, deputy director of the International Communication Department of the News & Information Service Center of Xinhua News Agency, invited to give lectures.
 




 

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Dongfeng Motor’s 10th Science and Technology Innovation Week and 1st User Lifestyle Festival Kick Off in Wuhan

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Dongfeng

Over the course of ten editions spanning a decade, Dongfeng Motor’s Science and Technology Innovation Week has further strengthened the connection between technology and users

WUHAN, China, September 24, 2026/APO Group/ –On September 14, Dongfeng Motor’s (​http://www.Dongfeng-Global.com/) 10th Science and Technology Innovation Week and 1st User Lifestyle Festival kicked off in Wuhan. With the theme “ Wind from the East, Creating a Smart Life,” the event showcased the innovative achievements of a Chinese automaker in intelligent and green mobility, as well as its global expansion.

 




 
 

At the opening ceremony, Dongfeng Motor unveiled the “Sky-Clean Zero-Carbon” Plan, the Embodied Intelligent Vehicle All-Domain Protection Plan, and the “Sky Horizon Voyage” Plan. Among them, the “Sky-Clean Zero-Carbon” Plan leverages the “1331” framework to build an integrated vehicle-energy ecosystem, aiming to achieve more than 1 million tonnes of coordinated carbon reduction annually and promote the transformation of automobiles into mobile energy assets; the Embodied Intelligent Vehicle All-Domain Protection Plan adopts a “1+6+4” technology system to establish a new paradigm for all-domain vehicle safety in the era of embodied intelligence; the “Sky Horizon Voyage” Plan establishes a “125” global business strategy, with plans to invest RMB 50 billion and launch more than 50 vehicle models, while striving to achieve overseas sales of 1.5 million vehicles by 2030.

 

Over the course of ten editions spanning a decade, Dongfeng Motor’s Science and Technology Innovation Week has further strengthened the connection between technology and users. At Dongfeng Motor’s 1st User Lifestyle Festival, more than 240 owner representatives from its various brands gathered in Wuhan. Dongfeng also launched the “Dongfeng Youxin” service brand for its broad user base, establishing a full-lifecycle user service system.

On the same day, the 72nd International Commercial Vehicle and Parts Exhibition opened in Hannover, Germany. Three Dongfeng hydrogen-powered vehicles and a 400-kilowatt fuel cell making its global debut are on display at Booth C20 in Hall H12.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Dongfeng Motor Corporation.

 

 




 

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