July 13, 2009—RFID Journal LIVE! Middle East 2009, RFID Journal's first annual conference and exhibition for that region, drew an attendance of 150 registrants. This year's inaugural event was held on June 15-17, at the InterContinental Hotel Festival City in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

At LIVE! Middle East, companies across the region learned how to get up to speed on radio frequency identification, and how to leverage the technology's benefits. "The theme of the conference," said Muhannad Shaban, sales director of the Middle East and Gulf states for conference exhibitor AeroScout, "is creating good awareness around RFID technology in the Middle East as a whole." Attendees discovered how RFID can be used in their operations, and also had the opportunity to meet vendors that could help them deploy a successful solution.



The conference program focused on how various types of RFID technologies—active, Wi-Fi, passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF), passive high-frequency (HF) and more—can be used to improve operations in construction, oil and gas, and logistics. End-user companies and organizations explained how they employ such technologies to enhance efficiencies and streamline business processes. "The idea of the power of RFID, and what we can do with the technology, is still in its infancy," said Rami Darwish, Tagstone's VP of sales and development, during a keynote address, "in terms of how we take this great technology and implement it in our everyday business."

Several speakers and panelists at the conference have granted permission to provide RFID Journal's readers with the PowerPoint presentations from their sessions—please see the final page to view the presentations.