The 13th of February, 2018, concluded the UAE’s 6th World Government Summit (WGS). This year, WGS saw 4000 delegates attend with a record of 130 speakers in total. Year after year, the three-day summit has seen the world’s most prominent leaders attend and deliver keynotes. Naturally, the #WorldGovSummit is a hot topic on social media that sparks heavy discussions every year.
To date, there have been over 62,000 posts (and counting) discussing WGS across social media in February alone, 74% of which took place exclusively during the event (February 11-13).
As the leading online news and social media monitoring company, we analysed the level of engagement around the World Government Summit in the social world and present you with a few insights on WGS.
The top countries discussing the summit online were UAE, India and Saudi Arabia (respectively).
Although WGS was an event that gained global coverage online, Arabic remained the top language used on social media discussing the summit (53%), followed closely by English (43%).
The social media coverage in French was mostly discussing the French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe who was in attendance. On the other hand, Indonesia’s Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati received the Best Minister Award at the Summit. Majority of social media users posting in Indonesian, were reporting and discussing the minister’s achievement.
91% of content posted surrounding WGS took place on Twitter, followed by Instagram (5%) and Facebook (3%).
Almost one-tenth of conversations mentioning WGS were in relation to India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who not only attended the Summit as the Chief Guest but also delivered the inaugural keynote discussing the importance of technology for the empowerment and development of global citizens.
There were a few key topics that were gaining traction online: ‘Happiness’ (3,200+ mentions) was a keyword heavily used in relation to WGS. Her Excellency Ohoud Al Roumi, the UAE’s Minister of State for Happiness, delivered a session titled “The Global Happiness Outlook” as part of The Happiness Summit. In 2016, and for the first time in history, the UAE appointed their first Ministers of Happiness and Tolerance.
The second popular theme seen on social media around WGS were the subjects of women in leadership and youth empowerment. There were over 2,700 posts online, most of which applauded the UAE for its efforts in creating opportunities for women in leadership. To date, the UAE has appointed 9 female ministers, which make up almost 30% of the UAE’s current cabinet.
Education, was also a subject that had the social media world chatting with over 2200 mentions of the keyword in relation to WGS. ‘Future generation’, ‘innovation’ and ‘technology’ were terms commonly used when discussing education and WGS.
During his closing speech at the summit, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, urged the younger generation to consider moving away from generic degrees in management and business and to steer towards technical degrees. The speech sparked conversation online about integrating innovation and technology to revamp the educational systems in place today.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) was also a subject that sparked countless conversations online, keywords such as ‘big data’, ‘responsible AI’ and ‘innovation’ were being used on social media to discuss the drastic transformations technology will have on the labor market and education.
According to Zubair Timol, Director of Strategy EMEA at Meltwater “Given 2018 is the year of Zayed, 100 years, since the birth of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of the UAE, it is apt that the region looks forward, embracing the interplay of technology and the impact on all aspects of society.
The World Government Summit has provided a forum between policy makers globally and technology / business, creating a bridge for dialogue. From what we’ve seen on social media, the momentum gained by topics such as artificial intelligence, space exploration, women in leadership and youth development has made a significant impact across the social media landscape. The UAE’s vision of creating an effective Smart Government driven by AI, and focus on creating equal opportunities for Emirati women is gaining a global audience.”
Meltwater will continue to monitor the World Government Summit on social media post-event. Please feel free to reach out to us if you would like to gain more insights on social activity surrounding WGS.
Using Meltwater’s social media monitoring tool, the terms ‘World Government Summit’ and ‘القمه_العالميه_للحكومات’ were tracked from the 1st – 15th of February, 2018.
