As Qatar transforms itself into a global IT hub, experts in the country elucidate the sector’s potentiality in revatilising the economy.
During a media dialogue held recently at Vodafone Qatar’s office in Lusail, Ramy Boctor, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Vodafone Qatar outlined the impacts on the current tech market in addition to a number of initiatives, which are in Vodafone’s pipeline.
Speaking to The Peninsula, Boctor highlighted that Vodafone’s immediate plan is to implement 5G-enabled tech expansions.
He said “We are also focusing on artificial intelligence applications and Internet of Things (IoT) because these are the two applications, which will be used on top of the 5G technology where 5G comes as an enabler for those technologies.
Boctor pointed out that the mix between AI and IoT paves the way for autonomous driving itself as an example.
“So we are planning to expand in those directions, namely artificial intelligence,” he stressed.
Implying to the job market in Vodafone and Qatar’s tech sector, Boctor explained that there will be new jobs to train the robots amidst the increasing significance of AI.
He underlined that “in Vodafone, we are aware of this challenge. We have enough training programs for our teams to be ready for the future. So we are training our teams for AI and The Internet of Things.”
“We are training our teams how to deal with this change because these are the skills that will be required pretty soon. It’s a different skill than the past and I believe bigger things will appear,” Boctor affirmed
However, AI will “definitely” have a positive impact on Vodafone and the technology industry in Qatar, remarked the official.
Addressing the media, Boctor stated that Qatar’s infrastructure is “Much better than anywhere else in the world adding that in general, Qatar has a very advanced modern structure.
He also mentioned that there are 5G coverage areas, and optical fiber, which is also a very big penetration pattern compared to other countries.
“As an enabler, we expect lots of entrepreneurial activities to happen to enable activities and services like this, and some of them we dissipate like smart centers and smart buildings, which will come from very creative entrepreneurs and Qataris are promoting this,” he said.
In the pipeline for Vodafone Qatar, he accentuated that “We have our aspirations to play an active role in enabling digital transformation, primarily for SMEs or even for large applications capitalising on the deep technical know-how that we have.”
“We also have access to a big ecosystem of technology partners who can partner with us and offer a joint offer for SMEs or a larger organisation or government entity,” Boctor added.