Page 42 - SAMENA Trends - December 2020

REGIONAL & MEMBERS UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Oman’s Innovation System Adjudged Best in Arab World

An innovation system aimed at students of higher education entrepreneurial ideas and registering innovation requests.
institutions in Oman has won the award for the best Arab Oman’s innovation system has also ensured sustainability by
government project for the development of education in the first training more than 3,000 specialists and holding 100 workshops.
edition of the Arab Government Excellence Award. Held under the Additionally, there are innovation units that have been established
supervision of the Arab Administrative Development Organization, in technical colleges with the provision of the required resources
a non-profit entity affiliated with the League of Arab States, over and big data. With this, the culture of innovation has now spread
5,000 government applications from several Arab countries vied to over 15 colleges and 45,000 students.
for the award. Oman’s innovation system aims to support and
encourage innovators to use technology, provide them incentives,
protect their intellectual property rights and help them find
supportive bodies to establish new startups that add value to the
national economy. The innovation system, which was launched by
the Ministry of Manpower (formerly), aims to support the higher
education sector - namely the technical and vocational colleges
- through an open data portal linked to the sultanate’s digital
transformation strategies and its National Innovation Strategy.
The portal has been designed to provide services to beneficiaries
currently numbering 174,000. The services include an innovation
acceleration program, innovation lab and a registration
service aimed at enhancing students' participation with their

Telenor Launches Easypaisa QR Payments Service in Pakistan

Pakistan financial services provider Telenor local market. Easypaisa QR code facility App, tap on the QR scan to initiate
Microfinance Bank, which operates the digital service users will be able to make payments the scanner, scan the code, enter
payments platform Easypaisa, has launched using their smartphones. To use the service, the amount of the bill, tap on ‘next’,
the Easypaisa QR payments service on the customers should log in to their Easypaisa check their payment details, and tap
on pay now. Easypaisa also reports
that, during the COVID-19 pandemic,
more than 12,000 QR merchants
have been on boarded on the digital
payments platform to provide QR
payment options to customers. In
addition, under a current promotional
campaign, Easypaisa customers can
perform QR transactions of PKR 100
or more using the QR payment feature,
to participate in lucky draw after which
4 customers will win a smartphone
while one winner will receive a heavy
bike.

5G Mobile Subscriptions to Reach 130 Million in MENA by 2026

A report by Ericsson Mobile Services expects the number of 5G especially in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC). Fady
subscriptions to reach 130m in the Middle East and North Africa Pharaon, President of Ericsson Middle East and Africa, said during
(MENA) region by 2026, which represents 15% of the total mobile a virtual conference, on Monday, that the MENA region is expected
subscriptions. The commercial deployment of 5G technology to witness the highest growth rate in the monthly use of mobile
began in the region in 2019 and 2020, with subscriptions to the data services over the next five years. This will lead to a 7-fold
new technology expected to reach nearly 1.4m by the end of 2020, increase in the total traffic of data between 2020 and 2026.

42 DECEMBER 2020