PEF hosts seminar on current, future technologies in Qatar
Pakistan Engineers Forum (PEF) Qatar, in co-ordination with Cytellect Community (a forum for cyber intellectuals), organised a seminar for engineers and technology professionals at the auditorium of TNG School Secondary Campus, Al Wakra. The theme was to discuss current and future technology trends in Qatar and the region in relevance to the FIFA World Cup 2022.
The seminar commenced with the recitation of the Holy Qur’an by Shaheer Bakali, cofounder of Cytellect. National anthems of Qatar and Pakistan were played. PEF member Fahad Ismail moderated the event. Ahmad Javaid, founder of Cytellect, explained it is a noncommercial, non-religious, and non-political knowledge-sharing community. The prime focus is on the CxOs to nurture fresh talent and train juniors to be able to contribute to the community to reduce the technology talent deficit in the region.
Imran Chowdhury, global head of Digital Privacy from Al Jazeera, presented the importance of preventive measures to protect sensitive information from privacy breaches. He elaborated on the principles and accountabilities for digital privacy management systems and elaborated on the key components of effective privacy measures such as consent management, data subject rights, and the lawful basis for processing Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
Dr Mohamed Ali Malik, head of Information Security Assurance from the Media Industry, presented the personality traits of a cyber leader. He emphasised the need for leaders to have a stronger understanding of business as compared to the underlying technology infrastructure in order to effectively protect the business’s critical assets from cyber breaches. He felt cyber leaders should hold the mindset of cyber resilience and be an enabler to the business. He called for cyber leaders to improvise their competency level to be able to mitigate the risks of emerging technologies.
A discussion, moderated by Noor Hassan, cofounder of Cytellect, had as panellists Chowdhury, Ishtiaque Hussain (CEO, UTI Cybersecurity, Cloud and IT), Javaid and Farhan Khan (vice president, Global Sales & Business Development). They highlighted how technology has evolved right from the industrial revolution era when the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, Continental Europe, and the US took place.
Significant technological developments such as steam power, mechanisation, integrated circuits, and electronics that took place up to the Information Age. The panellists informed that by 2025, as many as 100bn devices would be connected to the Internet — 15 times more than the Earth’s human population. Therefore, technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, Cloud Computing/ Security & Cybersecurity are to be foreseen to evolve rapidly in the future.
The panellists then touched upon how technology was an integral component in preparations for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. The panellists also dwelt on the implementation of a semi-automated referee offside technology feature, involving 12 cameras installed on the football fields operating at 50 frames per second monitoring every player in real-time. Therefore, any foul would immediately be captured with the help of this technology in place.
They highlighted technologies such as cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Internet of Things and drone technology and pointed out the skillset deficit being encountered in them. The emphasis was on upgrading one’s profile from traditional roles such as a system specialist or a network engineer to the latest in-demand roles including threat intelligence specialist and AI implementer among others.
The panel discussion was concluded by Noor Hassan highlighting the final takeaways. Abdul Khalid, from the Pakistan embassy, appreciated the efforts of PEF and Cytellect and emphasised the need to have more efforts in grooming future leaders in the technology field.
PEF president Riyaz Bakali thanked the guest speakers and participants. He appreciated the efforts of the team to organise the seminar and the valuable insights that experts shared during the presentation and panel discussion. The event concluded with an award-giving ceremony.