23 minute read
NEWS
ETIHAD SELECTS KYNDRYL TO DRIVE THE NEXT PHASE OF ITS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
UAE’s national airline Etihad Airways and IT infrastructure services provider Kyndryl have announced a multiyear agreement to help accelerate the next stage of its digital transformation journey. Kyndryl will help Etihad modernise its IT infrastructure by facilitating the use of best-in-breed cloud platforms.
Advertisement
Innovation and technology have been instrumental to Etihad’s agility to adapt within the aviation industry and enhance its world-renowned guest experience. Previously, the airline has relied on a private cloud infrastructure – but to achieve further flexibility, it needed to adopt a cloud strategy that integrates various public cloud environments to support its workloads.
Accordingly, Etihad will tap Kyndryl to work closely with leading cloud providers to select fit-for-purpose cloud platforms that are based on the specific requirements of Etihad’s missioncritical workloads. Over the next three years, Kyndryl will also help migrate and manage Etihad’s workloads across the new multi-cloud environment.
Through a multi-cloud model, Etihad will have seamless access to advanced cloud services and be able to combine the capabilities that each cloud platform provides. This will enable more efficient operations and bringing innovation to market at a more rapid pace.
“As Etihad continues to evolve, its ability to push the boundaries of innovation and digitalisation within the aviation industry is necessary to create the next generation travel experience. The airline looks forward to working with Kyndryl as their expertise in cloud environments will support Etihad in becoming a more agile and sustainable airline,” said Frank Meyer, Chief Digital Officer, Etihad.
“Etihad is long known for embedding innovation into every aspect of its operations and continuously transforming to better serve its employees and guests,” said Vickram Nagi, Managing Director, Kyndryl Middle East, Africa and Turkey. “We are proud to have been selected by Etihad to help facilitate the next phase of its digital transformation through the use of best-in-breed cloud platforms. This collaboration reaffirms our commitment to support mission-critical technology systems the world depends on every day and to forge strong relationships with leading technology innovators to serve our customers better.”
Kyndryl and Etihad signed the strategic agreement in November 2021.
NEWLY UNVEILED ‘HELP AG AS A SERVICE’ OFFERS COMPREHENSIVE CYBERSECURITY
Help AG, the cybersecurity arm of Etisalat Digital and the region’s trusted security advisor, has launched “Help AG as a Service,” a service-centric model that provides comprehensive cybersecurity offerings that customers can avail
“as a service” based on state-of-theart platforms and tools.
Help AG as a Service is the culmination of the company’s transition from technology delivery to a service-centric model, which has placed it in the best position to offer the entire lifecycle, from
‘Assess’ to ‘Defend’ to ‘Respond,’ as a service to customers.
All services delivered by Help AG are fully compliant with regional and country specific data regulations, and the company ensures that it has expertise and infrastructure available on the ground. Help AG follows the concept of ‘think global, act local,’ aiming to give customers all the benefits of the most advanced global technologies, while fully provisioning them with local expertise.
Stephan Berner, Chief Executive Officer at Help AG, said, “Help AG has been one of the region’s most experienced and trusted cybersecurity partners for more
Stephan Berner, Help AG
than 16 years, and with the launch of Help AG as a Service, we are truly cementing our place as a pioneer in the regional cybersecurity industry. The future of cybersecurity will be service-led, and Help AG is at the helm of this evolution.”
Under Help AG as a Service, customers also enjoy SLAbased offerings; cybersecurity expertise on demand, wherein Help AG’s experts work as an extension of the customer’s team; and elastic capacity based on the customer’s needs.
The company has differentiated itself by providing in-country, compliant security infrastructure; capability and agility in the cloud; optimisation-driven service delivery; in-house digital forensics and incident response; automated threat hunting and cyber threat intelligence under its Security Operations Center (SOC) services; and a dedicated team of security researchers with 110+ zero-day findings to its credit, among other factors that add unmatched value for end customers.
AVEVA ANNOUNCES VISION AI ASSISTANT
Industrial software firm AVEVA has launched Vision AI Assistant 2021 – an image classificationbased analytics tool. The artificial intelligence (AI) solution, which can be integrated into AVEVA System Platform and Operations Management Interface and AVEVA Insight, enables customers to use video and images from existing general-purpose cameras and convert them into user-friendly information and timely alerts.
Designed for low latency industrial environments, Vision AI Assistant leverages deep learning to train and deploy 24×7 artificial intelligence models to enhance situational awareness to help operators focus on the task at hand without continuously monitoring
Jim Chappell, AVEVA
live camera feeds.
Vision AI Assistant enables organisations to improve operations, quality, and maintenance capabilities across industrial enterprises by using cameras to determine visual anomalies, assess quality, and vigorously monitor production, optimising efficiencies and improving sustainability in the process.
Kenneth Labhart, Innovation Leader, Global Supply Chain North America, Schneider Electric said, “AVEVA’s Vision AI is monitoring and analysing the 1.5 km main drive chain for our Lexington, Kentucky, smart factory which manufactures electric breaker panels. If that chain goes down, our entire factory comes to a halt, which typically happens a few times per year.”
Jim Chappell, Global Head of AI and Advanced Analytics at AVEVA said, “This breakthrough technology represents a game changer that transforms factory operations through the power of AI. The Vision AI Assistant enables enhanced process optimisation, thereby reducing time, wastage, and costs. Cameras can also be used in areas that are not suitable for humans for security or safety concerns, freeing up workers to focus on highvalue tasks instead of continuously monitoring live camera feeds.”
ARUBA ANNOUNCES SD-WAN SUPPORT AND INTEGRATION WITH AWS CLOUD WAN
David Hughes, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, has announced Aruba SD-WAN support and integration with Amazon Web Services’s (AWS) new AWS Cloud WAN, a cloud networking service introduced at AWS re:Invent.
This new solution will enable Aruba customers to use the policy-based framework of AWS Cloud WAN to create advanced WAN topologies with integrated network segmentation that aligns seamlessly with the Aruba SDWAN fabric. Now, all the advantages of network segmentation at the edge – in the LAN and WAN – can be extended from headquarters and branches across the AWS cloud.
With this latest development, Aruba now supports the widest range of integrations with AWS, making Aruba SD-WAN the cloud onramp of choice for cloud-first enterprises. This year’s re:Invent marks the third year in a row that Aruba has been a launch affiliate for new AWS network services. In 2020, Aruba announced support for AWS Transit Gateway Connect and in 2019, Aruba launched API-based automationwith AWS Transit Gateway Network Manager.
“This latest integration with AWS Cloud WAN changes the game for enterprises looking to maximise flexibility and reduce operational complexity while strengthening security posture within their cloudcentric WAN deployments,” said David Hughes, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.
“Integrations like these play an important role within Aruba ESP by enabling edge-to-cloud security for organisations as they adopt a Zero Trust SASE approach, while maximising choice and flexibility as they implement their cloud strategy.”
Aruba’s SD-WAN solutions, an integral part of Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), provide enterprises with a sophisticated, flexible on-ramp to AWS network services, allowing users to easily integrate their SD-WAN with a wide range of hybrid and multi-cloud services.
Don MacLennan, Barracuda Networks
Barracuda Networks has announced three new Email Protection plans which scale to meet customers’ evolving threat protection needs. The firm’s comprehensive solutions combine gateway and API-based AI technology to detect and remediate threats and reduce the risk that a malicious attack succeeds by immediately and automatically eliminating the user’s ability to view or launch flagged emails.
“The threat landscape has evolved and, coupled with the gap in security professional talent facing most businesses, protecting against these threats is extremely complex. Barracuda Email Protection offers customers complete protection by combining gateway defense, APIbased inbox defense, incident response, data protection, and user security awareness capabilities,” said Don MacLennan, SVP, Engineering & Product Management, Email Protection, Barracuda Networks.
“Barracuda was the first to bring an ‘API approach’ to impersonation and phishing protection — leveraging AI and machine learning. Today, we continue to lead with our unique combination of gateway and API-based AI technology to detect and remediate email threats in real time for Office 365 customers.”
Recent attacks have shown that Office 365 native security alone has gaps and that third-party solutions are required to ensure customers are fully protected.
With Barracuda, customers receive an integrated and validated suite of capabilities to protect their people and business which includes: • Threatprevention: Prevent attacks from getting through by combining email-gateway defenses, API-based inbox defense, and web security.
• Post-delivery detection and
response:Identify and limit the impact of any threats that reach users with automated response and user security awareness training. • Data protection:Ensure compliance and stay productive during downtime. Back up important Office 365 email and data to recover easily from malware attacks or lost data. • Automated workflows:Easily create custom workflows to completely automate incident response.
• SIEM/SOAR/XDR integrations:
Public-facing APIs for integrating with third-party platforms to enable seamless and consistent response to security events.
GARTNER: 50% OF THE TOP 10 AUTOMOTIVE OEMS TO DESIGN OWN CHIPS BY 2025
By 2025, chip shortages and trends such as electrification and autonomy will drive 50% of the top 10 automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to design their own chips, according to Gartner, Inc. As a result, it will give them control over their product roadmap and supply chains.
“Automotive semiconductor supply chains are complex,” said Gaurav Gupta, research vice president at Gartner. “In most cases, chip makers are traditionally Tier 3 or Tier 4 suppliers to automakers, which means it usually takes a while until they adapt to the changes affecting automotive market demand. This lack of visibility in the supply chain has increased automotive OEMs desire to have greater control over their semiconductor supply.”
In addition, the on-going chip shortage is primarily with mature semiconductor technology node devices that are fabricated on smaller 8-inch wafers, where capacity expansion is difficult. “The fact that the automotive industry has been conservative in qualifying older devices on larger wafer sizes has also hurt them and will likely motivate them to take chip design in-house,” said Gupta.
This model of bringing chip design in-house, or popularly known as ‘OEM-Foundry-Direct’, isn’t unique to the automotive industry and will intensify among tech companies as some changes are happening in the semiconductor market. Semiconductor chip foundries, such as TSMC and Samsung, have provided access to cutting-edge manufacturing processes, and other semiconductor vendors have given access to advanced intellectual property that makes custom chip design relatively easy.
Gartner also predicts that by 2025, the average sale price of new vehicles will exceed $50,000 in the U.S. and Germany, leading to greater repair and upfit of older vehicles.
ORACLE ANNOUNCES NEW AI SERVICES FOR OCI recognition and document analysis
Oracle has announced availability of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) AI services, a collection of services that make it easier for developers to apply AI services to their applications without requiring data science expertise. The new OCI AI services give developers the choice of leveraging out-of-thebox models that have been pretrained on business-oriented data or custom training the services based on their organisation’s own data. The six new services help developers with a range of complex tasks from language to computer vision, and time-series forecasts.
The new fully managed AI services include:
OCI Language: Performs text analysis at scale to understand unstructured text in documents, customer feedback interactions, support tickets, and social media. With built-in pre-trained models, OCI Language eliminates the need for machine learning expertise and empowers developers to apply sentiment analysis, key-phrase extraction, text classification, named entity recognition, and more into their applications.
OCI Speech: Provides automatic speech recognition through prebuilt models trained on thousands of native and non-native language speakers for real-time speech recognition. OCI speech enables developers to easily convert file-based audio data containing human speech into highly accurate text transcriptions and can be used to provide in-workflow closed captions, index content, and enhance analytics on audio and video content.
OCI Vision: Provides pre-trained computer vision models for image tasks. It also enables users to extend the models to other industry and customer-specific use cases such as scene monitoring, defect detection, and document processing with their own data. OCI Vision can be used to detect visual anomalies in manufacturing, extract text from forms to automate business workflows, and tag items in images to count products or shipments.
OCI Anomaly Detection: Delivers business-specific anomaly detection models that flag critical irregularities early, which enables faster resolution and less operational disruption. OCI Anomaly Detection provides REST APIs and SDKs for several programming languages, which developers can use to easily integrate anomaly detection models into business applications. It is built on the patented MSET2 algorithm, which is used worldwide in highly sensitive situations like nuclear reactor health monitoring, and can be used for fraud detection, predicting equipment breakdown, and receiving data from multiple devices to predict failures.
STC, NOZOMI NETWORKS TO DELIVER CYBERSECURITY SOLUTIONS IN SAUDI ARABIA
Nozomi Networks has announced that it has partnered with stc Group to address the growing demand for security services and solutions designed to holistically address IoT and OT cybersecurity requirements for customers in industrial automation, manufacturing, healthcare, public safety systems, smart cities, utilities and building management systems (BMS) industries across the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia.
stc Group will offer Nozomi Networks’ advanced solutions for OT/IoT cyber resiliency and real-time network monitoring and visibility.
“Cybersecurity is one of stc’s main focuses. This partnership supports stc’s continued pursuit of delivering data and AI-driven, purpose-built IoT and OT solutions for clients across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” said Saud AlSheraihi VP of Products and Solutions in stc.
Nozomi Networks solutions are available through stc for clients who need deep insight into their industrial networks. With Nozomi Networks, they gain asset discovery, network visualisation, vulnerability assessment, risk monitoring and threat detection in a single solution. The technology accelerates security and simplifies IT/OT convergence by delivering actionable intelligence to the business and operational decision makers.
“stc has created sirar by stc, the cybersecurity arm of stc, to be able to enrich the private sector’s capabilities by helping clients navigate the evolving cyber security landscape, while pursuing our mission of providing intelligence about their industrial systems and empowering them to make the ‘right’ decisions at the ‘right’ time to optimise their business operations. Collaborating with Nozomi Networks is one step further in this direction,” said Fahad Aljutaily, CEO of sirar by stc.
CYBEREASON ANNOUNCES AI-DRIVEN XDR PLATFORM
Lior Div, Cybereason
Cybereason and Google Cloud have announced the availability of Cybereason XDR powered by Google Chronicle, giving defenders the ability to predict, detect, and respond to cyberattacks at planetary scale and maximum speed across the enterprise, including endpoints, networks, identities, cloud, and workspaces.
“Together Cybereason and Google Cloud are delivering the industry’s first true XDR platform. Other vendors have simply done an endpoint extension and called it XDR. That’s not good enough. Defenders need to secure the entire continuum of how work gets done,” said Cybereason CEO and co-founder Lior Div.
“Our AI-Driven XDR platform paints one unified story of an attack and it takes one coordinated set of actions to end attacks while predicting and preventing tomorrow’s threats.”
In today’s environments, anything connected to the internet can be part of an organisational attack surface, yet defenders are forced to use multiple siloed solutions to try to find and end these complex malicious operations. Now, defenders can leverage Cybereason AI-Driven XDR to predict, understand, and end sophisticated attacks with the only solution on the market that delivers:
• Planetary-Scale Protection:
Cybereason AI-Driven XDR combines the Cybereason MalOp, which analyses over 23 trillion security events per week to deliver instant detection and incident response, with Google Cloud Chronicle’s unrivaled ability to ingest and normalise petabytes of data from the entire IT environment for planetaryscale protection.
• Operation-Centric Detection and
Response: Instead of being alerted about individual events, users can instantly understand the entire attack progression across every device, user identity, application and cloud deployment to end them immediately. The Cybereason MalOp provides automated and guided response actions to reduce human error, upskill analysts, and achieve a 10x faster time to response than competing solutions. Chronicle also allows analysts to map incident intelligence to retrospective data to find persistent threats across their environments.
• Predict Attacker Behavior:
Defenders can shift from a laborintensive, alert-centric posture to a predictive operation-centric model. Through context-rich correlations, Cybereason AI-Driven XDR identifies subtle signs of malicious behavior and predicts an attacker’s next steps to anticipate and proactively block attacks.
SonicWall has announced the latest additions of its Generation 7 cybersecurity evolution, the largest in the company’s 30-year history. Driven by this innovation, SonicWall unifies cloud, virtual and hardware offerings across a single and fully integrated cloudpowered platform.
SonicWall’s achievement is marked by the introduction of three new high-performance firewall models — NSa 5700, NSsp 10700 and NSsp 11700 — designed to protect the largest and most complex enterprises, government agencies and MSSPs from advanced cyberattacks, including ransomware and never-before-seen malware, without sacrificing network performance.
“More than two years ago, SonicWall set out to evolve its cybersecurity portfolio to meet the diverse needs of our customers and partners across a variety of complex on-premises, hybrid cloud and multicloud environments,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner.
“As a sign of that commitment, we’re proud to announce the completion of a unified foundation that helps protect our customers with more simplicity, flexibility and cost-effectiveness than ever before. As always, our mission remains protecting our loyal users, organizations and data, no matter the environment. This is the next phase of many in exceeding those objectives.”
The company’s advanced collection of 17 virtual and physical firewall offerings on the Generation 7 platform ensure that organisations of any size — in any industry — are all able to implement SonicWall’s Boundless Cybersecurity model.
SonicWall’s entire line of TZ, NSa, NSsp and NSv (virtual) firewalls can be quickly managed by the cloud-native Network Security Manager (NSM), which gives distributed enterprises a single, easy-to-use cloud interface for streamlined management, analytics and reporting.
The new SonicWall NSsp 10700 and NSsp 11700 firewalls are designed to protect enterprise-class networks — as well as provide more powerful options for MSSPs — by delivering up to four times the threat protection of previousgeneration SonicWall offerings. This includes high marks for firewall throughout (42 Gbps for the 10700, 47 Gbps for the 11700), threat throughput (27, 35 Gbps), IPS (28, 37 Gbps) and VPN performance (23, 27 Gbps).
The NSsp 10700 and NSsp 11700 both offer 100G, 25G and 10G connectivity, delivering multi-gigabit threat protection for large environments. These higher port densities, coupled with hardware redundancy and high availability, allow distributed enterprises and large government agencies to purchase fewer appliances while supporting more secure connections as their networks grow.
With the addition of the new NSsp models, SonicWall now offers four government- and enterprise-grade firewalls: NSsp 10700, 11700, 13700 and 15700. This variety gives large organisations choice when scaling high-performance security — up to 105 Gbps of firewall throughput on the NSsp 15700 — for even the most demanding and complex environments.
To help mid-range businesses and organisations manage total cost of ownership (TCO) during challenging times, SonicWall also announces the new NSa 5700, the final addition to the company’s Generation 7 evolution.
Similar to the new NSsp offerings, the new NSa 5700 accelerates secure network performance with new standards in firewall throughput (28 Gbps) and threat prevention throughput (15 Gbps) — more than four times the previous comparable SonicWall appliances. This improvement is complemented by similar increases in IPS (17 Gbps) and VPN (15 Gbps) speeds.
ACCELERATING INNOVATION
DR. MOHAMED BAKA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR APPLIED RESEARCH AND TRAINING (CERT) GIVES A LOWDOWN ON THE ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) LANDSCAPE AND HOW THE ORGANISATION BRIDGES THE GAP IN AI KNOWLEDGE AND AI TALENT IN THE REGION.
Can you please give a brief background of CERT?
The Centre of Excellence for Applied Research and Training (CERT) is the commercial and research arm of the Higher Colleges of Technology, the largest federal higher education institution in the UAE. We have been at the forefront of national development, through technology and life-long learning solutions that deliver value for leading organisations in the UAE and the region. Our programmes combine immersive and impactful delivery methodologies with a focus on practical, industry-oriented development and career success. CERT and its subsidiaries, CERT Soft and CERT Telematics, are market leaders and innovators in the technology sector. We are uniquely positioned at the intersection of academia, industry, and government, offering integrated solutions that contribute to industry competitiveness and government excellence.
What makes CERT’s AI Academy unique?
The AI Academy is a priority initiative of CERT in line with the UAE government’s strategic vision of digital transformation. Our mission is to bridge the gap in AI knowledge and AI talent, by preparing the national workforce for the jobs and innovations of the future. We offer a holistic, 360-degree approach to capacity development for AI adoption, with five programmes: Talent Acceleration, Knowledge Transfer, Enterprise Technology Integration, AI Start-up Incubation, and Programmes for Young Digital Thinkers.
The applied nature of the AI Academy and our focus on the unity of human capital and technology makes us unique. We work with organisations to develop roadmaps for successful integration of AIpowered solutions in the government and private sector, to enhance performance and improve the impact of services to the UAE constituencies. We achieve this, by combining our experience in human capital development with the expertise of partners who are in the cutting-edge technology space. The Academy is proud to have the participation of top researchers, policymakers, and thought leaders in the field of AI in our Board of Advisors. Our faculty and subject-matter experts have practical experience in the implementation of AI solutions in the UAE, the Arab region, and global markets.
What are the key offerings of the AI academy?
In the design of the AI Academy, we sought input from industry partners, academia and government. Our scanning of the market revealed that the implementation of AI solutions at the enterprise or government level relies on a need to build AI awareness, bridge the skill gap, and connect business and technical teams through reskilling programmes.
With this in mind, our Talent Acceleration programmes support the capacity development of technical and non-technical teams. Our AI Foundations programmes for all audiences promote awareness of the impact of digital technologies and AI in the workplace. Our Accelerators in Data Science, AI Ethics, and Data Analytics are project-based training aimed at
Dr. Mohamed Baka
supporting Implementers, Sustainers, and Business Users, in the identification of business problems that require AI solutions. For technical teams of Developers and Trainers, responsible for deploying ML models and AI solutions we offer Professional Certifications and Qualifications. Lastly, our AI Leadership programmes for Executives and Decision Makers, focus on the formulation of a vision for this transformation. These programmes are complemented by consultancy services to provide our customers with cognitive technologies insights and roadmaps for success in their digital transformation.
Why is there a need for AI talents and skills in the UAE?
The Global AI market size in 2020 reached $35.92B and is projected to increase to $360b by 2028, according to a report by Fortune Business Insights. A PwC Middle East report estimates that the Middle East is expected to accrue 2% of the total global benefits of AI in 2030, which is equivalent to $320 billion. This optimistic scenario signals the growing number of organisations in the Middle East that understand the potential benefits of AI.
We are actively working with our partner Global Association for Research Methods in Data Science (GRMDS), in a certification system that evaluates and certifies data scientists at various levels, based on their educational background, skills, and practical experience. The purpose of this certification system is to propel the proficiency and employability of these professionals across industries.
Committed as we are to technology innovation and capital development, the Academy focuses on supporting organisations to build their internal capabilities, increase their awareness of the benefits of AI, and formulate use cases that bring value to their internal and external stakeholders.
Do you see AI use cases going beyond automation in the country?
Definitely. Robotic automation has been quite a common and visible type of application of AI. The Ministry of Health, for instance has been using robotic assistance in cardiac surgeries since 2014 and currently using ML models to diagnose diseases such as TB. Dubai Police launched its robot police officer in 2017 and is now using Oyoon, an AIenabled security surveillance programme to optimise response time.
In Abu Dhabi, there is a concerted effort to achieve a strategic agenda for e-government and smart cities, including smart infrastructure as a test-bed for innovation, big data analytics, and e-government. To cite some examples of AI use cases, entities like the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA) are using AI in smart inspections and disease detection; the Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT) is applying AI to improve the efficiency of services to individuals and corporations.
How are you working with the UAE government in terms of enabling local AI talents?
We work with government entities in a synergic manner, to create a pipeline of digital talent, attract and place this talent, and improve its retention in technical, non-technical, and managerial roles. Our collaboration with academic and professional learning partners allows us to formulate competency frameworks and educational pathways for AI and digital professions and occupations.
We design our programmes to address the needs of talent requiring retraining and upskilling for mid-career transition. Many IT professionals in entry-level or managerial positions, who have strong skills in software engineering or systems administration, seek to make their cross-over to supporting Data Science projects. The Government and Enterprise Accelerator Programme focuses on this purpose. We work at the enterprise level with groups of 5-10 team members, in a combination of masterclasses, coaching, and applied case studies, specific to their organisation.
Where do you see the AI landscape in the UAE in next couple of years? What role will CERT play in ensuring that this market segment thrives?
The UAE is ranked as the top nation
for the creation of an ‘innovationconducive environment’, according to 2020 GE Global Innovation Barometer, conducted across 22 countries. Amid the pandemic, the UAE demonstrated how to use AI optimally in public health services, to protect its residents and citizens. The success in the application of AI in healthcare can act as a catalyst for industries in all sectors to propel their uptake of AI.
Priority areas to stimulate AI adoption in the UAE and the region may include, among others the following: (1) Improve the awareness and understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and risks of AI. This should best position organisational leaders to identify the need for skills or infrastructure to execute their AI strategy. (2) Incentivise collaboration between industry and academia, for applied research with a localised view. This localisation is essential for the deployment of AI solutions that are relevant to the region. (3) Expand opportunities for AI Skill development programmes, that respond to the reality of the countries in the region, while aligned to global practices. (4) Educate in the fair use of AI and technology solutions in general, in line with standards and governance practices at the global and local levels.
Our Knowledge Transfer programme in the AI Academy promotes this dialogical connection between industry, government, and academia in the above-mentioned aspects. Through webinars and round tables, we bring the key actors together to discuss the way forward in this journey to AI adoption. Engagement and cooperation are the essential elements in this national goal of leading in the AI sphere.
