Ghassan Kosta, Qatar Country Manager, Google Cloud
Doha, Qatar: Positioning itself as a digital transformative hub, Qatar is propelling towards modern technology and innovative country. With the recent launch of Google Cloud in Qatar, the country is moving toward sustainable development in the region.
Speaking to The Peninsula, Google Executives affirmed that Qatar will receive every support from Google to diversify and transform into a technology hub.
Ghassan Kosta, Qatar Country Manager at Google Cloud said: “As part of the Qatar National Vision 2030, we have witnessed how Qatar is working forward to diversify and transform its economy by deploying more and more tech and innovation for the benefit of the citizens. That’s why this is something that we are so interested in and were putting more effort to be able to support Qatar in their digital transformation and digital economy that they are looking forward to.”
Kosta continued by saying that “This is a key aspect of where we hand-to-hand works with the governments and also with the regulators. We can proudly also say that when it comes to Qatar the cloud policies are friendly cloud policies and also open and helps hyperscalers to come and invest in Qatar.”
During the launching ceremony held last week, officials confirmed that the regional operations of Google Cloud will open doors for a plethora of job opportunities. However, outlining the computing platform obstacles, Tarek Khalil, Director, Middle East & North Africa, Google Cloud said that “We always face challenges but again once we come and are successful in launching and driving transformation is key to us.”
Tarek Khalil, Director, Middle East & North Africa, Google Cloud
He mentioned that “Part of the challenge is the shortage of skillsets we have in this region. Because we work with governments to solve this data requirement by being compliant in every country we come to invest in. But again what remains is the shortage in skillsets. So for that, we are also investing in infrastructure set but also having the capacity to build initiatives within every country. We have trained in Qatar close to 4,200 participants, which is part of our learning program. This will help them equip themselves and move forward or take forward. This will also help them build careers for new jobs in the market that are opening up.”
The official elucidates that with innovative and structural measures being implemented, Qatar will attain its goal of a digitally-advanced country promptly. “We are trying to make local meet globally by bringing our ecosystem into the country. This will help us fast track the innovation and digital transformation journeys, which we all aspire to reach and our job is to help organisations and businesses in the Middle East and Qatar transform leveraging all scales and capabilities that we are bringing or investing,” Khalil said.
He added “If you look at the region, we have a lot of customers that are open cloud services globally so this is the first region we launched in Doha and it’s gonna drive local demand, and local adoption but regional as well. We have a lot of clients using regions globally and it’s their freedom of choice because it is a globally connected network.”
