The panel focused on 5G Advanced, 6G, metaverse, digital inclusion and the chips of the future.
The panel’s moderator was Rana Sanyoura, partner, MENA strategy and transactions TMT Leader, EY, and the panelists included John Omo, secretary general, African Telecommunications Union; Jan Michael Holzberg, commercial director, Vodafone Oman; Alex Chace, senior director, APTelecom; Azam Beyk, MSc, MIET, principal consultant, B-Yond; Adnan Kashwani, sr. director, cloud CoE/technology & IT, Etisalat by e&; and Tamer Bdran, managing director, NECGCC.
John Omo launched the discussion on the policy and regulation that are key drivers because of the decisions taken in the ICT industry: “technology will always outpace regulation.” On this note, Adnan Kashwani said that the place of policy development and regulation is very important, noting, “We need to do regulations that are good enough to start, and then they can mature over time.”
Joining the discussion, Jan Holzberg said that Vodafone has now started to lead initiatives around social broadband, where “those in need get up to a year for free.”
In his opinion, Tamer Bdran noted, “When we have an open interface, we open the door for the entrepreneur.”
Kashwani added that the pandemic time showed the importance of strong infrastructure because those with strong infrastructure continued with education. Beyk also mentioned thoughts on trust. “Once we start building trust, we start hiring champions of machine learning…We have to come up with innovation, not only on the technology side but also in terms of monetization,” he added.
In conclusion, Alex Chace shed light on the importance of the submarine cables topic, saying, “The metaverse is healthcare, it’s economies, it’s monetary transactions, all running on submarine cables.”