In collaboration with Qatar Rail, the NPRP SupplyLedger project’s team, led by Prof. Abdelaziz Bouras from CSE, organized an Industrial Stakeholders Workshop at Qatar Rail headquarters. The workshop focused on the impact of Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Fintech, and other disruptive technologies impacting the industry and business sectors.

Welcoming speech was delivered by Dr. Khalid Kamal Naji, Dean of CENG at QU in the presence of H.E. Dr. Abdulla Bin Abdulaziz Turki Al Subaie, Minister of Municipality MD & CEO of Qatar Rail who inaugurated the event.

The workshop witnessed the presence of executives from large-scale organizations such as Dr. Mohammed Yousef Al-Mulla, Managing Director and CEO of Qatar Petrochemical Company “QAPCO”, and Eng. Ahmed AL Ansari, Senior Advisor for engineering management of Public Works Authority “Ashghal”. A keynote speech was delivered by Prof. Abdelaziz Bouras highlighting the current Industry 4.0 challenges and requirements from the research perspective, to better integrate those disruptive technologies.

Panel Discussion session gathering experts from industry (Mr. Basil Ayass, Education & Healthcare Lead at Google Cloud, Dr. Guillaume Alinier, Director of Research at Hamad Medical Corporation, and Mr. Mansour Al-Mahmoud, Head of Business Products at Qatar Energy) as well as from academia (Dr. Lotfi Belkhir, Chair of eco-entrepreneurship at McMaster University in Ontario/Canada) took place right after in a hybrid mode, and was followed by a large online audience. The panel addressed important questions and issues, such as “How is digital transformation taking place in your sector?”, “The specific technologies that are disrupting your sector”, “What are the challenges your sector is probably facing?”, “Is there any development or initiative in Qatar related to regulation with regards to disruptive technologies?”, “Which new competencies/skills/abilities are needed?”, and “how to fulfil them in the local context?”. Feedback was also given from the participants on the use of some of the current disruptive technologies (AI, Blockchains, 5G).

Project Investigators from the SupplyLedger project, Dr. Ibrahim Khalil from RMIT (Melbourne) and Prof. Belaid Aouni from QU College of Business, contributed to the discussions and highlighted the advancement of the project from the Blockchain implementation perspective.

The event was concluded by answering some selected questions queried by the audience. For more details, please visit https://www.supplyledger.qa/events/.