Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 27 | Page 17

NEWS Middle East students win awards at 2017 ICT Skill Competition Final in China T hirteen teams of students from across the Middle East have won prizes at Huawei’s International ICT Skill Competition finals. The winners were selected following a gruelling five months of qualifying rounds that saw participation from 10 countries in the Middle East. Their prizes were awarded at the ICT Talent Cultivation and Award Ceremony in Shenzhen. Launched in August 2017 and in partnership with 14 government ministries, the Huawei Middle East ICT Skill Competition was successful in its mission to unearth and cultivate the region’s finest ICT talent, bringing together more than 10,285 students from 121 educational institutions. The 13 finalist teams had a unique opportunity to learn from Huawei’s leading global ICT on an all-expense paid trip to Huawei’s headquarters in China. The first prize went to a team from Lebanon, the second prize to two teams from Pakistan, while the third prize went to three teams from Bahrain, Jordan and Oman. The remaining seven teams won the excellence prize to award them for their successful participation. All participants underwent highly selective examinations at national level. Participants tackled some of the industry’s most complex challenges relating to cloud computing, switching, routing and other key ICT technologies relating to digital transformation. ///////////////// SAP works with petrochemical company EQUATE to support Kuwait’s growth goals E QUATE Group, a global producer of petrochemicals, has announced the next phase of its partnership with digital transformation enabler SAP, in an effort to drive the company’s global business growth and support the New Kuwait 2035 vision’s economic diversification goals. In the highly-competitive petrochemicals industry, 94% of executives expect to increase investment in digital capabilities over the next three years, according to a recent report by Accenture. Thanks to its longstanding partnership with SAP, EQUATE has full business visibility and real-time operational analytics. Business applications run on the SAP HANA in-memory platform for more than 2,000 employees. Now, EQUATE will move its applications to the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, a scalable and standardised cloud platform. By using a cloud- based opex model, EQUATE can optimise www.intelligentcio.com Faisal Malallah, IT Leader, Equate Petrochemicals (left) and Steve Tzikakis, President of Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) South, SAP (right) costs, scale up to meet future business needs and drive innovative business models. “For this initiative, we drew up three goals: Enhance productivity, rapidly enter new markets and support sustainable growth,” said Faisal Malallah, IT Leader, Equate Petrochemicals. “With our digital transformation on the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, we now have the cloud solutions that can integrate and simplify our global systems, enhance our customer experience and drive business competitiveness. EQUATE is an innovation leader in Kuwait, and we are fully supporting the New Kuwait 2035 economic growth goals.” INTELLIGENTCIO 17