I attend the INCF assembly for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it's just got a really good vibe. It has a nice diverse background of people with all kinds of expertise and it's kind of effective, I find. I enjoy the talks, I enjoy communicating with various people. INCF does a very good job of bringing people together in an effective way. So for me, it's fun, it's interesting, it's neuro-informatical.


Hi, I'm Leslie McVane, the Development Director at Portland Media Center. I hope you've been faring well these past few months of social distancing. Staying home, staying safe, and staying well have been the top priorities for most of us. Along with these priorities, we've been adjusting to a new way of connecting with our colleagues, our various organizations, and most importantly, our loved ones. Technology has become our new best friend. Portland Media Center has embraced this new use of technology as we continue providing media services for our greater community. As someone who has benefited from our services in the past, you understand how important it is that we continue to provide these services. Hi, I'm Tom Hantel, Executive Director at the Portland Media Center. Our world has changed drastically in a very short period of time. We don't only have these changes impacted our financial situation, but they've impacted our productivity and emotional health as well. Like all other organizations worldwide, we're coping with fulfilling our mission and maintaining our operations while staying safe and assisting as best we can with minimizing the spread of COVID-19. We've put together a few bullet points of what PMC has been doing in response to COVID-19's impact on us. Post on our website, along with our social media, not only our video content, but also information from local nonprofits about their services during the pandemic. Provide content to our channel regarding the roots of the pandemic, prevention techniques, social isolation tips, best practices for taking health precautions, and local health resources. Offer tips on general lifestyle changes such as at-home exercising, cooking tips, guided meditations, movie reviews, and various entertainment programs. Schedule classes for school-aged children with a local teacher four times a week. Air church services so that people can continue their spiritual practices from home. Air virtual city council meetings and other public meetings that were recorded through conferencing applications. Develop new classes online in the use of cell phones and iMovie so that anyone can produce videos to share with the community. Film some of our long-running programs such as Patience on the News and Community Kitchens through the use of Zoom. Support the state's effort to enforce the recent state law that requires our stations to be switched from 1301 and 1303 back to channels two and five, which may happen as soon as June 30th, 2020. Apply for and receive funds from the Payroll Protection Program and we'll be applying for other funds to recover some of the losses experienced during this time. Tell the virtual mixer celebrating Cinco de Mayo with our volunteers and producers to get updated on everything our production community is doing and what we all plan to do in the months ahead. Given this difficult time, we have struggled with going ahead as usual with our spring appeal. While we rely on our annual appeals to help sustain us, we're also mindful of the financial struggles everyone is facing at this time. We're asking for your support right now as someone who's been involved in organizations and activities that have benefited from Portland Media Center services over the past years. While doing so, we also understand everyone's limited means at this time. Any donation regardless of the amount will not only help us continue our mission, but each contribution shows us the value you place on the resources and programs PMC has shared with the community. Donations may be made to Portland Media Center at 516 Congress Street, Portland, Maine 04-101 or by going to our website, portlandmedia.org and pressing on the donate button. We appreciate your consideration of this appeal. Please stay safe and hopeful for a better world ahead.


Hey curlfriends, I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee Today and today I've got some more curly hair products to review for you guys. This is the brand Amica I have not tried any of their shampoo and conditioners yet, but I have two of their very new Stylers made for curly hair. So in their curly hairline, we have the Amica curl corpse curl core You pronounce the P? I don't know but they have an enhancing gel and they have Defining cream as some of you may know Personally, I'm very much team gel lately But I am willing to give the cream a try and I was so excited to try both of these that I actually did a split test today So spoiler alert one side of my hair has the curling cream and the other side has gel But you got to keep watching to know which side is what? When it comes to curly hair products, there's a couple things that I look for one I'm a sucker for cute packaging and Amica has the cutest packaging of all time They also are sulfate paraben and silicone-free both of these products are Bianca approved because of that reason alone and They're sold at Sephora or at love amica comm and they retail for $25 each each bottle You get 6.7 fluid ounces and as of right now, there's only two products in their curly hair collection I'm really big on stylers So I don't really mind that I haven't had their shampoo and conditioner yet because the styler is what's going to make or break your hair It's the last and final most important step. So I will be putting both of these to the test today So let's rewind back to when I just got out the shower with freshly washed hair so I could show you how I applied both of these products So I have both of my products right here. I have the Amica Defining cream and the Amica enhancing gel. I Biously kind of feel like I'm gonna like the gel more, but we'll see so let's start off with the defining cream Ooh, that smells really good. It has a very clean perfume scent to it. I really like it So let's just do this half And I'm going to smooth it in it's not very thick. I look at the nice lightweight cream. I probably compare it to the consistency of the Hmm, maybe the diva curl super cream. Oh, but it feels very very moisturizing Think I'm gonna like this So I'm gonna rake it through make sure every curl gets some love smoothing it into my hair Getting rid of that any frizz and then you scrunch it back up and for the other side. I'm gonna grab the enhancing gel Oh This one doesn't have as Strong of a scent. It's almost smells like a nice clean hand sanitizer Consistency to it. It's not sticky. It's pretty watery actually. Oh Interesting consistency it really feels like hand sanitizer Like that jelly feel so here's the side with the gel looking very shiny and Here's the side with the cream Very moisturized, so I'm excited to see how this dries. I'll be back in about an hour or so back So now my hair is completely dry. So looking at both sides I don't really see much of a difference, but I do think that the gel side is a little bit more shiny Then the cream side they both feel exactly the same I thought that the gel would have more of like a harder cast to it But there really isn't a cast at all and it's very soft So for those of you that don't like any cast you don't want any hole You just want nice soft bouncy curls. You're gonna love these products This is honestly how my hair usually looks on day one no matter what product I use It's always very flat, but I'm now gonna grab my diffuser and let's see if I can get some more volume and see how big I can Make it look on day one. Alright, that's a little better. I'm gonna shake it out to get some more volume My hair always looks better on day two and day three So definitely follow me at Ms. Bianca Renee on Instagram and snapchat So you could see how my curls look with these products on a better day. Wait a second This is actually really nice Okay day one Sometimes I just give up on my day one hair I should give it a chance. Let me give you a full 360 on how my curls turned out One half versus the other I don't know how it looks in the back. So I'm sure you guys will tell me but it feels nice So here you go. Now that you see both sides officially like big and picked out My bangs definitely could be cuter if I would have applied the product Like I usually do without having to split my hair in two sections for the sake of two different products But I mean they're all right Let's look at each side. I Really don't think I see a difference. Do you? So in conclusion they both work I think they both work the same It's gonna be a matter of preference on if you like a cream or a gel Now I might be weird with this one, but I do like when my gel leaves my hair a little bit crunchy I do like that hold because I can break that cast and I can know that it's going to last throughout the week This gel is giving me like zero hold But I'm still getting good volume. My curls are still very defined very soft and very fluffy So for those of you that hate the hard casting gel You're going to love the gel and the styling cream the gel bottle claims that it's supposed to be weatherproof But because there is absolutely no hold I Personally would be a little bit nervous to have this type of hair in human weather because It's just really really soft and when I have soft curls I get nervous and I feel like it's not gonna last me throughout the week So I definitely can get a really good day one hair if I want really big fluffy It's very very soft and defined curls No problem, but humid weather. I'd be a little nervous But if you've tried these in humid weather, please leave a comment Let us know your experience But I'm happy to say that there are more products for you guys to try that are sulfate Paribas silicone free and I want to know what you guys think and if you've tried these yourself Leave a comment. Let us all know how well they worked for you and your curl type And if you enjoyed this video, you gotta give me a thumbs up and subscribe I post two new videos every week once on Friday and once on Sunday, so I better see you again next week Right here on beyond grenade today


السلام عليكم السحادة الله صباحة بكم شكرا على مشاركاتكم بحالة المتاشيحة وحيات مشادة بقى من دولتكم محددكم في هذا الدرويش ودارة بمديري دارة وليست منصفات مدس الععلة لماذا تصعبتم في جابة حبيتك الرجاء والنبوات فاولها عصامة من نسبة لكوانات صحابية 2.3 محورية والعكسة واصد الغلق هذا مرحباً إنه my project will come to you to the release of Qatar ICT landscape My name is Khalid Erwish, enterprise development manager ICT Qatar It's wonderful to see many leaders, members of the press in the room who clearly recognize the importance of ICT across our sectors This report explains the state of ICT Qatar in terms of ICT adaptions across the different sectors It provides valuable information for decision makers as Qatar moves forward in achieving its national vision of diverse flexibility questions Today, you will hear from ICT Qatar ICT Qatar is the director of market development The market development team who will share with you the key finding of the report and also share some light of the report He is joined by Arab Gouda the market development project manager who was involved in the development of this report from the early years We are also honored to have a guest Victor Sumatra the professor of business and technology at CNC Victor Sumatra is also called a low-information major report which addresses the network readiness of nations around the world Qatar continued to raise and the World Bank and Victor Sumatra will draw a parallel between the dimensional report of ICT Qatar After we hear from the expert we will take a question from the audience of the ICT Qatar And now I would like to welcome Jar Jar to the podium So please we share with us the key finding of ICT Qatar Thank you And good morning ladies and gentlemen It gives me great pleasure to present to you Qatar's first national ICT landscape report This presentation I will step through a brief introduction which summarizes the report's aims and broad outcomes The methodology applied using primary and secondary research some of the top level findings and we will then go into a little more depth by sector Finally, some key messages moving forward Qatar's ICT landscape 2009 is the first countrywide survey based ICT study looking at the state of ICT adoption in Qatar The report indicates how sectors crucial to the growth of a knowledge based economy including residents, government businesses, education, health and tourism are progressing in adopting ICT The report also looks at the ICT job market Now it also provides a clear picture of the state of ICT in Qatar And it gives a good understanding where Qatar is compared to developing and the developed countries in terms of adoption by all sectors in society As a short definition ICT adoption is defined as the integration of computers internet and related technologies and social and economic activities If I had to summarize in two messages what would they be The report will demonstrate that Qatar's people, institutions and government have made steady progress in adopting ICT in today's life And ICT Qatar is working to accelerate ICT adoption across all sectors to realize the nation's vision of a diverse economy Now it's some detail on the research methodology that was applied ICT Qatar commissioned Dubai based madar research to survey and analyze the state of ICT in Qatar Qatar's ICT Landscape 2009 is based on 13 field surveys that produced a total of more than 4000 interviews over a period of 5 months To supplement this the secondary research involving surveys face to face and phone interviews and self-administered questions were incorporated into the report Some of the challenges in both collecting and collating the data that is followed Qatar along with Kuwait and the UEE has a high transient labour The study presented two values for some indicators One uses the total population and the other excludes the transient labour element The majority of the transient population are largely on the skill non-interment users Hence ICT adoption figures based on the entire population tend to be less favourable But Qatar has a high percentage of businesses in the micro-enterprise category which tend to have a lower ICT adoption and greatly impacting findings in the business sector So the overall picture Let's have a look at that Qatar ranks among the top 3 nations in the Arab world in terms of combined performance in basic ICT indicators That's the number of computers and internet users Mobile and fixed telephone lines Subscribers Broadband internet subscriptions Qatar is being recognised rising to 29th among 134 nations in the Network of Readiness Index With the Global Information Technology Report issued by the World Economic Forum and NCI As you can see last year Qatar ranked 32nd out of 127 nations An assessment of the main factors that support ICT adoption Availability and quality of ICT infrastructure and ICT skill users shows the lack of ICT skills is Qatar's biggest barrier to adoption It's difficult to compare light with light but the study also shows that Qatar's Government businesses and residents are not on the same level of ICT adoption Overall, residents outperform Government and business sectors with the business sector having the most progress to make So let's look now into some of the more detailed sectors by looking at the results in each one of these First of all, you can see from the graph on residents that overall residents in Qatar have been steadily increasing their ICT adoption rates especially in terms of basic use of ICT tools that's computers and internet Among the residents' population excluding transit labour Qatar's basic ICT indicators are comparable to European averages with 63% of internet penetration 54% computer users and 151% mobile subscribers And Qatar also performs extremely well in basic internet use, the use of email and search engines However, Qatar's performance in using advanced ICT lags behind European counterparts Particularly in usage of advanced such as e-banking government and other applications And the cost of some key ICT services such as broadband internet use remains too high and is highlighted as a factor Now to businesses Qatar's business community has accelerated ICT adoption to a similar leading position among developing countries with basic penetration at 100% for large organizations and 98% for SMEs and 90% of all businesses are connected to the internet Microenterprises that's below 10 employees do lag behind however in ICT adoption measures And overall businesses in Qatar have the greatest room for improvement in ICT adoption with one-quarter of all enterprises using advanced internet services such as e-commerce and e-banking in the government compared to two-thirds in the EU-15 The ratio of businesses using computers is 67% that's 30 points less than the EU-15 average And broadband access is also relatively low than the EU-15 average of 52% 82% As far as government is concerned in many areas government is reading by example in terms of ICT adoption including ICT training for staff and the ratio of PCs to employees with 80 over 88% of PCs at 100 employees And government also outperforms the business sector and all indicators from the number of ICT training hours provided for employees and ranks 22nd in the GITR in the 25 in usage Another key point here is that a significant number of government services have yet to be transformed into e-services to encourage widespread use of e-government in Qatar And another key point here that does need further analysis is that the percentage of ICT of IT staff in the government sector is low compared to the world average And let me now turn to the education sector Qatar schools have an average of 12.7 PCs and 100 students the highest in the world Of all the types of school in Qatar independent schools and computers to students 16.2 PCs and 100 students which is significantly higher than even the EU 15 average of 12.1 More than half of all students in Qatar have the skills that qualify them as digitally littered Qatar is unlike European countries where ICT adoption levels rise as grade levels also rise So intermediate schools register a high PC to student ratio higher than the secondary schools But Qatar backs European averages percentage of schools with PCs in the classroom In health one of the findings was that the government run health sector in Qatar is better equipped to provide ICT tools and infrastructure than privately run facilities You can see for example that 95% of physicians and 78% of nurses have internet connection and internet access 70% of health professionals in Qatar have also access to the internet at work And nearly 76% of physicians are connected to an online professional mentor The availability of advanced health related internet services is however limited with 15.6 of health providers having a website and only 3.1% of our transactional services Now to tourism The number of visitors to Qatar each year is rapidly rising creating an opportunity for the tourism sector to benefit from ICT adoption The majority of visitors to Qatar are ICT littered business professionals who require easy and reliable internet access 95% of visitors use the internet during the stay in Qatar 90% of it tells of an internet access to guests And one challenge of opportunity is that our minority of visitors used Qatar based websites to look for travel and recreation information of Qatar The ICT workforce The demand for ICT professionals outweighs local supply with the gap expected to increase Qatar is expected to continue attracting ICT workers due to the country's rise as a regional business hub And finally one of the key messages is that recent graduates from local universities will face increasing competition with an increased influx of expatriate ICT professionals So Moving forward Qatar has begun to lay a strong foundation for sustainable economic and social development through much more The country must accelerate its efforts in order to realize the nation's vision of a flexible diversified economy that benefits all who live and work in Qatar ICT Qatar's three-year master plan provides clear strategies and programs to increase ICT adoption across all sectors Continued liberalization of the telecoms market improved ICT infrastructure to increase broadband penetration and the nurturing of local ICT talent are key focus areas And finally ICT Qatar will be sharing the report findings with all key sectors to encourage collaboration and deliver results Thank you I would like to begin by congratulating of the ICT Qatar and the entire country of Qatar for the tremendous progress that the country has made over the last several years In my presentation I have not only built on the earlier presentation but I am also in a position in the global context And the global context really is provided by the research which we have been conducting in collaboration with the World Economic Forum to produce what is today title the global So we have been producing this report for the last nine years And today it is fair to say that this report has become a global benchmark A global benchmark in assessing how well do various countries benefit from technology Benefits from a network economy that is being created around us So you see that with the benefit of some experience we are able to make some very strong statements based on hard data which was not possible previously When we started the study back in the late 90's there were a number of stories anecdotes about this village in this country using technology this city in this country using technology and there were anecdotes There wasn't really a very systematic basis to understand how technology was impacting competitiveness how technology was impacting GDP growth And what we did really was we came up with a systematic approach on the basis of which you can today conduct analysis Now I have shown out here one graph on the index axis which is the horizontal axis you have the score the index score that I could talk a little bit more about which measures how effective is the country in using technology the network readiness index NRO On the vertical axis you have the GDP of the country And what you see out here is a fairly linear relationship between increasing NRI and increasing GDP You get a similar relationship if you plot the network readiness index of countries and the competitiveness of various economies So what we have is for the first time today we have data on the basis of which you can make some statements that are probably harder to make And that in fact is the value of the kind of work that we have been hearing Now this simple graphic gives you an image which shows you the underlying factors that we consider when we look at how technology impacts society It is not just a question of easy penetration Technology is pervasive As you have seen previous and previous presentation Technology permeates all sectors Yesterday I was with Dr. Hesse at the World Economic Forum Summit in the Dead Sea And I was moderating a panel in which we are discussing Technology leaves And one of the points made out there was Technology is a great accelerator for change across society Technology is a great transformation tool for communities across society So what you see is the impact of technology is very diffused And in our framework we try to capture it by recognizing that there are three major actors Individual citizens Each one of us Governments Very important players Increasingly important all over the world And of course businesses So these three players we try to evaluate how ready, how capable are they to use technology We try to also evaluate how much are they actually using technology So that's where the readiness and the usage dimension are set And of course all of this happens in the overall context of the economy The political environment The regulatory environment The financial environment All of these things matter Now you might ask what is the relevance of the environment Why it gives what's important to it If you're talking about technology Now I'll give you a very simple example Even though I'm from India I live today in France And France despite Despite the fact that it's a very rich country Has access to the best technology Is not amongst the top performers On our index And you ask the question Why it's not because of lack of access to technology One of the things which is holding back France Is very rigid The regulations In particular in the human resource side Now we know for example That when you implement technology In companies Often you have to make changes In the human resource side Maybe re-skilling Maybe reassignment to other jobs In some cases even downsizing Because technology sometimes replaces Human Now what you see is To make those changes in France Is extremely complicated Extremely difficult And so as a result what happens is Companies either don't implement The right technologies Or if they implement technologies They don't get the benefits Which they should get Because they are unable to make The so-safe labor changes It's a very small example But it's a very illustrative example In terms of why the environment Is very critical To our societies And economies use technology Now this is just Different representation Of the same model Nothing really new information out here Except that the environment Is broken down Into three sub-indexes Now if you look At the remote In more detail We go and outline measures Of each one of these indexes But for the purposes of our discussion It's important to identify The three players Individuals Businesses Governments And the overall environment In which these three players operate Now another example Of the kind of analysis Which you can conduct And we have done many such analysis There's a second and last graph I'll show you The X-axis What you have is a score Of how ready Are the three actors Individuals, businesses And governments An aggregate score For the readiness of the three actors On the vertical axis You have an aggregate score For the usage How much do people use the technology Now it's interesting to see This interesting result It is not a straight line You see some kind Of an upward Sort of slow exponential Curve out here Which shows that If you're really at very low levels Of readiness If you just Increase penetration Just increase axis That may not necessarily Give you Proportionally the same increase In usage To get really high increases In usage What you start seeing is An economy needs to complement That axis With a whole range of additional features To give a simple example We heard about Internet access in schools You can provide Access to schools But what do you do If A there is no conflict What do you do If the curriculum Is not redesigned What do you do If the teachers are not prepared Now these kind of elements Become very important To in fact drive the usage So what you start seeing is If you pick countries Of course you can't tell countries In those dots But if you go and analyze countries And you ask the question Are you doing better than another country Even though the usage Readiness index Might be quite similar You start actually understanding The differences And often the differences come In the context in which Technology is being used Now Just a very quick sample Of the kind of variables That we use in our study I've already emphasized that This is a holistic measure Of the economy's ability To use technology It is not just a question Of simple POIT measures These are some examples And of course it gives you a flavor Of the kind of measures That we're using in our study We use a number of different measures 30 variables of environment 23 for Readiness And 15 for the usage So some examples Here Now if you look at the results For this year And here I have just On the left hand side of the screen I'm not completely sure You can read the text From behind the rule You have a very simple Ranking Of the top 20 Top 20 countries And if I looked At the top 20 countries You see some general trends So you see for example That Canada countries Historically tend to do very well You see that America Is probably the only large country That does in fact Typically very well In the top 5 usually Then you have some New emerging countries Countries like Korea And Singapore Countries like Estonia That have moved up quite dramatically So as I told you We have 9 years of history So with 9 years of history You can actually see How countries move So some countries have moved up Quite significantly And then the other countries That for different reasons Have in fact You know Are lower compared to What you might believe Based on the economic Of their historical Abilities I mentioned France and Germany You see out here France is at rank 19 And Germany Which is the world's biggest exporter Is at rank 20 So Just keep these ranks in mind Because it's important When we look at the rank For Qatar You have to be able To compare it To the ranks of some of the major players So if you look at The top players in each region And here We just take the top 3 in each region In the middle east You have the 3 top players The first position Is Israel At rank 25 And the second is the UAE At rank 27 And the third is Qatar At rank 29 Now these are Very good results Very good results Because If you compare it To the results for France and Germany It is very very creditable In fact the results For Qatar Than the results For many European countries Including Spain, Italy And others Now if you compare it To what is Widen recognized As a technology powerhouse In the region Israel Even compared to Israel What you see is The performance of the UAE and Qatar Is extremely strong The difference in ranks And look at the actual scores The difference in scores Is very very small So 4.98 On a scale of 7 For Israel UAE has a score of 4.76 On the same scale of 7 And Qatar has a score of 4.68 The small differences And very very close position So the overall message out here Really is that If you look at the global positioning Of Qatar today It is extremely good Can it be better? Yes We will be better I certainly hope so But nothing Nothing to be shy about And embarrassed about If you compare it to the global Big players in the space You will be extremely well I think this is something which We have better for so many countries We are also able to Compare regions And we are able to compare regions And look at how different regions Have moved over the last Several years So in this case from 2001 To 2009 Now is very difficult first To compare precise ranks As you probably know The number of countries changes every year The first year we did this survey We had 75 countries covered This year Last year we have 130 countries covered Because the ranks A relative ranks You cannot easily compare directly The scores But what you can see Is if you actually compare Based on this style So you take sort of This style groups Groups of 10 Which category of groups of 10 You are positioned this year And how does the position vary Year to year About as accurate a measure of Progress over time We can get with this kind of ranking The important And very surprising finding for us Initially Was that the middle east Which is second last line At the bottom Is the region that has made 8 years So it jumped up By 3.5 The style groups And this is very important Because this is what we also observe That is not just In Qatar All the UAE But in general across the Middle East There is increased emphasis On technology And increased recognition that technology Is important for the development And development Not just to develop The next PC company In a very horizontal Broad holistic manner For education For health or finance For a number of different Technology is a very important driver And you see the realisation Coming in these results Now Over the years We have conducted a number of case studies So The two streams of work we do So one stream of work is Looking at numerical data And the second stream of work Is looking at case studies So we go into countries And we try to understand A little bit more depth Beyond the numbers What is driving the success Of these countries So if you look at 2 or 3 Very quick snapshots This is a very popular case study And Singapore is a country that has moved very rapidly Of the right case What you start seeing is You think stand out The first thing of course is The government's role It's quite remarkable The leadership shown by the government Informing strategic ICD plans The various phases of the plans Of the last 15 years And then actually gone through very Easily And the second is If you think about Among the various actions What stands out There's a very strong investment education Singapore did not really have Any top universities 25 years ago Today it can claim To have At least 2 or 3 top universities Inside its small boundaries So you have Not just the foreign models But the home grown Strong institutions Like the national university of Singapore Like Singapore management university Like Nanyang Technology Institute So you have a number of home grown Institutions Which has been a priority For the government The investment And in fact Qatar Someone that is happening also Is a very good long term Strategic move And a very open immigration policy Probably One of the most favorable immigration Policies For skill talent I don't know whether you know this But a skill immigrant To Singapore Can get a work permit In 7 days or less Which is quite remarkable If you compare it To any other country today Or at least most of the countries today It will be easy for people to come in To provide an environment Which makes people feel at home Singapore is probably the only country in Asia Which really is Truly multicultural Even in Japan It's very Japanese And Chinese Singapore is truly multicultural So a number of interesting things And of course they have a very clean Less corruption in the government Than most of the countries In other case Just to get some glimpse In terms of changes That we have seen Today everyone thinks of Finland As a technology powerhouse But we forget That just 20 years ago Finland was a country Selling and exporting rubber And forest products Technology was not on the horizon It was not a technology superstar This transformation Was taking place in 20 years And of course driven by a crisis The crisis in their case Was the fall of the Soviet Union And that basically Gave a tremendous negative Shock to the economy And what happened to the case of Finland Was Spetitially at the highest levels Of the government It was decided That Finland has to reorient his economy From natural resources To knowledge based products So as an excellent example Of how with determined Cooperation Strategic foresight A country changed its Complete orientation in 20 years From natural resources To high tech, to knowledge economy Of course to help it Make it happen It had some good building blocks It had the building blocks of a good government Of good governance Good education Stable macroeconomic environment By enlarge And not to forget Access to the European market Finland was one of the first Candidated countries to welcome And in fact embrace the European market They had access to a larger market And that was very important For the growth of Finland Now if you look at one more Last case from that region Estonia Use technology Strategically If you go back To the history of Estonia Estonia used to be a part Of the Soviet Union A life Which many generations In fact did not want To see for the future Because in the Soviet Union Information was controlled Information was available So what the decision was That we have to be able To give people access To information Why because that is the best way To assure That we will not have a repeat Of the Soviet Union In fact that's the reason why In Estonia The right to access the internet Is a fundamental right In the constitution For our citizens Think about it For our citizens And it's not because technology is fun Or technology is Therefore young kids Is because technology is the source Of preserving the country's future So there was a very strong strategic Vision behind why Was important And of course behind that Once you get that part correct There's a whole set of similar things Like what Singapore did in Finland In terms of government leadership That helped us not to succeed So a number of interesting lessons From Let's say from these case studies On your chairs You have a small document Which we prepared last year Which includes a case study On Qatar And I think it's very interesting Sometimes when you have a document It's good to be able to reflect On the past and to be able to Just summarize And learn from history Even though it's a short history Because of very interesting lessons In terms of ICT And the recent progresses in Qatar I think what you see out here Is you benefited from A very clear vision I think the clear vision Was outlined very clearly By his highness And I think if you read the words out here You can say these are words Which are also said by People like his highness But really I think it's very important That it positions technology Once again As an active contributor To the quality of society Quality of lives And the social economic development So once again what is very important Is how you position Technology in your country And I think that's something that Is always very important The second thing what you see Is for the last several years I think ICT Qatar In the country has led A comprehensive program of change I'm not claiming that The change is finished Or the change is perfect But what you see is The comprehensive nature of the efforts out here And I think there has been A very strong effort So Again just a small Slide that took from one document That we had access to And there's more detail on this Is the document case study On your chair But you see that from the left hand side Which is the Qatar vision Which outlined earlier To the various sectors The government, education, health Financial tourism and so on It was a very comprehensive approach Of integrating And embedding technology Into different parts of society And that's one reason Why I feel that the results Have been stronger If you had an approach Of just saying okay we will just Increase mobile access And just increase it to an access And sit back and wait for things to happen Probably some of the results Will not have happened so quickly And they will never talk Is to understand This comprehensive nature Of development And I think I would strongly recommend That we make that a priority For the future as we go forward We also heard about The leadership of the government And that is very important Especially in a country like Qatar Where the government is so important The role of the government is increasing Pretty much everywhere But in this country So I think the government has to play A very strong leadership role And that has been happening Already in the last degree So very pleased about it As I mentioned earlier There has been a strong embedding Of technology in local context And we find that a very positive aspect Of what has been happening In this country And also what I like is There has been a focus on security Which is important because Of the local values and culture There are concerns About security About access to different information And so on And I think The focus and security And the partnership And other bodies like this Has been extremely important And valuable for progressing Technology in Qatar Now I will not go through There is a lot of information I will give you a website Where you can actually go and look At all the information But you can slice and dice The data in different ways And I will just very quickly Sort of scan through Or run through a few slides With the message that Please do come to the website And I will give you But now that we have all this data We can actually go and see Where are the best Where are the indicators Of which Qatar does extremely well So you have some of these indicators To go here You can ask the question For the last 5 years Where are the indicators Where Qatar has made the biggest Jumps So the delta rank Column on the right Is the jump In the relative rank In those indicators And in relative terms Qatar has made Important moves Along some of these dimensions Now what you can also do Is that you can Code equal Into one of the pillars I identified earlier Those various sub-pinners And you can ask the question Where does Qatar have A relative competitive advantage What I mean by that Is that Qatar Is higher than the absolute rank The absolute rank is 29 And where do you score higher 29 So what we have done is We have just outlined With yellow The variables on which you score higher And we have put out there 3 years of data So visually Even though you can't read the various lines Visually you get a sense of How the yellows have progressed For 3 years And you can get a sense in terms of Which dimensions how you're doing So this is the market environment The overall context in which you're operating So here you see that The progress has been quite positive Then if you look at the Political and regulatory environment You see that once again The progress hasn't happened But probably not as much As you may have liked it to happen But still you have really good scores In many other dimensions Now you can of course Go and look at specific examples And say well how can we improve that So if you look at an example On this the second The third last element Is the quality of competition In the ISP sector And you rank 116 Out of 134 countries Now that is a message That basically tells you that Well maybe we should try But I know that you are making Change in the area But that gives you some effort Direction for improvements Look at infrastructure I think this is an area Where you could probably improve And if I look at The overall message out here The part where you're probably Needing movement Is the soft infrastructure Is the people infrastructure And I think that's an area Where you can eventually pay off So I think the right steps are being made But fundamentally this is an area Where the soft infrastructure of the country Needs to get further improvement Now on the individual readiness And this was also highlighted In the results earlier You're doing quite well So you see a number of yellows out there And along the number of dimensions Of individual readiness I think the state of Qatar Is doing quite well And relatively on the business readiness Is not as strong And this was again sort of Aligned in the results of the survey That was presented to you earlier I think what you find is The business readiness could be Potentially better So here you see some angles of improvement If you look at government readiness The government readiness Which is the first bit on the top Is quite strong And as we will see in government usage Is not very strong So on the individual usage You could have Some improvement in some areas So keep in mind We distinguish between how ready How capable are people to use technology And how much are they actually using technology Which is their usage And the last elements really Are the business usage And government usage And this is again quite striking Because what you see is You don't have a relative competitive advantage On any of the aspects Of business usage So this is a message From the business community that This is something which perhaps needs to be improved The scores are not necessarily very bad Keep in mind because these are scores 134 We're talking about relative competitive advantage Is out here In contrast in the government usage site You see a number of yellows out there So if you look at the government And the redness of usage You see a lot of yellows And a lot of good progress out there Which has been made And I think which is very important For this country So what are the conclusions In terms of my overall remarks So the network redness index Has become today A global benchmarking tool It has a very ballistic measure And it's not just a measure Only focused on technology And I think that's what makes it so powerful But at the same time Because we try and cover 134 countries Being unable to customize In that framework To individual differences So my recommendation always To countries including Qatar Is you have to use that model And customize it For your context Customize it and create your own benchmarking tool Based on the principles That you can apply inside your organizations I think Qatar's progress Over the past few years Has been tremendous In 4 years You have progressed in ranks From 40 to 29 And that is despite the number of countries Increasing in the same span So I think what is impressive Is the progress My own expectation Is that you will keep on progressing Of course provided You keep on making continuous progress In the overall business climate Overall Economic, political Regulatory climate Very important Cannot stop making progress with that Because other countries are making progress with that You go to Singapore They constantly ask the question How can we make life simple How can we keep things simple For businesses That's a pre-occupation for the government out there If you look at the soft infrastructure And the people You have to invest in universities And schools That's a very important thing You're doing some of it already Keep investing in that And of course you need to be able to invest More in research and R&D That ambition to lead in recent R&D Also very important for the country So I think I would like to thank you for your attention As I mentioned earlier We have put all this data At that website And in fact The website has a lot of complex Tools at your disposal You can compare Qatar to U&E You can compare Qatar to the USA Any other country you choose to compare Look at various variables Look at various strengths Weaknesses And do a number of things you can play around with So once again Thank you for inviting me Making these comments And I hope you best applaud with your future efforts Thank you very much My name is Boyd And I am taking care of Just more than I can position for you The moment we have a number People get members here from the press And they also have a lot of IT So I'm going to be fair I'm going to open it for everybody So it's all going to be for the press But please before you ask me To state your name And do organizations you're working for My city and I love Thank you for the This is a question on the NRI And I know Most of the countries use it For To find out what the countries Are ranking in ICT I'd like to ask How much flexibility Every country has in defining Some of these Indicators Like Qatar Has a very Unique combination With a majority of Workers So The definition of workers For example You have no color You have auto white color And the definition of cities What's a small company Qatar assumes different So How does How do you see this So It's an excellent question Each time you try To conduct the study across All kinds of challenges In Data comparability And data aggregation So We're always very humble If you look at the data from these countries They capture all the complexities Of the country Having said this We have to find the way So the way we try to handle this Is partially By as much as possible Going to data from The international agencies Where there's ITU or World Bank Or other kinds of global agencies Who have some inbuilt method Of comparability So the way they collect data Is not perfect but comparable across And so we rely on that And second is We have a method of collecting data Through the world's economic problems Partners Which is administered To a common structurally Common group of companies Now we don't distinguish Between Micro, small, medium and price In our study If we had the data we could have That's the reason why What we're doing in this study Is very important And you need that kind of study To complement these kind of results Because these kind of results Are always going to be The international agencies Who are involved In the constitution To mention about the Performance of the businesses In the international We have a notice في أل familiar who is an order for other kinds of light chains when our study does not distinguish between the various elements of business operations this study, which is a study with which my city landscape has more details of that so in fact if you don't follow the plan you can actually break it down so what we have is a overall message and then there are more details that you need to actually go into the study شكراً yes indeed that issue really comes out of the report number one you find that ICT adoption in micro companies is lower than medium-sized companies is lower than large companies now that is not unusual it is the case in every country that I've been involved in what surprises me in a way is that the medium-sized companies usually are substantially higher than micro but at Qatar the mic, those medium-sized companies could actually move up a level so what we find is that their adoption of advanced applications is relatively low so one of the things we're doing is foaming in on those not the micros but it is small to medium range so that we raise awareness of the benefits of using technology so last year for example we ranked 7 hours for our businesses to raise the awareness of the use of technology we are increasing those substantially this year with a new set of awareness raising we are raising programs 7 hours in advance so that will start to roll out from the middle of the year so we've identified that there is an issue in the medium-sized companies small to medium companies and we are addressing them one day in one of the biggest TV stations I recorded and as a colleague of them they asked me a question that shocked me they asked me how many times your computer in the newsroom hangs or stops a day then a day I said no time and a year it doesn't stop doesn't hang so this big achievement that is enjoying it but my question is a new report or study what is the percentage of wealth I mean if we mentioned like poor mama or Fiji or Ziland or small companies with almost a million those and the calculation is almost the same where is the role of wealth in achieving this progress because the message which could be understood wrongly I would say but oh, unless Qatar is a rich country this achievement wouldn't have been done or achieved so what's the problem? it's a very good question and I think it's fair to say that you do need some level of resources to invest resources makes it easier for you to invest but it's very important to understand that having the resources doesn't necessarily mean you will be affected using the ecology or in creating an ecology successful and you have a number of examples of countries who have maybe not as rich as Qatar but are reasonably wealthy and still unable to create a technology country and you write very good examples of countries that in fact were probably quite poor but have used technology to become wealthy so if you look at the success stories the success stories which are striking are countries which have used technology to leapfrog and to improve the quality of life of citizens and to improve the knowledge economy in their own boundaries effectively and for that you require all the things that's spoken about the leadership and all the things that I just mentioned so I think it certainly makes it easier but doesn't solve any problems and I think you only have to look at the DCC the lot of wealth in the DCC but not all countries are doing equally well I think the thing that struck me when I first came to Qatar was the key thing that is actually in place and that is the recognition all the impact that technology can have they use the same words to improve the quality of life of citizens to accelerate business competitiveness and to improve the effectiveness of government that is key thing that must be there in place that recognition and second what are your strategies and action plans to achieve a difference and over a relatively short period of time Qatar has actually achieved that vision and has started to translate that from strategy and policy through your action and the seventh one that struck me is that the comparisons made with the EU and all its three countries rather than DCC or the US and was that a deliberate choice from one to the other party and was that a deliberate choice from one to the other party and this is the question that comes to mind is it the right way to do it or a way to do it my question was in the report Qatar ICCF report what we did is we compared Qatar to the OECD and EU countries instead of putting it into the region and DCC or the Middle East my question was was that a deliberate choice from the OECD and also for Dr. Sumatra is it the right decision to do that in fact that we were looking for collecting and comparing Qatar against the various countries we looked at various the data that were in the countries like America or European Union or Singapore and then the indicators that we had we tried comparing them we found that most of the data was of an important domain we tried to compare Qatar yes it was availability of data and to benchmark ourselves against some of the developed nations so that we can keep looking ahead and also compare ourselves with other countries with other Middle East with the Middle East we found that a lot of data was available from UAE some of the countries are not still behind there is still a lot of information on various beginners so we hope we have data from about 4 countries in 2010 and then the analysis will be very nice Dr. Sumatra is that a common practice? well you know what my own recommendation would be is that you have to compare yourself with the best and the most relevant benchmark which will not necessarily be next to you so in the case of the metric which I have seen compared to the core which is very much around penetration and very classical technology metrics my guess is that the OECD countries are a very good benchmark we choose from that if you are trying to benchmark on the use of ICP for the oil and gas sector as an example you might want to benchmark against some GCC neighbors or maybe a specific OECD government or something but I think you have to choose the right benchmark and the right benchmark but not necessarily always be your neighbor yes this is after the Q&A I have a question which is not far I'm not sure where your microphone is working hello yes hello I'm wondering from your experience but the KBI is one of the factors that makes I can't continue going in the right upwards if you ask me to simplify because we have thought about this question for a long time in terms of what differentiates countries that do better than others and part of our research has the right to focus on countries that move faster and the number one factor almost in where we become another leadership and it might be a very simple and obvious right to state but somehow the top of the country has to realize the importance of writing in the top of the country doesn't it realize the importance of technology and in general it would have not not as just as a mobile penetration because some people get often a guest misled by the consumer assistive technology whether they are mobile or whether you have internet access or other more consume aspects but technology has a very deep aspect in terms of improving efficiency improving transparency improving governance and so on and if the top of the country understands that the rest of the country so if the top of the country doesn't understand it you don't necessarily get that kind of holistic movement so number one critical factor would be the leadership the leadership understanding that message the number two would be an attempt to set the right environment the environment with a number of variables are there and we have looked at countries which have similar levels of technology penetration but perform differently and the difference is not technology penetration the critical difference almost always is the environment and factors why does France and Germany not perform as well as some Scandinavian countries it's not because of technology it's because of that environment with factors so I think what you start seeing as number two is the environment with factors and number three really is almost a prerequisite but still I'm putting in number three even though it might be one of the critical things of the people the soft infrastructure so if you don't have the people's skills you don't have the ability you cannot use technology effectively inside the European Union and work very closely with the EU you know people have realized that today in Europe everyone more or less has access it's not 100% but more or less everyone has access so the big debate is the long access the big debate right now is skills so we just did a study for the European Union looking at the skills gap in Europe and looking at how to overcome the skills gap because the big challenge right now is how do you raise the skills and how do you reduce the skills gap so that people are able to use the technology in the right way yes can I just add to that maybe just to help answer the question if you turn it right and say what are the common mistakes that countries actually make one of the mistakes that I've seen other countries make is the sort of view that they build it and they won't come assume that you provide the infrastructure and that can be PCs can be and something will happen so coming back coming back to Dr. Sumitra's point is do not assume that just because the infrastructure is there everything will have actually happened and that's when particularly raising awareness comes into play and actually stimulating the market to start that current yes ريب المصوري ICC are we going to to implement what you said about the skill gaps and the challenge that you country are facing this is one of the main challenges that I saw about facing I would like really to appreciate the importance that has been done so far in building the technology in Qatar but how can we advise about the area of the building the capability of these skills especially that we are facing the challenge of the number of population rates and also we have big number of expatriate and most of the efforts we are going to are going to first and to build the region and most of them will be with a population that will change by the time and also I believe that what has been accomplished since 2004 up to now we believe that we've started the population of 700,000 and now we've become as 1.5 billion so we keep the accreditation keep increased and most of them are not I think the skills issue is really a top agenda for many developing economies and certainly given about state of development when you are a rich country and you have a good restaurant already I think it should be something it should be also weak words about the agenda I don't have a precise answer because this would require much more in-depth study of the skills gap in Qatar and the skills gap I don't know but I mean the overall the skills gap in society and government businesses and you know we did a fairly extensive study looking at that in Europe and we have a whole methodology and a whole framework and a whole approach to that and perhaps some of it could be applied but you would need to be able to do more research for making you know I can give you some talk about the suggestions that maybe you think about doing everyone in-depth skill study in Qatar especially also as you're trying to build the knowledge economy for the future because even though why that the answer is an important part of the economy today everyone knows that you know in these countries including yourself you prepare for the future and children do not necessarily enjoy the same kind of future so you want to prepare for that and you want to build the knowledge economy and I think that's an important part where the skills should be done even more relatively My son My son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son my son but why did you not do it by sectors you said that you used the so comparatively to the business sectors in the New York you have or comparatively to the improvement made on the individual government uses and I think when you can consider the banking sector for example you use it why did you not give us such an analysis thank you the question is for me that's out of the question I mean God is not a weapon God willing Okay when we started analyzing it we had 2 options whether to take it by the size of the organization or by the given Our 3rd is the option that you have We decided to proceed by defining by dividing by size because that was another information that we called in CT scan that is one of the areas نظر بقائد البلدية أو تنظر بحصولها في جهازات المنزل، ونأتي بأس لك أن نرى أنه يكون يجب على أساس التابعة من المنزل لذا أنه يجب على أساس التابعة من المنزل، ونريد أن يكون مباشرة معها على أساس التابعة من المنزل هذا هو الموضوع أرسل أعلى كبيري لأدفاع المجردية إثنين تودير كما أنت بنفسك شكرا أنت تكلم أن التجفاء كانت نفسها إلى أجل إكترأة إلى الإمام في المدينة هل تمكنك ان تزعج ببساطة التجفاء إClassically, even in the oil and gas sector, a lot of the value that holds are more upstream where you have more advanced ficou-an- pré-ganet goes to an advanced product created from the same natural resources. So I think what you see is that there is a need to be able to have an organization and a culture and a society where people clean ideas. And people feel free to create ideas of fruition. People have the right support in terms of environment, in terms of markets, in terms of capital, in terms of human talent. And if you're not able to have that environment فرماني you will lose out in some way or the other in the knowledge economy in our regular example I was in Mexico last year and we had a seminar and as you all know Mexico is a very big wine producer but it's amazing Mexico ships all its wine in the US for processing the US is the one that actually does all the panlead work on the oil of Mexico and this also happens in many of the parts of DCC and it's very interesting to compare in the tradition of oil and gas sector how Norway has developed this oil and gas sector as compared to the DCC countries Norway is much more successful even though it came onto the oil discovery and it's another new entry in the oil of some exporting countries Norway is much more successful in adding value to oil products than many DCC countries so what you start seeing is a research that is important for keeping and generating more value for the current economy it's important for your future economies and that's the world in which we are moving in today it's almost impossible for Qatar of many countries to compete across I mean it's virtually impossible to compete across so what you can compete on basically is the value of your ideas so that's the reason why research has done a great job is to be able to create a market and people create ideas and people take ideas forward today we're moving to Qatar University that network readiness index I understand that measures their readiness measures the environment, measures the usage, the penetration measures these things however there is one extra level there is one beyond that there is the feedback there is the impact that this I believe that there is an implicit assumption here that more usage means better value of life more usage means better wealth so there is that missing part is there any other interest that measures that part that increases your professors you picked the weakness in me that we also let me give you the history a little bit of it when we started it the initial model was readiness and impact and then we realized that we don't have data for impact it is very difficult to collect data on impact for 134 countries so what we did essentially because to make a practical choice implementation was to say okay we will measure usage because more easily measure so we are absolutely right the right variable should be impact today for 134 countries around the world we don't have everything we want to do so it is because of the lack of data that we in fact prove to use it but if you do it in a more focused complex like Qatar I would certainly recommend that all the variables are more focused impact as opposed to the usage itself but we are absolutely right okay the last question from Jordan yes hello my name is Christa Berber I represent the vendor community this is a country manager of Eric's company it was mentioned in the presentation that technology can be accelerator for or development of countries I guess we can all rephrase that and say that it is actually a requirement for Eric's so couldn't agree more with the vision of ICD Qatar however obviously some limitations it was mentioned in the presentation the need for not only putting putting the infrastructure and putting the things there but also to secure that thing I guess it is interesting to see that the number one perceived barrier according to the report in business is the lack of benefit to me that is a bit of a surprising statement considering the enormous dependence we all have run in the day corporations the dependence on ICD and modern ICD systems have you gotten any insight and understand that state and how we set that business in Qatar doesn't see the benefit of ICD yep I certainly answered that question in many countries this is the issue it is very much of you all I don't like it because I didn't try it and many countries that are going through that first part of the curve it is to do with conveying the right message even my own country which is not a producing country or was it not a producing country we went through that phase of pushing technology and this was a mistake this is to do with achieving business benefit through the use of technology reducing the costs of proving that access to markets all of those things so that's why last year we started this programme which actually explains the benefit of business it is not a cost it can impact the profitability of your business so we started that programme last year and as I said we are actually ramping up by about a factor of 5 the number of companies that will actually be attending these courses but that's just one element it's a whole series of elements to raise awareness to actually get the usage up get access to some more applications simple applications more complex as you've got market so there are a whole series of programmes that hopefully next year we'll actually see that awareness and impact actually achieve I have to take another question I want to ask you something Hello this is my name is I would like to thank you for your report it's really good and encouraging to move forward I'd like to go back to the year 2000 where the state platter started to establish the e-government and it was the will of the finest who initiated that project in the year 2000 I was lucky to be the e-government there in my community and we started with a small project called a pilot project and successfully made a good story in the state platter about the e-government and the transformation of the government I think in my opinion now looking back 10 years now almost I really myself feel proud to be a member of the teams who participated in making this achievement and I really see the state platter move very well in this direction especially ICT and the initiatives that have been stated the state platter is a small country and of course resources are very important to enable this initiative I would think that if we continue with that base we will achieve our goal but we need to move forward we have a very good infrastructure I would like to put the CA the BKI and the CA established almost in the year 2003 where not many countries had CA we have smart cards we have good infrastructure but we need to continue sustaining doing not thinking about more of technology I think technology is here but we need to sustain doing implementing and moving forward I would like to thank Dr. Ahasla for her effort I would like to thank all the ICT members and everybody who participated in this project and myself I look forward to see many services to come to me at home that's why I would like to access my government not from the towers around the west but to be there in my home so that I can access all the services of the government and initially when we started the e-government we said e-services e-o-formation e-knowledge unfortunately up to now our aim what we are going to be aiming for is knowledge but you know we are still moving in the services and the information I hope in 2015 thank you so much Dr. Ahasla thank you so much okay the last question I would like to ask I mean the next is the insurance the stakeholders so probably because of that how are you interested in your stakeholders and what do you expect in this report the next report well we will be releasing the current one shortly it will be made available it will be sent to the key stakeholders anybody who is interested in accessing the report online and on our website yes we will proceed we are going to gather more of them we are just going to go help us to higher level analysis and I think next year we should see 2010 report okay thank you so much I just want to say I thought we have a special section on our website about this report even for the journalists I mean you can easily access it it's available even in NCI the next is from our website thank you so much I want to thank the panelists for being here for coming all the way and some of you have seen the live when you stop here but there is a section outside so please join us thank you


One of the most important frequencies that you may hear of often is that of 432 Hertz. In fact, this frequency is said to be connected with everything that is, including the works of the ancients, such as in the construction of the Great Pyramid.


would either of you be my slave under the rules in Exodus? Well, I think that ends the debate right there. Thanks. I would genuinely love to- And Matt. Okay, it depends. Do you think the slaves got to make a choice about whether or not they knew that person better? You have a basic presupposition that I disagree with and that basic presupposition that you keep on banging on is because the Bible says it, that makes it true and good and moral. I started out with Matthew 19, guys. Jesus is not saying that divorce is good. Can you connect slavery to Matthew 19? Absolutely. It's a basic principle of interpretation just because there are laws that communicate. If you're going to divorce, then you need to give your wife a certificate of divorce. Doesn't make that God's ideal. Nobody said anything about ideal. I'm sorry that you can't understand that something may not be the ideal and might still be immoral.