(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The Peninsula
Doha: Qatar University's (QU) College of Engineering (CENG) and TASMU Innovation Lab (i-Lab) held a second industrial stakeholders' workshop at the Ministry of Communications and Information technology (MCIT) headquarters, titled Blockchain Technology in supply Chains Stakeholders Workshop, gathering executives from majors technology provider organisations as well as information technology and business academics.
The workshop focused on showcasing the recent developments on blockchain research frameworks and its applications in the context of industry supply chains.
The workshop was inaugurated by Eman Al Kuwari, MCIT Acting Section Head of Emerging Technology, and Dr. Khalid Kamal Naji, QU Dean of CENG.
They emphasised during their speeches the importance of collaboration between higher education institutions, industry sector and government. They also highlighted the growing needs of exploitation/commercialisation of the research findings by the relevant stakeholders, including technology services providers, end-users, regulators and policy makers.
Dr. Munir Tag, MCIT Adviser delivered the welcome speech, highlighting the contribution of the TASMU Innovation Lab in the digital transformation of the society in Qatar by partnership between academia, industry and government in different sectors. He also presented the TASMU programme that comprises five use cases: health, logistics, transport, environment and sport.
During the keynote session, Adnan Al Banna, Milaha Manager Support Services, talked about digital supply chain resilience and its importance. He highlighted the efforts made by Milaha in the digital transformation field, and particularly in cybersecurity and blockchain adoption, leading to Milaha certification by ISO27001 and National Information Assurance.
Dr. Ali Alaboudy, Senior Expert, ICT, QNRF/QRDI, introduced the efforts of QNRF/QRDI Council in supporting disruptive technologies. He explained QRDI strategy, which is based on dynamic interactive environment including five pillars namely energy, health, sustainability, society and digital technology which is the theme of the workshop.
Dr. Abdelaziz Bouras, QU PreAward Manager, Office of Research, presented the SupplyLedger NPRP11S-1227-170135 project ( and its achievements and outcomes, such as blockchain integration process, patents and scientific publications.
The workshop also included a roundtable, where participants discussed blockchain. During the roundtable, Mohammed Al Hashimi, CISCO Chief Technlogy Officer, stated that blockchain has many important aspects such as a tracking aspect that CISCO is using to track every bit of detail of a product, in a sustainable way.
Dr. Mazen Al Masri, CEO Genesis Technologies, QU Assistant Professor, from his side highlighted the importance of awareness about adopting blockchain. He stressed that the lack of adoption in the local context is due to dearth of technological talent and the lack of regulation clarity related to blockchain.
Ibrahim Baddad, IBM Senior Managing Consultant, quantified the benefit from using blockchain in different aspects such as transparency. He added that blockchain in supply chains is getting more maturity during the recent years with Blockchain 2.0 and 3.0. While Dr. Andrew Dahdal, QU Associate Professor, underlined the need of having regulations related to blockchain in Qatar. He gave examples from different countries that are adjusting their regulations and implementing laws to make blockchain technology more beneficial to industry and government entities.