Doha: Ooredoo and a delegation of young people from the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) and Southeast Asia will attend the Global Youth Summit: BYND 2015 in Costa Rica from September 9 to 11.
A founding partner of the Global Youth Summit, Ooredoo is bringing its experience of empowering young people and supporting youth employment to the Summit. Led by the Chairman, Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani, Ooredoo will bring a young delegation from across its global footprint to represent the achievements and aspirations of the next generation at the international event.
In total, the delegation gathers 27 inspirational young people from Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Indonesia, Algeria, Tunisia as well as Yemen and Palestine.
“Ooredoo is a founding partner of the Global Youth Summit, because we believe that supporting the needs and aspirations of the next generation is an essential duty for communications companies. The ideas and recommendations of the event will make a major contribution to human growth and development in the coming years,” Sheikh Saud Al Thani said.
The Youth Delegation includes young developers, innovators and engineers, as well as aspiring leaders from a diverse range of communities. It also includes people who have made an impact on their community and who have ideas about how to change their world for the better using ICTs.
The youth delegation from Qatar will include Qatari nationals Hassan Ali Al Mulla and Asma Jaber Al Haram, both of whom were sponsored by Ooredoo through university and are now working in the company. They will be joined by eight talented young Qatari nationals hosted by ictQatar.
According to the ITU report, “Measuring the Information Society 2012”, mobile broadband subscriptions have experienced average annual growth of 41 percent since 2007, with the vast majority of new subscriptions coming from the developing world and from young people. With such dynamic growth, communication companies need to strive to ensure that everybody can enjoy the benefits of being connected.
One of the most prominent examples of Ooredoo empowering youth has been in Tunisia, which has a youth unemployment rate of 30 percent. In response, Tunisiana, part of Ooredoo, launched in April 2013 the “Najja7ni Employment’ mobile service in partnership with Silatech, a social initiative that works to expand employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for young people throughout the Arab world.
The first mobile service of its kind in the region, “Najja7ni Employment” provides career guidance, financial literacy, career search strategies, links to local training opportunities and tips on how to start a business. It uses an innovative and engaging method for customers to learn these topics, including quizzes, SMS alerts, coaching and psychometric tests, delivered via their mobile phone. The strong response – with more than 300,000 customers signing up for the service in the first month – is indicative of the urgent demand for mobile services in this area.
The Summit will be attended by 500 young delegates from around the world, along with a number of “summit elders”. Discussion of the event will develop into a global conversation via a vast social media network.
In a few weeks, Ooredoo will announce key findings from a major research project on how youth use technology across the Middle East and Asia, with a view to understanding the needs and aspirations of the next generation.
The Peninsula
