Abdulaziz has over a decade of hands-on experience in business development in IT and Emerging Technologies markets. He has been participating and co-leading nation-wide projects of localizing technologies across the chain, empowering and enabling local Cloud Computing content and participated in drafting national Cloud and Emerging Tech strategies, policies, and regulations. He is a mentor, a public speaker and a guest lecturer in Cloud computing, Digital Transformation and Emerging Technologies. He gives lectures, participates in talks and panel sessions, and leads workshops at different entities, such as King Saud University, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Badir Program, Monshaat Authority, IEEE Saudi Arabia, MCIT, SAFCSP, etc. With over 12 years of being abroad (USA and UK), Abdulaziz has successfully achieved his BSc, MSc, and PhD in Computer Science with distinction. He has specialized in Cloud Computing during his PhD working and analyzing datasets of Google GCP, Amazon AWS and Alibaba Cloud which led to the publishing of a number of peer-reviewed scientific articles and posters (available on Google Scholar).
Q. Please start by introducing yourself
I’m the co-founder and board member of The Cloud Computing Association in Saudi Arabia, and I’m the senior advisor for IT and ET at CITC, which is the IT and Communications regulatory entity in Saudi.
Q. Can you highlight some of the real-life use cases that cloud computing makes easier?
We can see a lot of use cases and actually we are living in many of them in different sectors whether in healthcare, education, government, agriculture, and the financial sector. For example, in the education sector, we’ve seen in the pandemic that different countries have just switched the way of education and delivering education rather than closing schools and classrooms, in the industrial sector for example, we’ve seen full automation of floors, we’ve seen IoT deployment and sensors that are powered by cloud computing, also in healthcare, for example, we’re seeing a lot of applications of telemedicine and also surgeries and operations that are being done remotely for patients.
Q. As a founding member of Saudi Cloud Computing Association, what does the future hold for cloud computing?
What we have seen so far is just a glimpse of what cloud computing can bring to the world and the globe. It is a change of mindset. It is a change of the way organizations can work from now on, companies and the government will focus on their core business, on their value proposition rather than updating and having the burden of maintaining their own IT infrastructure. Also in the future, we will see many use cases that power AI and power smart cities where basically a human being can actually live in the space of IT.
Q. How can enterprises migrating their data to the cloud assure its safety?
So basically, there are different strategies when it comes to migrating from legacy to a cloud or from different cloud vendors let alone ensuring internal procedures and controls over data and whether security or privacy is also essential rather than just relying 100% on the cloud provider. A customer and only the customer can safeguard his own data.
Q. Do you think zero-trust security should be taken seriously by startups in the GCC and the MENA region in general?
It is the mainstream globally. We cannot know. No entity can actually claim 100% cybersecurity or a hundred percent risk-free kind of solutions and services, yet mitigating the challenges and risks is also essential. Cloud computing can actually provide more cyber security controls through the cloud provider, we’ve seen surveys by different companies that almost all companies have seen improvement in cybersecurity up to 60% compared to where the infrastructure of IT was internally.
Q. What are some of the latest technologies that you think will play a major role moving forward?
So basically AI is the number one kind of buzz word that we hear nowadays. AI will power how and will shift somehow the mindset from technology-focused to innovation-focused and innovation-centric and also will change how people live their lives in a positive way, things will be smoother, things will be sustainable whether we are in home or the workplace or even walking in the streets. Also, we will see a lot of applications when it comes to AI and data, we have seen it nowadays in deep learning and machine learning, and in the future we will see a lot of positive applications of such technologies.
Q. Following up on the topic of AI, do you think that it is getting out of control or is it moving in a healthy way?
It is not getting out of control. It is moving in a positive, healthy, and prosperous way like any technology, like any new kind of tool. It is a double-edged sword. Yet we’ve seen and we are witnessing actually a lot of use cases and applications that lift up the lifestyle of humans globally and also cut costs and improve efficiency and effectiveness of how people live their lives and how organizations perform their work in general.
Q. What message do you have for our readers?
We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how positive technology is and how positive new solutions and services and different kinds of technologies are. We will see a lot of positivity when it comes to AI, cloud computing, and edge-computing, people are collaborative and communities are working together to have sustainable, more energetic, and positive day-to-day lives.
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