Tariq Halawani is an established technology leader passionate about the impact that technological advancements and applied innovation can have on improving human lives. Tariq is the Executive Director, Enterprise Solutions, Microsoft UAE. He has been part of Microsoft for the last 14 years working across the Middle East and Africa region, dealing with customers across all industries, helping them on their digital transformation journey and adoption of cloud technology. He is a member of the team of solutions specialists in Microsoft who work very closely with customers on envisioning, accelerating, and realizing the value of their digital transformation journey.
Q. How do you see your participation in Gitex this year?
It’s a very exciting Gitex to say the least. We’ve been part of Gitex since its inception, but this year is very special. I think first of all, it’s so vibrant. If you’ve walked around, you will see that we had a very encouraging turnout and customers from across the region visiting us this year. At the same time this year marks the third anniversary of our cloud data centers in the region, so we’re very excited about this and we are unfolding a lot of the latest emerging technologies during Gitex and we’re making it available to be showcased to our customers. So, it’s really a very special year, and we’re very excited about our participation this year, it has been the largest participation for Microsoft in Gitex since its inception.
Q. What are the main areas of focus during this year’s edition?
I can probably group them into three areas. The first area is around the metaverse and I think the transition from the hype to reality is taking place. So, there is a lot of focus on Metaverse technologies. And we’re basically showcasing some of the use cases we’re seeing for the market adoption this year. The second one is around the hybrid workplace, and hybrid work is becoming the new norm. It’s a reality. So, we’re sharing with customers and partners how do we envision hybrid work today with the latest technologies we have. The third area, I think, with the convergence of the physical and virtual worlds and the adoption of hybrid work, there is an increased threat. We see a huge increase in the threat and attack landscape that customers need to be thinking about. So, we’re also focusing a lot on cybersecurity and showcasing some of our latest cloud services that we’ve landed in the UAE to help customers across all industries modernize their security systems and better be prepared for the future with a new attack landscape that is emerging very quickly.
Q. What are some of latest initiatives and projects that Microsoft is deploying in the UAE?
We remain focused on expanding our cloud services and our data centers footprint. So, I mentioned earlier that basically during this Gitex we were celebrating the third anniversary of our cloud infrastructure, our local data centers, and we’re super proud to have most of our core services globally operating out of our UAE data center, so we continue to invest heavily and land more and more cloud services that are relevant for our customers.
So that’s basically on the technology side. But also, I think we’re doing many initiatives on skilling and enablement for our customers and partners. We have been participating through the 1 million Arab Coders program, helping basically upskill the market in terms of coding and going after building the next generation of coders in partnership with the government. We’ve also launched our next version of Tomoh program, which is our Emiratization program, through which we take fresh graduates from the IT industry and upskill them on advanced emerging technologies. And we hire some of those young talents for our organizations and help them land jobs in government agencies. So, we have a nationalization program as part of the initiative to invest in skilling the market and skilling for our customers and partners.
Q. What can we expect from Microsoft in the upcoming future?
We can expect a lot. We have many technology announcements that are coming up in the future. You can expect some technological announcements around the Metaverse and Web 3.0. Of course, we’re announcing our new lineup of hardware Surface devices. So, I think there is a lot to be announced in the next few months. I think you can expect more and more presence and investment from Microsoft in the UAE. The UAE has always been a leader on the global stage in terms of new technology adoption, and we continue to invest heavily in the UAE market through our cloud presence and through the partner ecosystem that we bring into the country.
Q. We read the news of establishing the first hybrid work lab, can we expect more of these projects?
Absolutely, we’ve been working closely with our customers and partners in the region once again to envision what hybrid work and remote work mean. I think it varies from one organization to the next. So there has been much hype around that. We definitely have better clarity today on what hybrid work might look like, even with some of the new technology announcements we made.
So, the hybrid work lab is one initiative, but we’re working on multiple other initiatives for hybrid work with the government and with some of our top commercial customers. We’ll continue to see more and more initiatives, and we’re heavily engaged, as I mentioned earlier, with our customers to tailor and craft the right hybrid work strategy for every organization. I don’t think one size fits all when we talk about hybrid work, and that’s why our strategic partnership with our customers will continue to evolve how hybrid work will land for every organization in the UAE.
Q. What message do you have for our readers?
I think my message probably would be, there are a lot of exciting new technologies landing in the UAE. The UAE has been a leader in adopting new technologies as I mentioned earlier, I think if you haven’t visited the Microsoft website for the new cloud services we are launching in UAE, you should. I encourage you to do so. You will find a lot of exciting announcements on our website for some of the most recent services that we’re announcing in this market.
Thank you very much.
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