Fatima Hyatt, COO, DUC International Consulting.

Stressing on technology and innovation in regional and global perspectives, the talk will focus on how future integrated cities will look like. By Umer Nangiana

In co-operation with Ministry of Interior, Qatar University and DUC International Consulting, Pakistan Engineers Forum (PEF) Qatar is organising a seminar on ‘Smart Cities, Innovation Strategies’ this weekend.
The seminar will focus on smart city initiatives in global and regional perspectives. It will tackle questions like who are the stakeholders, what technologies are being applied. How future integrated cities will look like.
The audience will also get to know about the challenges of innovation. How governments are using technology to bridge gap with people and improve service delivery and what is the role of universities in it.
Speakers will share case studies. The audience will get the chance to ask questions from panel during a Q&A session.
The speakers include Usman Zafar who is an accomplished business management and technology executive with an extensive experience in both private and public sector with successful track record in building, transforming and leading result oriented professional organisation.
He has held executive level positions with major blue-chip and Fortune-500 technology corporations. Zafar has been at the forefront of many of the region’s (Mena) multimillion dollar IT projects and is extensively recognised for his expertise in the areas of e-government, e-services, ERP, process automation, specialised training initiatives and strategic IT planning.
Apart from serving large enterprises and public sector, Zafar has several years of experience in the education sector as a consultant and professor with renowned universities and corporate training centres globally. He has received several awards in the past few years for his outstanding performance and delivering complex projects both in public and private sector.
Among the other speakers, Fatima Hyatt, COO, DUC International Consulting is an entrepreneur and strategic business management consultant. She has an extensive experience in both private and public sector with successful track record in building, transforming and leading result oriented professional organisation.
She held executive level positions with leading organisations in the Mena region. Fatima holds an MBA from American University in Dubai and has 10-plus years of experience in developing effective and profitable partnerships with business stakeholders in risk averse environments.
She has participated actively in several regional and international conferences, workshops as a speaker, trainer to talk about various topics, such as Leadership, Marketing, Corporate Branding, Image Building, Digital Marketing, Social Media, and Strategic Planning.
Captain Ali Ahmed Albinali, Head of Eservices and Internet Section, General Directorate of Information Systems, Ministry of Interior, Qatar is also on the panel of speakers. The electronic services project is lined up with Qatar e-government 2020 strategy to enhance the service portals such as the ministry’s website (Eservices) and mobile application (Metrash2) by using the latest technology at its best.
Currently, more than 250 electronic services are accessible on the Ministry of Interior’s website and Metrash2 mobile application associated with different sectors of the ministry including Passports, Traffic, Borders and Criminal Evidence and Information.
Uvais Qidwai, another of the speakers is a PhD from the University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth, holds MS (EE) from KFUPM Saudi Arabia, and BS (EE) in 1994 from NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, Pakistan.
He joined the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Qatar University, in the fall of 2005 where he is currently working as Associate Professor. His present research interests include Robotics, Signal & Image Processing, Expert systems for NDT applications, and Medical Informatics Systems.
He has participated in several government and industry sector projects in the USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, and Pakistan, and has published over 90 research papers in reputable journals and conference proceedings.