Shepherding the region into the global economy
12 Sep 2003And wisely sailing through the rough waters of this part of the world, this ‘admiral’, with a warm smile and gentle manners, has over the past 30 or so years built a small empire in its own right, with 32 offices across the Arab world and liaison offices in Edinburgh, Montreal, New York and Paris.
For a start, he does not do politics - a refreshing change at a time when success in business often seems to come with a ministerial post somewhere down the road - and admits it with the easy candour of those who need no favours from anyone - or almost.
Through Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP), he led the drive for intellectual property protection, and has been president of the Arab Society for Intellectual Property since 1987.
His involvement in IT dates as far back as 1980. “We started focusing on IT in 1980, and that same year we were mentioned in the International Herald Tribune as the number one computer user in the Arab world,” he says.
In the early 1980s, Abu-Ghazaleh introduced the first IT management system to the government of Kuwait, and since then has been developing IT-based accounting systems and offered a range of consulting services.
“Today we are providing information security, audit services as well as consulting on e-government and e-business in general,” he explains.
No matter how many companies he’s running- 15, according to one count - ‘the jewel’ of his organisation seems to be the Abu-Ghazaleh Cambridge IT Skills Centre, which he describes as a proof of his “commitment to eliminate computer illiteracy in the Arab world.”
The centre came as the result of a 2001 agreement between Talal Abu-Ghazaleh International (TAGI) and Cambridge International Examinations to deliver IT training courses through a website, together with additional learning resources. Courses and exams have been translated into Arabic, and the partnership covers all 22 Arab countries. In Jordan, the centre has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Education to certify 30,000 teachers, and is working with the Ministry of ICT under the umbrella of the e-government strategy to train and-lest government employees. Governments, banks and companies across the Arab world have listed the Abu-Ghazaleh Cambridge IT Skills Award as a prerequisite for recruitment and/or promotion.
Abu-Ghazaleh says spreading computer literacy, and especially training the trainers programmes, is a focus of his work as vice-chair of the UN ICT Task Force (New York, 2001-2004), chairman of the Arab Regional Network of the UN ICT TF, and new board member of IT education-oriented organisation World Links.
Theoretically, “the Arab world is capable of joining the world information society and very rapidly,” comments Abu-Ghazaleh.
‘The only problems are political will and concrete action plans; some countries, like Jordan, have both.”
But what’s perhaps the greatest hurdle to regional IT development is lack of coordination amongst various initiatives within each country. In that regard, even in Jordan a “national coordination body” is needed, to ensure synergy and avoid waste and duplication of energies and resources, Abu-Ghazaleh stresses. Such a body would report directly to the country’s leader, and include all stakeholders, private and public, from banks to civil society, in addition to ministries, agencies, and companies. “If you don’t organise your own house, you can’t expect donors to organise it for you.”
