- Telecoms & IT
CEO, Hussam Technology Company (HTC)
Bio
Mohammed Al-Abduwani is the CEO of HTC and has over a decade of experience in developing and leading teams along a clear strategic vision with emphasis on adding value and competitiveness to Oman. He holds an MBA from the University of Strathclyde and a BEng in mechatronics and robotics with a minor in embedded systems and biomedical engineering from the University of Leeds.
The company has evolved immensely. Initially, when the company started, its focus was to become a wireless ISP. The company obtained specific niche technologies that were available and conducted a POC to provide industrial areas with wireless internet access. We required a specific license from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) in order to provide such a service though, unfortunately, we were not able to get that license as it was not available. We then had to shift the vision of the company to instead provide such services for private companies. We started by offering services in the oil and gas concession areas. We started targeting markets that are closer to what we were doing and subsequently shifted to working with ISPs. In addition, we evolved to working on technology related to fiber-optic cables, where we do testing, maintenance of fiber networks, and the supply of specific equipment used in fiber networks. Later, we wanted to diversify more and identified multiple markets that we were interested in. At that time, Shell had just released its solar-to-school scheme. For us, it was the perfect opportunity.
We are focusing on ICT and as well as renewable energy. In ICT, we always work on the infrastructure part of it. For us, we want to move up and down the value chain itself. We are targeting the infrastructural part of it, though there is also the application-level office and the digitalization automation part of it. Also, in terms of renewable energy, we are mostly concentrating on solar on a mass scale. We were focusing on commercial, industrial work, but we were awarded the first and largest project by PDO to install solar panels for the homes of its employees. We have committed to working on 1,000 villas over the next two years with solar at a competitive price. In terms of the current numbers in the country, the largest consumers of power are private houses and builders and not the commercial industry sector. In the next two years, I see the landscape changing.
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SAUDI ARABIA - Tourism
Interview
Director, UN Tourism Regional Office for the Middle East