Tasmu, Gartner hold workshop with govt stakeholders to leverage power of AI in Qatar

The Tasmu Smart Qatar initiative, one of the flagship programmes of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC), has teamed up with data science experts from Gartner to conduct a ‘Design Thinking’ workshop on ‘Humanising Artificial Intelligence’.
Held at the recently-inaugurated Tasmu Innovation Lab, the special workshop for government stakeholders was designed to leverage the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across Tasmu’s five priority sectors: transportation, healthcare, logistics, environment, and sports. 
AI has a clear advisory role to play beyond traditional ‘decision-support systems’, supporting decision-making through assembling relevant data, identifying pertinent questions and topics for the attention of policy-makers, and in helping to take crucial decisions.
Tasmu is helping government entities find value in using artificial intelligence to assist public servants in the delivery of digital services. The workshop conducted by Gartner at Tasmu’s Innovation Lab allowed government stakeholders from the five sectors to better understand the potential of implementing AI technology towards creating real intelligence.
To inspire the participants, guest speaker Dr Sanjay Chawla from Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) presented Qatar’s AI National Strategy to attendees, and helped create a substantial basis for the workshop and familiarised the participants with the country’s strategic direction.
The workshop continued with an exploration into the potential of AI in supporting the tasks made by employees. Focusing less on traditional analytics and moving towards real intelligence, the workshop evaluated how AI can complement people.
Eman al-Kuwari, section head in Emerging Technologies at Tasmu Smart Qatar Programme of the MoTC, said: “Tasmu Innovation Lab is known to bring together government entities, research, and academic institutes, and private sector players to create tangible real-life applications that are contextual and relevant to Qatar’s current and future challenges.
“We are pleased with the outcome of our Humanising Artificial Intelligence Workshop, which identified several AI opportunities, using design thinking methodology that will be evaluated and considered by participating organisations within each sector. To support Qatar’s transformation into a smart country, participants discovered areas where cross-sector collaboration can be powered by AI.”
Stakeholders present at the workshop included MoTC, Kahramaa, Ministry of Public Health, Hamad Medical Corporation, Primary Health Care Corporation, Sidra Medicine, Mwani, Ministry of Municipality and Environment, Qatar Olympic Committee, Ministry of Culture and Sports, and Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy.
The workshop provided a hands-on experience for attendees, with brainstorming sessions that saw participants break into smaller working groups to ideate and collaborate on AI opportunities that could benefit their organisations.
Each working group had members from participating entities that brought a variety of skill sets and knowledge to the table, from information technology, to operations and business representatives.
Set out to raise the profile of Qatar as a technology innovation hub, the Tasmu Innovation Lab offers an open and inclusive environment and catalyses the entire process of innovation from ideation to implementation.
The lab supports the growing research and development ecosystem of Qatar by orchestrating ideation workshops, hackathons, and innovation trainings among other innovation development activities. This workshop is one of the many workshops that will support in realisation of Tasmu and the Innovation Lab goals and fuel Qatar’s transformation into a smart country.