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Msheireb Properties has reinforced its position as a leader in green construction and urban innovation as its chief executive officer, Engineer Ali al-Kuwari, was named ‘Sustainability Leader of the Year’ at the Big 5 Global Impact Awards 2025.The Big 5 Global Impact Awards inspire the global built environment to pursue higher industry standards. Aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the awards recognise outstanding achievements in sustainability, digitalisation and innovation through rigorous evaluation by an independent international panel.The award recognises al-Kuwari’s instrumental role in guiding Msheireb Properties’ strategic vision and its execution in creating Msheireb Downtown Doha, the world's first sustainable downtown regeneration project.Al-Kuwari said: “Sustainability goes beyond a target; it is a guiding principle that informs every aspect of our work. From urban design and mobility solutions to heritage conservation and community engagement, our goal is to create environments that are resilient, inclusive and future-ready. This award highlights a fundamental principle at Msheireb Properties: true sustainability is a holistic endeavour. It is not a standalone feature but the very foundation upon which our projects were conceived. It lives in the shade of our architecture, the efficiency of our smart grid, the stories within our heritage museums and the vitality of our community spaces."The accolade for the CEO follows a historic double win for Msheireb Properties at the 2024 awards, where Msheireb Downtown Doha secured the ‘Liveable City Initiative of the Year’ award and Msheireb Museums won ‘Conservation and Heritage Initiative of the Year’. The continued success reinforces Msheireb Properties’ status as a leading reference for quality and innovation regionally and internationally.The ‘Sustainability Leader of the Year’ award acknowledges al-Kuwari's leadership in overseeing a portfolio of groundbreaking initiatives. Under his guidance, Msheireb Properties launched Qatar's first large-scale portfolio decarbonisation strategy for Msheireb Downtown Doha this year, a bold initiative covering over 100 buildings. This commitment to reducing the carbon footprint of the entire city exemplifies the forward-thinking approach the award celebrates. 

A top official of the GSMA has lauded Qatar’s proactive investments to push forward its digitalisation journey, underscoring the country’s role as a global leader in shaping the future of connectivity.In an exclusive interview with Gulf Times on the sidelines of MWC25 Doha, Louis Powell, Director of AI Technologies at the GSMA, said Qatar ranks among the world’s top 10 investors in the digital economy and has set clear national goals through its Digital Agenda 2030.“I understand that Qatar is in the top 10 investors in the digital economy and ecosystem. The government is very proactive on the AI side of things, and I think it’s a great opportunity for them to uplift and empower their citizens and enterprises. Establishing a clear goal and ambition through its 2030 national vision not only sends a positive signal to the economy but also sets a guiding example for other nations,” Powell pointed out.According to Powell, the connectivity industry is expected to generate “$470bn in value between now and 2030.” He said MWC25 Doha attracted about 300 thought leaders, 250 exhibitors, and 100 startups, adding that “a lot of that value is created in these two days from these players in this space.”He said MWC25 Doha brings together a “core group of investors,” making the event a vital platform for showcasing breakthroughs in mobile technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and next-generation connectivity.Powell revealed what he was most excited about the developments in AI, citing the announcement of a strategic co-operation agreement between the GSMA Foundry, the GSMA’s innovation hub, and the Abu Dhabi-based Khalifa University of Science and Technology in the UAE.“We’re working with Khalifa University on building assets that boost the telecoms industry in AI,” Powell explained, adding that the university has a strong history in telecoms and recently built the first model designed specifically for the industry“And along with them, we have done a lot of work on benchmarking how models perform in the telecoms industry,” stressed Powell, who noted that telecoms data has unique requirements compared to consumer applications.“You can’t just take ChatGPT and use it on telecom-specific data. To address this, the GSMA is working with vendors in the open-source ecosystem and academia to boost model performance,” he further said.Asked about other key announcements or initiatives the GSMA unveiled at MWC25 Doha, and how they will shape the direction of the industry in the coming years, Powell said: “We've also launched a competition encouraging the industry to innovate in the telecom space, focusing on telecom-specific challenges such as troubleshooting. We also have great announcements on our open gateway through new announcements on network APIs.”Looking ahead, Powell said 6G will be “AI native,” with intelligence embedded into how networks are designed, constructed, and operated. “In the future, we’ll see how agentic systems really give you unlocked potential in scale and efficiency,” he pointed out. 

People mostly mix between digitisation and digitalisation. However, in business matters and services it would be very important to differentiate between digitisation and digitalisation.Understanding the key differences between these two terms is essential when formulating business strategy. Also, there are some legal implications here regarding data protection, authenticity of the docs for evidence purposes and acceptance before Courts.In brief, digitisation means to convert something into a digital format, and usually refers to encoding of data and documents. While, digitalisation means to convert business processes to use digital technologies, instead of similar things or offline systems such as paper or whiteboards.In a nutshell, digitisation refers to information, while digitalisation refers to processes.Appreciating the difference is important because they are genuinely different things to business matters, each requiring different resources, approaches and tools. Whether you are using the term digitise or digitalise, make sure you are referring to the right thing to avoid confusion, misunderstandings and could be legal repercussions.Digitisation is basically the process of taking analogue information, such as documents, sounds or photographs, and converting into a digital format that can be stored and accessed on computers, mobile phones and other digital devices.In business, digitisation may involve scanning old documents into PDFs, converting printed photographs into image files, or transforming printed reports into meaningful data that can be manipulated and analysed. Some digitisation projects may include going back over years of business records and information and converting them into a digital format for easy reference and other logistical purposes. The original content may be stored or destroyed, or may degrade over time, as in the case of magnetic tapes.In other cases, it may be that any new information being captured in a business is now created and stored primarily in a digital format, with any physical forms being only secondary copies. We have to mention that, the law regulates this process of keeping the old data and storing them in magnetic tapes. This is sensitive work to be undertaken by experienced personnel and requires careful attention, as courts may ask for them.For digitalisation, there is still some debate around the exact meaning, which means that people sometimes use it to describe digitisation. However, the general consensus is that digitalisation refers to the conversion of processes or interactions into their digital equivalents. And because all business processes and interactions involve people in some way, it would be more accurate to say that digitalisation is the reorganisation of these business activities around digital technologies.Examples include moving from sending physical letters via the postal service to using email, or from having in-person meetings to using online video conferencing tools. The Zoom meetings were very helpful and useful during Covid-19 and sure will continue for practical reasons.Digitalisation of a business is also likely to be an ongoing exercise, as new technologies emerge that allow further digitalisation of processes and interactions in many times and for many purposes.I believe, the distinction between digitisation and digitalisation is clear. However, the mixture is there which makes unnecessary confusion. Dr AbdelGadir Warsama Ghalib is a corporate legal counsel. Email: [email protected]