Qatar Paves Way for Young Talents To Develop Skills in Tech and Data Science

Doha: Qatar is leading the way in attracting and fostering young talent in data science, offering opportunities for them to enhance their skills and help tackle the challenges of our fast-changing technological landscape, an official remarked.

In an interview with The Peninsula, Ahmed Al Obaidly, Director General of the National Statistics Center said “The ongoing Qatar Datathon 2025 will provide participants with the opportunity to demonstrate their talents in this national competition.”

He stressed that competition is one initiative total initiatives”, which the strategy is designed for. “One of the pillars is building a national data government ecosystem to ensure standards are in place in addition to building the capacity and developing the talents towards using the technology and adapting to the standards and its policy,” Al Obaidly said.

The official emphasised that Qatar National Vision 2030 and the Third National Development Strategy are focused on building a knowledge-based economy and preparing a workforce that is ready for the future.

The Qatar Datathon 2025 is hosted in collaboration with tech giant firm Microsoft. Al Obaidly said “This is the first-ever event in Qatar as we are looking forward to strengthening our partnership with Microsoft and others. 

We, therefore, encourage all students to focus and fix the problems that we are going to share in order to emphasise how data can lead to big decisions or a tool for policymaking.”

He also stated that one of the pillars is to focus on data monetization and to link the investors. “We believe linking data to the economy makes it open for the investors to analyse the available data and invest in Qatar,” he said.

Al Obaidly outlined “More than 500 students submitted their application and we have chosen 173 from over 5 universities in Qatar and we are going to distribute them into 32 teams to solve different issues.” 

As Qatar Datathon 2025 commenced, attendees were organised into groups, each guided by an expert mentor.

The competition’s structure, evaluation criteria, and event stages were explained before the groups started tackling their assigned challenges.

The top three winners will be revealed during the closing ceremony on 22 February, where they will receive their awards.

Ahead of the competition’s registration period, the NPC organised introductory tours at Qatar University and various Qatar Foundation-affiliated institutions, such as Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Georgetown University in Qatar, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, and Doha University of Science and Technology.

In addition, online introductory sessions were held for other interested students, graduates, and professionals.

Al Obaidly added, “This strategy is aiming to make Qatar first in terms of technology and AI on all operations and data.”