Building Castles in the Cloud
And why Qatar needs to go digital, ASAP
Based on discussions with Perttu Korhonen, Dr. Muammer Koc and team. Opinions are my own.
Qatar, as a country does not have flora & fauna, human resources(like India, China etc) or even land capital. Barring fuel & natural gas, there is not much to bank on the future with.
Let me now take you to Estonia, a small, sparsely populated country in Europe, bolted in between the sea and Russia — almost like an island with regards to connections to the rest of the world. If you have been following the country, you will see that they have taken it upon themselves to be the digital infrastructure of the world. People who visited the country have returned to praise their culture of focusing on building SAAS based solutions that do not require land, much manpower and even physical hardware. The coffee shops are buzzing with startups meeting with colleagues, partners and investors all with the conviction that a good part of the market today can be captured with a laptop, a Wi-Fi connection, and of course, that slow burning fire in the belly.
Back in Qatar, it seems as if the country is similar in potential to Estonia. It is difficult for Qatar to capture the market through physical products. What we need are intellectual offerings. Products in the cloud, unencumbered by physical restraints. Qatar should focus on building talent that could provide intellect-as-a-service to the rest of the world. Armed with the right tools of analysis and prediction, it could be firms in Qatar playing the role of financial advisors to companies within the country and beyond. This is just one example, and note how this does not take up physical space or real estate.
The moment we take the fight to the realm of the digital, we are on an almost even playing field with other countries. Qatar’s network adaptation is miles ahead. All that we need to do is start thinking digitally, create a digitally enabled population — and the world is our oyster.
