Doha: Qatar will be hosting the biggest ever event this year with almost 1.5 million spectators - the FIFA World Cup 2022 which will be demanding many Information & Communications Technology (ICT) services in different levels, and the country is working to provide innovative technologies with an advanced infrastructure, said an official during the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2022, recently.
Addressing the event, Sami Al Shammari, Chief Technology Officer at the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy said: “We are working for the last 12 years to provide latest technology and information and we have built a very advanced infrastructure for all the stadiums that is connecting all eight stadiums from one main control room that provides all the information from CCTV to utilising Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, and more.
“During the pandemic, we were in construction stage, and we made sure that our work will not be impacted. The real test was during the Arab Cup last year when we hosted 16 teams and the same quality of services will be provided for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, but it will be much escalated and multiplied,” he added.
In 2008, Qatar launched its Qatar National Vision 2030 which has four main pillars – social, human, economic and environmental development and these pillars need infrastructure to be developed. He noted: “One of the main services that we developed is Information Technology and Communications and this showed FIFA that Qatar has ambitious goals and objectives to be delivered. And we are up to these goals that we have put to improve the information and communications technology in the country which is important to deliver such an event which specially depends on technology for broadcasting and transmitting the information of the games during the World Cup.”
Al Shammari added: We have three main objectives to deliver the World Cup from infrastructure, telecommunication and technology aspect and we were looking forward to being innovative, fan-centric and having legacy”.
Speaking about innovation, Al Shammari explained that all the services and technologies that will be delivered will be innovative and meaningful for the World Cup, as well as to improve the services across the country. Also, the services need to be fan-centric that is “we were thinking about the journey of the fans to be easy and seamless, from providing transportation, accommodation and other services like restaurants, entertainment and all the way to getting inside the stadium. Also, how to provide a seamless, more effective and proactive kind of operation which is one of our main objectives,” he said.
