By Majd Othman

KUWAIT: According to Digital Skills Gap Index (DSGI) for 2021, published by Wiley, Kuwait ranked 67th out of 134 countries regarding the level of technological development and available skills among Arab countries, while the United Arab Emirates ranked second and Qatar fourth. Despite technology contributing to breaking the barriers of distance and language and the changes it brought to all fields, most Arab countries still face obstacles and need to develop their digital gap, and Kuwait is one of them.

Kuwait Times talked to technology expert Khalil Ibrahim Al-Failakawi and discussed with him the reasons behind the wide digital gap in Kuwait and ways to reduce it. “I believe that Kuwait is successful in terms of Internet speed in the country. Internet companies have provided an excellent infrastructure regarding Internet speed, where at homes it could exceed 100 megabytes, not to mention Internet speed for the government sector,” he said.

“As for technological skills, Kuwait lacks the presence of Kuwaiti citizens’ skills, while residents excel in their tech skills. But the country suffers from the migration of these skills due to the attractive offers they receive from other countries, and this is what significantly affects the outcomes of the technological development process in the country and broadens the technology gap,” Failakawi said.

“It is very important for Kuwait to develop a local national component capable of using very modern technologies, such as cloud technology and AI. We also recently suffered from a significant lack of technological expertise among expatriate workers, whether in attracting skilled workers from other countries or because of the living conditions of residents in the country,” he said.

“In addition to creating strong job opportunities in this field, the most important step the country should take is to establish a specialized technological institute away from university degrees, which often provides students general information about technology and new developments, but does not train them on required skills that are needed in the market. Therefore, it is important to establish institutes on an international level,” Failakawi pointed out.

“Some may think that it is possible to obtain international certificates in the technological field through online study, but it is important to note that if companies or technological institutes sponsor these students with at least studying under their names, it will contribute greatly in encouraging them to get the skills and certificates to be qualified in the technological field, especially citizens,” he told Kuwait Times. “The labor market in Kuwait is in urgent need for specialized skills in the field of technology, and there are many job opportunities. But it must be clarified that the availability of job opportunities in the private sector is linked to the existence of opportunities that are required by the government to develop itself and exploit these required skills. Then the private sector will have to attract these skills to implement government projects,” Failakawi said.

He explained that the labor market in Kuwait is constantly looking for local skills specialized in the technological field, whether cybersecurity, systems development or website development, stressing that the largest local demand is directed towards national labor more than others, but the lack of these experiences and skills made the private sector have a hard time finding them.

Regarding the government’s role in digital transformation, Failakawi said digital transformation, digital services and technological systems are being provided by private sector teams and not by government teams. ”Therefore, the government must have its own body to handle this process or at least provide skills that the private sector can adopt, by training scholarly employees who will return to work in the government sector to provide the needed services,” he said.

“In addition, there must be a government entity working to graduate qualified students in a specialized technological field, such as cyber security or others to work in the government sector. Meanwhile, I think that the government is able to qualify people who are far from administrative work, but work with their own hands and develop Kuwait in the technology field,” Failakawi explained.

“The biggest obstacle we have in Kuwait is not the systems, devices or financing, human experts who are able to stay in the country and make an effort to boost local production, work faster, be accurate, have good experience with local problems that need to be treated and have sufficient skills to communicate with those who are responsible for modern systems,” he said.