Dubai: Implementation of Internet of Things, which is going to create huge amounts of data, is going to create skills gap in the industry.
Rabih Dabboussi, general manager of Cisco in the UAE, said that the skills gap is going to create a big challenge for this region.
“I believe that we are going to feel the pain from the shortage because we have been a constant importer of skills and an importer of technology. We haven’t been investing enough in developing in upscaling the workforce and not investing enough in R&D and innovation,” he said.
So, if that does not happen “we are going to feel the pain”.
There is no doubt that when we do have a desire to achieve something in this region in general, we will achieve it. If the know-how and the skills set are not available for a specific industry and for a specific technology, it will be imported but that is not sustainable model,” he said.
But Fady Kassatly, vice-president at Booz Allen Hamilton, sees Dubai already tackling the skills gap in different aspects.
“Dubai is the magnet for skills. However, there is a shortage gap for data analysts and data scientists,” he said.
“Big Data is like oil and there is oil where we cannot reach right now. We are figuring out the technology to extract oil. Big Data is similar to that. There are some data which we can extract today but there are more data which we haven’t figured it how to extract,” he said.
It will have an impact on the workers to change into “knowledge workers”, much more than before, he said.
Kassatly said that IoT generates vast amounts of data, providing the required fuel for data scientists to drive smarter insights for citizens, businessmen and governments for better decision making.
So far, machines don’t have emotional intelligence; he said and added that we may get there at a later stage. So, the rule of the human is going to become how to take all the data, transcribe it and understand it what it means for specific situation. This is where it is going to impact the economy.
