Ibtechar, Qatar’s leading practical innovation solutions provider, hosted a roundtable session to redefine and explore corporate innovations that lead to success. The event, titled ‘Corporate Innovations for Sustainable Growth’, convened industry leaders, experts, and innovators to foster insightful discussions, knowledge sharing, and collaboration to drive positive impact on businesses, the environment, and society.

The event was part of a series of roundtables organized by Ibtechar, under its commitment to building a knowledge-based economy in Qatar by propelling practical innovation across all levels of society. To this end, the Ibtechar roundtables provide a platform for active dialogue, knowledge exchange and increased collaboration between various stakeholders and sectors.

Engineer Nayef Al-Ibrahim, CEO & Co-Founder of Ibtechar, opened the session with an introduction about Ibtechar and its efforts to foster the innovation ecosystem in Qatar. In this context, he said: “For the past two years, Ibtechar has been running roundtable sessions focused on innovation in general, driven by certain beliefs. Being involved in the innovation ecosystem, we believe that everyone who is part of it can contribute to its development and evolution. Through such sessions, we seek to provide a platform for ongoing dialogue around innovation. For each roundtable, we apply subject matter expertise on the selected topic to allow sharing insights, views and expertise between the participating entities.”

Eng. Nayef added: “This roundtable’s topic was chosen due to the market dynamics. In recent months, we have been approached by different governmental, corporate, private and local institutions with one big question: How can we incorporate innovation in our organizations? These institutions faced certain challenges in striking a balance between developing the skills of their employees and applying their set strategies and frameworks with the objective of enhancing innovation. This drove us to reflect on the subject and communicate with different stakeholders to identify the best solutions.”

Speaking at the event, Mr. David Luong, Digital Innovation Hub Leader at Hamad International Airport (HIA), defined corporate innovation and listed its sources as well as the enablers of transformative innovation. He highlighted that innovation is derived from a belief that something should be done better and that innovators can apply a process that helps in identifying, prioritizing and seizing innovation opportunities.

Explaining the enablers of corporate innovation, Mr. Loung said: “Technology can be a wonderful medium for fostering inspiration and innovation. ChatGPT, artificial intelligence, drones, robotics and supply chain networks are typical models of innovation. If a company wants to grow and thrive, it is significantly important for it to apply a supportive innovation culture and strategy. Additionally, it has to pay great attention to the engagement of its staff, stakeholders and customers to ensure that they are part of its transformative innovation journey. Furthermore, this entity should apply the best business policies, processes and practices. To this end, innovation should be stated as a priority by creating a well-established innovation culture.”

Expanding on the topic, Engineer AlHasan AlSammarraie, Founding Managing Partner at Applab, stated: “Technology has become a cornerstone for innovation and digital transformation. Innovation is all about adopting existing technologies, frameworks, methodologies to tackle problems that may affect the sustainability of a company such as reporting as well as measuring and reducing the direct costs of a company. Applab adopts emerging technologies related to transactions, ticketing and banking such as cloud engineering, blockchain and OpenAI in the delivery of our services to achieve the desired corporate innovation. Our company is using existing inventions to solve corporate problems and has contributed positively to the sustainability of so many models related to transactions and creating products.”

Engineer Mohamed Ghanem, CEO at VIDSCOLA DWC pointed out that corporate innovation means weaving inventive thinking into the DNA of products and services in the delivery process. He said: “Corporate innovation plays an integral role in business sustainability. It starts from the customer side to know their landscape very well. We need to know their problems, their pain points, and realize the challenges they face nowadays. Innovation is beyond the ideation and producing creative ideas as it starts from the external side of the company, not internally. After we realize the main challenges faced by our customers, the second step of ideation starts to find the right solution for such challenges.”

Engineer Ghanem also addressed the biggest obstacles to innovation in large companies, including the cultural issues and the inability to act on indicators crucial to the future of the business. He also highlighted the key drivers of innovation and the main components and purpose of building an innovation hub within the enterprise. He stressed that such a hub can bridge the gap between customer insights, business strategy and service development.