IIUM Team Malaysia wins debating tournament

The winning team from the International Islamic University of Malaysia receiving their prize from QF president, Fathy Saoud while executive director of QatarDebate,

Hayat Maarafi and other officials look on

The first International Universities Arab Debating Championship has concluded, with the International Islamic University of Malaysia claiming first prize in the inaugural tournament.

Winning in the final, the Malaysian team emerged victorious over 39 other teams representing 19 universities from 12 countries.
The runners up in the tournament were Al Khartoum University from Sudan, whilst UAE University and the International Islamic University of Malaysia’s second team finished second runners up.

The best speaker award was presented to Mohammed Ahmed Hamood al-Subaidi from the winning team, whilst Mohamed Fadhli from Kuwait University came second and Aisha Salim Mohammed al-Naimi from the UAE University won the third best speaker award.
Al-Subaidi described the success as a turning point in his life.
“It took me some time to believe the fact that I am the champion speaker of the competition,” he said, adding “my joy is double as my team won the championship. It is really a great occasion in my life.”

Awards were presented by special guest, president of Qatar Foundation, Fathy Soud who spoke of his experience of teaching at Khartoum University in the past and said that he had been very impressed by the standard of debating on show at the event.
“It is a towering achievement for the QatarDebate Centre as the state of Qatar has once again led the way in a noble initiative,” he said, adding “Qatar Foundation has already become a focal point in the region and beyond in many areas and this is another feather in its cap.”

Executive director of QatarDebate, Hayat Maarafi said: “Language is the lifeline of a country and a society and with this aim we have embarked on a journey to promote the use of Arabic especially the use of classic Arabic all through the region.”
“The resounding success of this tournament, organised at very short notice, has made us more confident about organising bigger tournaments,” she said, adding “it is our humble belief that we will be able to promote the use of Arabic language in a big way which will become a landmark in the years to come”.

Debating the motion ‘This House Believes in the Freedom of Press’ in the final, the Malaysian team of Mohammed Ahmed Hamood al Zubaidi, Mohammed Hamood Ali Al-Ragawi and Salem Salah Salem successfully presented the proposition, which the Khartoum Unversity students Amna Mubarak, Yahia Mohammed Osman Hashim and Thabit Mohamed Ali Mohamed Ahmed were unable to reject.

Victorious team coaches Salah Awadalla Sidiq and Ibrahim Ahmed Fares expressed their joy at seeing their students win the competition.
Sidiq said: “It a great victory for us and we hope that it will be a regular competition in the future and look forward to participating in more Arabic debate sessions.”

“QatarDebate has provided a great opportunity for our students and we are thankful to QatarDebate team for their wonderful support and hospitality,” added

Source : Gulf Times, Doha

Mabrouk to International Islamic University, Malaysia for winning the championship. Not only one team, but 2 teams in the top 3 or top 4.

DISCLAIMER: Notice :Opinions, stories , thoughts expressed are blogger's own and do not necessarily represent the views of the institution or the organizations by which the blogger is employed or any specific person who so ever, either dead or alive. Hi! I am a green e-mail! Unlike my brothers and sisters, my presence on the Internet does not harm our environment. Please go to greenscroll.org and help make the Internet green like me!

Interconnected base on mutual interest

Image via WikipediaT Mobile tagline " Life is sharing ", so I decided to write and share some of the take away from a program that I attended organized by ictQatar this evening here in Doha.

The Future of The Content and Media Industries. New Business Models and Opportunities-Gerd Leonhard.

The speaker began his presentation by sharing with audiences of one quote " If Henry Ford had asked people what they wanted, they would have said " faster horses"". Instead, Henry Ford produced cars. The take from this quote is for each and everyone of us to think beyond the visible and adopting the strategy to be always one step or few steps ahead of competitors. Media and social media are indeed  huge industries, as companies spent billion of dollars in advertisement and marketing their products to the masses. Gone those days of conventional branding through traditional medias like TV and and Radio, as studies show more and more people are connected be it wireless or wired connection via broadband. The speaker said that the data from this social medias is a "new oil". Look at Facebook, Google, Skype and companies alike, that the "free" services they provide actually generate billion of dollars in return.

The new business model will be based on co-operations among the players to complete jigsaw puzzle based on mutual interest among ;

1. Content maker

2. Advertising

3. Device Maker

4. Telecom

Expect the future, more bundling services to be a norm business model as customers would love to have the feeling of  " feel like free", " freemium" and "pay with attention" and they would demand more out of the services, as the social medias and internet have given them empowerment to pick and choose the services they would want to pay. So, to the question whether the new medias promote piracy, and piracy = market failure ? The speaker quoted a quotation by Kelly ; " sell something that can't be copied " . MTV take ages to build up the company to be the leader in providing quality entertainment, only to be taken over by YouTube within few years. Look at Disney, Universal Studio, Microsoft and etc.where are they now ?

So, how long a business will stay in the market and be a market leader ? Studies showed it becomes shorter and shorter with the advance of technology and connection, so the only way to go is to change and change is the only constant. Refusal to change and adapt = deadly as today's world is all about " connecting the cloud and the crowd". The world has become so connected and networked based on mutual interest.

In the end, the future will be ;

1. Open

2. Mobile

3.Connected

4.Collaborative

5. Cross-media

6. Interdependent.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that it is predicted that newspaper, magazine business will be a history or something in the museum in 2029 in Malaysia and few other countries, and by 2017 in the case of USA and Europe.

The speaker also mentioned that to succeed, one needs to give up control, however as part of corporate social responsibilities, social obligations, ethical commitment Facebook and other social medias companies alike shall to give back some level of privacy control to the users. It is the users right to ask back in return for willingness to be opened and give out something to the social medias.

One question asked by the attendee, that while on-line, e-book and this social media do save the environment in one way [ thought the production of the devices and gadget do cause other environmental issue] we still need to use electricity to operate the gadgets and devices. OK, at first I thought it is irrelevant question for the speaker to answer that, but come to think about it , I did have issue with my iphone and computer, where the battery life  "sucks" and I have to recharge over and over again. One of the feature for iphone4 is the improvised and longer battery life. So, the solution is for one to be innovative and think beyond the obvious.

So, let me practice to think beyond the obvious. One of the solution and answer that I can think of, for shorter battery life and higher electricity consumption is for my iphone or computer to be environmentally friendly, in such a way to leverage on the abundance of sun and solar energy. So, in case my iphone or computer runs out of battery, I can just put the gadget under the sun, and the battery will be recharged, or if I surf under the sun or certain degree, the battery will be recharged automatically.

How about that ? I do not have the answer myself :)

Last but not least, congratulations to ictQatar for organizing such event, and as customer , I "demand" for ictQatar to have similar or greater events in the near future for the benefit of the people and country like Qatar who recently won the right the host 2022 World Cup, which it will accelerate the IT related infrastructure development and spice up the media and social media industry in accordance to local's own understanding, values, cultures and norms. Oh yeah, did I mention it is free event, and the food and reception good ?

DISCLAIMER: Notice :Opinions, stories , thoughts expressed are blogger's own and do not necessarily represent the views of the institution or the organizations by which the blogger is employed or any specific person who so ever, either dead or alive. Hi! I am a green e-mail! Unlike my brothers and sisters, my presence on the Internet does not harm our environment. Please go to greenscroll.org and help make the Internet green like me!

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