Muscat: A field visit for the Steering Committee team, in charge of supervising the zone designated for artificial intelligence (AI) at Duqm was organised by the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ). The steering committee includes representatives from several government entities, namely the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Oman Police (ROP), the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation, the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, and Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA). This came after the recent announcement of the OPAZ, allocating an area of 18 square kilometres of land to support and encourage the use of modern techniques, including AI experiments in the Special Economic Zone at Duqm (Sezad). "The Authority is seeking to achieve several key objectives, most importantly, the localisation of investment opportunities in the field of artificial intelligence, drone experiments and future technology," Ahmed bin Saleh Al Farsi, Chairman of the Committee, said. "In addition to building basic infrastructure to apply e-government strategy and smart cities, the Authority will also be creating and implementing research opportunities in the zone under the supervision of the committee for practical and academic uses, and to overcome the challenges and difficulties facing the implementation of AI projects, drones and future technology in the zone," he added.

Amsterdam Data Science, in which CWI participates as a partner, recently announced that 3 PhD projects will shortly commence, fully funded by Science Foundation Ireland (an award of around 0.5M€). The PhD students will spend their studentships between Insight Centre for Data Analytics (Ireland) and up to 1 year at an Amsterdam Data Science partner. This marks a further step in this already strong collaboration and an excellent opportunity for PhD students to benefit from the joint expertise. The vacancies will be advertised very soon. The awarded project in which CWI will be involved is called "Smart Partnerships" to develop STEM competencies that transform lives to live and thrive in a complex connected global society.