DHAHRAN, 30 October 2007 — Over the past week there has been much emphasis on all the big names and high level people who are associated with KAUST. It’s important though to remember that in this digital age we can’t function without talented technicians, who enable our knowledge resources and sharing.
One of the unsung, behind the scenes stars of all the major KAUST launch events was Mark Bowes, head of the HAV Productions team (havpro.com). For the past three weeks, the technicians at HAV Productions had very little sleep, as they worked to make three major events a success. Without those technicians, most of the audio, visual, lighting and special effects associated with the events wouldn’t have been possible.
While many of KAUST’s thought leaders spoke about the importance of attracting talent at the university’s research and management levels, only one person mentioned the serious difficulties KAUST will face in attracting the technicians who will be responsible for keeping the ICT central to KAUST’s functionality and success, up and delivering.
Many private sector firms in Saudi Arabia are already struggling due to the shortage of networking staff and other high-level ICT technicians. This is a global problem but in the Kingdom it is now holding back some projects and companies are finding it a challenge to recruit staff to allow their IT departments to provide acceptable service levels. This is in part due to currency exchange issues, coupled with the demand for IT staff in other countries such as India — where Saudi companies sourced their technicians in the past.
But there is also the serious problem of the lack of respect for technical staff in the Kingdom. Individuals with university degrees often are abusive in their manner toward technicians. The truth is that while technical training isn’t as broad as a university degree, most experienced technicians have hundreds of hours of concentrated, focused training. Our modern world and its systems and networks couldn’t function without technical talent.
“When it comes to events, there’s a lot of hardware in the Kingdom to use in putting on events,” said Bowes. “The real problem is that there’s a shortage of talented, well-trained people who know how to use that equipment properly.”
For KAUST to be a success, it must find a way to attract and keep qualified technicians who will be enthusiastic to spend their lives maintaining and operating the infrastructure and systems that will bring the imagination of others to fruition.
