Panel Session Three
Getting Established in Syria
Amer Moujtahed, Director Information Technology, Syriatel Mobile Telecom

Dear ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to sit before you and to have the opportunity to shed some light on the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure in Syria, what is available and what is waiting on the horizon. I have decided to divide my presentation to tackle two distinct parts which complement the subject; one is to address the human resources pertaining to IT, and second to address IT as in infrastructure.

Before I go further, I would like to assure you that Syrian IT graduates are ready to take on the challenge and are awaiting your investments. Syrian graduates just needs the right environment to excel. This environment is what you need to build. You as Syrians have been very successful in Europe, United States, and other countries; you are the same Syrians with different environments.

When discussing IT, one should discuss the embargo which was never a show stopper but rather delays in acquiring import licenses and their additional time line. Therefore, one should account for the additional time needed for acquiring hardware in any project timeline. On a positive note, the embargo had made Syrians depend on themselves more and got Syrians up to the challenge in designing, implementing, and operating major IT infrastructure, I can proudly say "Powered by Syrians". Innovation becomes more possible and hence, it facilitated "breakthrough thinking". Syrians do not have the luxury of calling manufactures for support.

In a previous speech during the conference, I heard some comments about no existence of "Corporate Cultures". Well, let me assure you that management has to enforce corporate culture, and at Syriatel, corporate culture exists where Syrians work under clear communicated objectives resulting in clear Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) as well as Employee Performance Management System, Balance Score Cards, and Service Level Agreement.

Now let me discuss Syria's infrastructure and what is on the horizon. The high level commitment by our government is translated into actions, we can see several project that are undergoing: VoIP licenses being awarded, several Internet Service Provider licenses being awarded, dedicated bandwidth for international circuits, leased lines, public data network (PDN) and currently is being expanded for a new PDN2 to accommodate for the growth and demands to support 300k DSL users, laser lince connectivity, microwave links in different capacities; all I can say is that we as Syriatel GSM are bandwidth hungry and if our business is accommodated by the infrastructure, I assure you your business will be accommodated within the Syrian infrastructure.

On a second note, I would like to inform you that today Syriatel had launched its UMTS/3G service. Syria was one of the first in the region to launch such service.

Finally, let me extend our appreciation for your invitation and let me close by saying "Syria is a hidden secret" come explore it for yourself.