Zain Group's Data Office holds workshop on AI strategies across mobile and ICT industry

09/05/2025 06:15 AST

Zain Group, a leading provider of innovative ICT and digital lifestyle services operating in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa, concluded a captivating 'Data and AI' three-day workshop, organized by Zain Group Technology's Data Office team in partnership with Cloudera and ZainTECH, Zain's digital enterprise arm, held last week in Amman, Jordan.

A key element of Zain's Group Technology department, the Data Office team has firmly established itself as an AI and Digital Innovation leader by embedding world-class data governance practices and analytics to the heart of Zain's business across the organization.

The Forum represented a unique opportunity for Zain's data-focused talent group-wide to collaboratively discuss and elevate innovation and deployment issues related to digital data and AI capabilities, given the growing importance of these technological advancements across all industries, globally. The intention of the workshop was to accelerate the adoption of data and AI in accordance with Zain's '4WARD-Progress with Purpose' strategy, with a particular emphasis on the 'Customer Delight' and 'Digital Zain' pillars.

Participants interacted with industry experts and thought leaders, gaining valuable insights into current trends and best practices in data and AI implementation that enhance innovation and improve customer experiences throughout Zain's digital ecosystem. This is set to be achieved through the further development of artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies, and building out digital infrastructure further.

Mohammad Al-Marshed, Zain Group Chief Technology Officer commented, "AI's ability to rapidly and accurately analyze massive amounts of data has resulted as the latest driving force in many industries, transforming and increasing efficiency on how tasks are undertaken, and decisions are made. This Forum provided our Data Office focused teams at Group and operations the opportunity to understand the true potential of AI across industries and jointly devise strategies with Cloudera and ZainTECH on how to best deploy and monetize it. Zain is serious on driving innovation, improving customer experience and helping business users make the right decisions."

The first day of the Forum focused on theoretical and strategic insights, featuring keynotes, industry trends, and platform overviews, notably learnings of Cloudera's latest advanced AI tools and models. The second day involved hands-on collaboration Datathon exercise, with teams working in breakout groups to develop real-world use cases. The third day was dedicated to showcasing outcomes, as teams presented their solutions to industrial challenges to a judging panel, reinforcing the forum's emphasis on practical application, innovation, and cross-regional synergy.

The winning team of the Datathon completed the entire process, from brainstorming a business use case to demonstrating its value and deploying it, incredibly under 48 hours, all while utilizing Cloudera Agent Studio. The occasion also saw Zain Group Strategy executives present the groupwide Data and AI strategy to attendees which forms a key pillar of the company's '4WARD-Progress with Purpose' strategy.

Cloudera is the only truly hybrid platform for data, analytics, and AI, and is deployed across all Zain's operations. With 100x more data under management than other cloud-only vendors, Cloudera empowers global enterprises to transform data of all types, on any public or private cloud, into valuable, trusted insights. The company's open data lakehouse delivers scalable and secure data management with portable cloud-native analytics, enabling customers to bring GenAI models to their data while maintaining privacy and ensuring responsible, reliable AI deployments.

Within Zain, AI is being used to optimize network performance, personalize customer experiences, and predict equipment failures before they occur, among other things. This has led to higher service quality, less downtime, and overall cost savings for Zain, contributing to business growth and enhancing competitiveness in an ever-changing market.

Through its strategic partnership with Cloudera, Zain's Data Office in collaboration with ZainTECH, has been able to eliminate data silos and is taking a holistic approach to analysis across the organization. By standardizing a Data Management framework, facilitating data literacy initiatives, and enforcing data stewardship, Zain's Data Office team fosters a data culture throughout the company that effectively drives innovation, business efficiency and utilization of customer-centric services across Zain.

Kuwait Times