Thursday 12 / September / 2024
Muscat: Experts remain divided on whether the fourth industrial revolution has already come to Oman.
While some of them said that Oman was still far away from reaching that stage of development, others said that it had partly arrived to Oman because some industries were already quite developed.
The remarks were made at an event organised by Ithraa, Oman’s inward and export promotion agency. The talk was titled ‘Positive disruption: The fourth industrial revolution’.
The panel was moderated His Highness Sayyid Dr. Adham Al Said from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU).
The fourth industrial revolution refers to an era wherein new technological breakthroughs will cause disruptions in a number of industries, including robotics, artificial intelligence, block chain, among others, leading to large scale automation and loss of many jobs.
Dr. Ludovico Alcorta, Advisor to the Ministry of Commerce & Industry and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) insisted that Oman still has some way to go.
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“We haven’t arrived there. Not yet, but some industries are closer than others. For instance, some process industries such as those
involving chemicals and petro-chemicals use state of the art technology.
“However, most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to be upgraded and advance. And the efforts for this need to be huge, both in human resource and financial terms,” Dr. Alcorta said.
Whereas, other experts like Hafedh Al Shihi, a professor at College of Economics & Political Science at SQU, said that because some industries had already reached a certain level of technological advancement, it was safe to say Oman had partly reached the stage of the fourth industrial revolution.
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Shihi said that although the technological innovations and automation would cause a loss of jobs, it was necessary to adopt them.
“Yes. The new technologies are necessary. It is like asking the youngsters who are glued to their smartphones, to leave them aside.
It’s not practical,” he added.
‘Growth, diversification to replace jobs’
Dr Alcorta added that there were ways to replace jobs lost to automation.
“There are two things that will help and they are rapid growth and intensive diversification. These two factors will help replace jobs lost due to automation,” he remarked.
The advisor to the commerce ministry added that educational institutions also needed to adopt to cater to the coming new economy.
“There needs to repackaging of knowledge and new programmes need to come up offering relevant training for the post-automation economy.
Convergence between different branches of science is one such aspect,” Dr Alcorta said.
Amrou Al Sharif, President and CEO Oman Lasso Exploration & Production (OLEP) Karawan said that robotics was among the most exciting aspects of the revolution.
“There’s a convergence between haptics (of or relating to touch) and robotics. One manifestation of it is using robots to perform surgeries wherein a surgeon would wear gear that would allow him to feel what the robot is touching,” he added.
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