Ericsson and Oman’s Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (MoHERI) launched an extensive technical mentorship program for a selected group of talented students from Sultan Qaboos University to be held at the Center of Excellence for Advanced Telecommunications Technology and IoT in Oman at Innovation Park Muscat.

The official launch took place on Wednesday, March 30, 2022, at Innovation Park Muscat, under the patronage of HE Dr Saif bin Abdullah Al Haddabi, the Undersecretary for Research and Innovation at the MoHERI, and in the attendance of Dr Abdullah Al Balushi, the President of Ericsson Oman, general managers from the Ministry of Finance and a number of program participants from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU).

The program aims to mentor students in developing IoT use cases using the latest 5G and IoT technology as part of the Center of Excellence for Advanced Telecommunications technology and IoT (CoE) established by Oman’s Ministry of Finance in partnership with Ericsson and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

The students will be mentored by Ericsson’s academic professionals and experts in IoT, teaching them about the basic concepts and use cases of IoT all the way up to the realisation, implementation, and testing.

A total of 15 students ranging from undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Representing a rich variety of academic disciplines such as Mechatronics Engineering, Telecommunications Engineering, Computer Engineering, Agricultural Engineering, Architecture Engineering, Electronic Instrumentation & Control, and Communication & Signal Processing who will be involved in the mentoring program for two to three months.

The students will be working on three main IoT use cases related to the nation’s agriculture and water sector. The main learning outcome of the program is to work in teams of multi-disciplinary, deliver a prototype with industry standards, and manage a project using agile development principles.

Ericsson has already equipped the CoE with state-of-the-art 5G Radio DOT technology from the Ericsson Radio System portfolio and a sophisticated IoT platform, which is extremely suitable for educational research and development purposes.

To further show Ericsson’s commitment to the CoE, Ericsson has conducted comprehensive knowledge transfer sessions for 5G Operations & Maintenance and have demonstrated the system capabilities to selected engineers from the technical team of Innovation Park Muscat (IPM).

Dr Abdullah Al Balushi, President of Ericsson Oman commented: “We believe academia plays a significant role in the technological advancement of a nation by serving as a platform that encourages innovation and creativity. As we map the digital future of Oman through the CoE, we look forward to working alongside the talented students of Sultan Qaboos University and having them develop industry-wide use-cases that propel the realization of Oman’s Vision 2040.”

Hajar Al Balushi of the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation said: “We are pleased to establish this Center of Excellence alongside Ericsson, where the center will provide a great environment for people from different age groups and expertise in the field of 5G and IoT to come together learn, test and upskill their skills.

“I am confident that the talented students will excel in developing a variety of IoT use cases that complement Oman’s Vision 2040 to diversify the economy and bolster various industrial sectors across the country.”

The Center of Excellence for Advanced Telecommunications technology and IoT (CoE) acts as a research centre for developing 5G use cases and IoT use cases as Proof of Concept before deployments in commercial networks.

It supports small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as start-ups moving towards next-generation network evolution by incubating their ideas and concepts into reality. It is also set to support local academia and improve digital learning for junior and senior high school students through the Ericsson Digital Lab program.