The Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, represented by the National Cybersecurity Center, in collaboration with Middle East College, has launched the “Hadatha” Center for Cybersecurity at the college’s headquarters.

The launch was held under the patronage of Dr. Saif Abdullah Al Haddabi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation for Research and Innovation.

The launch of the center falls within the executive program for the cybersecurity industry “Hadatha” and aims to promote innovation and entrepreneurship culture, create an incubating environment for research and development in the field of cybersecurity, and provide income-generating opportunities through an integrated framework that brings together the public and private sectors, innovators, investors, and academic institutions.

Aziza Sultan Al Rashdi, Assistant Director General for Cybersecurity Programs at the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, stated that the ministry believes in the importance of supporting the innovation ecosystem in cybersecurity in the Sultanate of Oman, “as innovation has become an urgent necessity in contemporary societies for the continuous improvement of their vital projects and keeping pace with global changes in all areas of life.”

She emphasized that the Hadatha Center seeks to make Oman a regional leader in innovation and cybersecurity fields by supporting a specialized national industry based on developing human capital and encouraging creativity and excellence.

She added that Hadatha centers aim to cooperate and partner with government institutions, the private sector, the industrial sector, and academic institutions in Oman, providing a platform for researchers and innovators to design and implement innovative technologies and solutions in cybersecurity.

During the ceremony, the “Cybersecurity Challenges Platform” was launched to enhance the database of the cybersecurity challenges bank and study them according to technical and administrative standards supervised by the National Cybersecurity Center.

The Cybersecurity Challenges Platform will focus on enhancing cooperation between the academic sector, the industrial and government sectors in the fields of innovation, cybersecurity, and advanced technologies, in addition to finding effective innovative scientific solutions to the challenges faced by both government institutions and private companies.

The platform will contribute to promoting research and development, employing knowledge, and transforming it into added local value through knowledge, ideas, and research management, and designing local products and innovative services in the field of cybersecurity using modeling and testing simulations.