I’m feeling proud today. Despite being sick with a fever and a soar throat, what happened today was great.

I was asked to speak at the ictQatar Business Connect seminar today at Al Sharq Village. http://www.ictqatar.qa/output/page977.asp however what I experienced today was something special. The conference halls were packed full of people. Who knew there would be so many people that would be interested on starting up online businesses?

I’m not going to act indifferent, (as some do to seem ‘cool’), since I was ‘stoked’ for lack of a better word. In the middle of my presentation, I had a standing applause, and by the end, I had swarms of people coming up to me, and various companies that all wanted to be a part of iLoveQatar.net

Long story short, it was just the type of moral support that I needed to rejuvenate my enthusiasm. Of course, I also appreciate the fact there are so many people online and in the Qatari community that support me on a daily basis!

I’ll be posting my presentation up soon  for you to go ahead and read through at your leisure

update: as promised here’s the presentation and the presentation transcript.

ILQ ICT Presentation
ILQ ICT Transcript

I just thought that I’d share this URL with everyone http://www1.internationalliving.com/qofl2010/

Give it a peek. It’s the International Living standards database. They rate the final score based on cost of living, leisure & culture, economy, environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, risk &safety and climate.

Long story short: Qatar is ranked 130. A few countries that ranked HIGHER include, Nepal, Namibia, India, China, Ghana, and Vietnam.

Where Qatar’s rank was pulled down was in Climate, Infrastructure, and Freedom.

What do you all think? Should Qatar really be ranked that low. (I personally agree that the three they ranked low on were correct.)

I spoke at the IIC conference yesterday at Al Sharq Village and Spa. It felt good to be a part of a panel that had different topics to talk about. The beauty of it all though, we all flowed! Each presentation melded into the next. It’s quite luck to have that happen with 5 different presentations in a row.

I met up with some great people and we all shared our insights. Hope to meet them all again soon!

I just wanted to talk about something which doesn’t make sense to me. Qatar’s making some great strides towards getting rid of monopolies and improving the country through competition. One ‘exclusivity’ doesn’t make sense to me; QMedia. I’m not sure why they have the exclusivity / monopoly, I assume its because they were the first and only and there weren’t others that were keen on entering into such a business.

JCDecaux’s website says

Qatar:

q.media Decaux, a joint venture between JCDecaux and Qatar’s media market leader q.media, enjoys the exclusivity for the entire outdoor advertising network in Doha. q.media Decaux also manages exclusively the advertising on a fleet of 1,450 buses and 800 taxis in this capital city.

How can one company that has exclusivity to outdoor marketing possibly be good for businesses? I remember just being excited at the fact that I wanted to bring some new display technology to Qatar and just try and take advertising to the next level. I loved what I saw in Tokyo and Shanghai. When I went to the authorities, they simply said that I wasn’t allowed to start that business because QMedia had the only rights… I don’t get it… the country is encouraging it’s youth to try and start businesses but when they actually have an interest, we’re shown that we can’t do anything because of a monopoly.  It’s sad… I wonder when this next hurdle will be passed in the progression of Qatar.

Looks like there’s a lot of interesting sites popping up on the net! I stumbled upon http://www.ruleoflaw.org.qa/

Not only is it quite attractive, but I think it’s a right step towards letting people know about what the laws are in Qatar. I’m a law graduate myself and I can definately say that finding out what the laws are in Qatar isn’t easy nor convenient. If only there could be an online legal database, that would be fantastic!

Oh my God… look at this horrendous article…

“The Indian population in Qatar has gone beyond 500,000. This was revealed by Deepa Gopalan Wadhwe, Indian Ambassador to Qatar at an event honouring a high level visiting Indian delegation, yesterday.

According to the latest figures from the Statistics Authority, the population of Qatar has reached 1,597,552 based on data collected on August 31, 2009.

This could meen that Indians represent almost half of the whole population in Qatar.”

Source: The Peninsula via (ILQ News)

I am CONVINCED that they did this on purpose just to test their reader-base and to see whether they are intelligent enough.

1) The writer spelled mean as MEEN.

2) How the hell does 500,000 equal HALF the population of Qatar when the population is 1,597,552…..? Hint= (500,000/1,597,552) * 100 = 31.2%

Either way though, half a million is A LOT!

I posted this back in early April, however I just had to post this again for those who don’t visit ILQ’s forums.

There’s a lot of good in Qatar, and there’s so much potential but where’s my government? I know there are many that are working hard to make a difference, but it’s not enough!

In Islam, we’re taught that we should treat everyone fairly. We’re taught that we should be tolerant and patient. We’re taught that we should always help those in need.

Now’s summer time, and the summer time work hours have kicked in. So if you see any labourers forced to work then contact the Qatar National Human Rights Authority on 444 4012 or 431 6542. Nobody should be working from 11:30-3pm.

I’m proud that Qatar’s own Al Jazeera reports this.

On a side note, it’s funny how many ignorant people there are out there. There are even those who ‘assume’ that by the title of ILQ that it’s all about the good side. No it’s not. It’s about loving your country so much that you want to make it a better place. It’s about wanting others to love it to, and to do that, we have to make a difference.

Classic case of judging a book by it’s cover; or in this case a site by it’s title.

Qatar’s taking some giant leaps when it comes to the environment and freedom of speech. I think it’s great that the government and other institutions are starting to become more aware and better yet, trying to spread awareness.

We’re also seeing the Human Rights Authority becoming more proactive, the Ministry of Business and Trade suspending companies for breaking rules, the Traffic Authority advertising road safety campaigns, and companies like Qatar Airways focusing on going green.

What I do hope though is that this is not just a ‘fad’ and that those involved will not end up becoming hypocrits. This is, put simply, a case of ‘practice what you preach’.

Here’s some news:
Media urged to be objective

Transactions of 148 firms suspended

 Hotline set up to combat human trafficking

 Traffic Week to focus on cellphone use risks

Green building meet from March 17

Anyway, I was just pleased to see such positive change!

On a side note, if you want to get all the latest news (from Gulf Times, The Peninsula, and others) in one easy spot just subscribe to the Qatar News Twitter feed!

A while ago I ranted about how spitting is a disgusting habbit and it’s visible that some nationalities have the tendancy to do it more than others. It may be the norm in some countries, but culturally in Qatar, it’s seen as offensive, rude, and filthy. Yes if you see a Qatari do that he’s either uneducated or really had to spit and didn’t have a choice.

I wrote about how I wish there was a law that penalised spitting. Voila! The government has done just that. It’s now 500 QR if you’re caught spitting. Now we just need the police to actually…. police it… So it’s with that, I saw that we need to use the commission structure and give them 5-10% of penalties. Problem solved.

After searching for a suitable image to go along with this post, I found that no spitting signs are common in China, America, Singapore, India, and Korea.

Article here

I just had to comment on something which is a perfect example of how sometimes the government has good intentions, but the solution isn’t really thought out.

This was a response as to the issue of fake companies issuing visas to labourers, where the company doesn’t exist.

“Al Rais who is a prominent member of the Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry (QCCI), made his comments in Qatar daily The Peninsula.

Al Rais explained how the bogus companies sell off work visas to manpower agencies abroad and then when the foreign workers arrive they are left stranded.

“I have been urging the authorities concerned for long to classify private companies into three categories: A, B and C, (signaling their treatment of foreign staff) to help end the problem of abandoned and absconding workers,” said Al Rais, who employs more than 3,000 foreign workers himself.

Grade ‘A’ companies should be the ones operating for 20 years or more with a track record of treating their workers well.

Firms existing for less than 20 years and more than 10 with no worker-related problems, should be put in category ‘B’.

New or even old companies with known problems related to workers should be classified as ‘C’ and they should not be given work visas at all, explained Al Rais. ”

I understand why the authorities don’t accept this, it doesn’t make sense! So let’s say I, a hard working and honest Qatari, started a business. Since my company is brand new, I’d be classified as C and wouldn’t be able to hire staff and receive work visas. What this means is that only established companies can hire staff and new ones will cease to exist. Unless I’m expected to run the company alone for 10 years first!

*sighs* Hopefully they’ll rethink things and suggest something a bit more intelligent. How about actually doing inspections on companies once or twice a year? I know it’ll take a bit more effort from the authorities side but that’s why the government is there, to make the people’s lives better