Khalid Al Hamadi: At Ooredoo, We Don’t Wait for the Future, We Build It

"When we started, it was 2G. Now 2G doesn't even exist. Now our customers are enjoying the 5G experience," Ooredoo Maldives CEO and MD Khalid Al Hamadi spoke to The Edition about the telecom company's journey through the past two decades.

As Ooredoo Maldives marks its twentieth anniversary this year, Hamadi reflected on how the company has built state of the art infrastructure covering the entire Maldives, and constantly works on updating it to accommodate the latest technology.

Yet, with all that Ooredoo has achieved in these years, what Hamadi found most important is their success in bridging gaps between families and communities in the scattered islands of the Maldives through improved connectivity and digital solutions.

The full interview can be watched here:

Maldives' geographical layout presented a daunting environment in which to take up the ambitious goal of countrywide connectivity, with its deep waters between atolls and unpredictable weather patterns. Ooredoo, however did not simply succeed, but excelled in their field, now offering 5G services across the country, alongside a vast collection of value added services.

Hamadi spoke of how Ooredoo consistently strives to ensure the latest technology and services are made available to Maldivians.

One such example is the introduction of eSIMs for Apple watches. Maldives is the 26th country globally where this service is enabled, Hamadi said.

Services such as this have a positive impact on all aspects of Maldivians' lives, including work, study, sport, business, Hamadi said, adding that Ooredoo's goal is to ensure services are always available to the people, easily accessible and at reasonable costs.

"Yes, we do a lot of CSR, a lot of engagement with the community. We do a lot of awareness for the people. We do a lot of health and education activities in the islands. But this is not our core business. Our core business is even better. It is to provide state of the art service to the people."

Hamadi said that he aims to encourage innovation and creativity amongst his teams.

"We always encourage people to lead their jobs. 'This is your job, you are responsible for it, please deliver it'. If you need any support, we will be here. So they feel ownership of their job, so they will not feel afraid to take an action, to bring an idea to improve the job," he said.

"So we try to create this environment where everyone is empowered. I always tell employees nobody knows your job better than you, so you are the king of your area, so please amaze us. And this has been working. So when you give the empowerment to the people, they will surprise you."

"If you want to work somewhere where you want to encourage people to be innovative, they need to be happy. They need to have freedom. They need to have a good communication with each other, no barriers."

Another aspect that Ooredoo takes pride in is ensuring it is Maldivians who are bringing these new services to Maldivians.

"We took a lot of responsibility on our shoulders to train and invest in the local talent to be future leaders, to be the people who know the technical things in this company. So whatever people enjoy from the services is being run by a friend, a brother, a cousin. It’s all family in the Maldives at the end of the day. It is a very small community here in the Maldives. Almost everyone know everyone. So it’s what we are always proud of."

"We are never short of surprises."

Hamadi said that there are many 'cool things' in the pipeline, which the Maldives has to look forward to.

"I know the expectations from people is always high, and we are here to meet their expectations when it comes to the solution, innovation, technology."

Ooredoo, on the global stage, has signed a partnership with NVIDIA, Hamadi revealed. He said that under the partnership, the GPU chips can be used to run AI technology in the Maldives.

"So the future is going in that direction and we make sure that always we are ahead of the future or we are bringing the future to us."

Hamadi's journey with Ooredoo Maldives began nearly ten years ago, when he was appointed as a board member of Ooredoo Maldives.

"So I get very engaged with the team, the business, the operations and then I received a phone call when I was back in Qatar, 'Khalid, we would like you to go to Maldives'. So I said okay, I thought about it, I thought okay, this is an opportunity that I should not miss. Now its been almost four years and I think it has been the best four years of my career ever."

Hamadi's first trip to Maldives was as a fresh graduate, back in 2002.

"I never thought that a place which I visited more than twenty years ago, I will end up working here," Hamadi said.

"But destiny, you never know where it will take you."

"I’m an adventurous guy. I always like to do crazy things. I love to travel and I'm a man of the sea and this was for me, a very smooth adaption to the environment. I have visited a lot of islands, I have done a lot of nice things here in the Maldives with the team and it’s beautiful."