Fri 28 August 2020:
A Palestinian technology expert and consultant has won Microsoft’s prestigious annual ‘Most Valuable Professional’ (MPV) award this month, making it his sixth consecutive year winning the technology company’s international competition.
Waseem Awwad, the Paris-based expert hailing from Palestine, is a senior strategic business and development manager and technology consultant for Microsoft, and has scored an impressive record of first place in 27 international competitions in the past. He has also previously been chosen as one of the top 10 Middle Eastern computing experts.
Awwad, who spoke to MEMO last year after he won the MVP award for the fifth time, has continued to take part in the annual competition in which tens of thousands of technology experts from around the world compete in a strict set of rules and criteria.
Aside from his victories in Microsoft, Awwad has also reportedly been contributing his skills to a European team developing an advanced system that can identify those infected with the respiratory Covid-19 virus through the use of artificial intelligence, and which is also able to measure the extent to which people abide by the preventative standards against the virus set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
That system has been installed and tested by a group of government institutions within Europe and the Middle East, and negotiations for the final acquisition deal are underway, in which Awwad reportedly stipulated that the system should be granted to Palestinian authorities free of charge.
Article Originally published in Middle East Monitor CLICK HERE
