Ooredoo Hosts App Development Workshop

Qatari telecoms operator Ooredoo last week sponsored a brainstorming workshop for application developers, aimed at improving local people’s knowledge of Myanmar’s telecoms market.
The event, hosted at Myanmar ICT Park, covered topics including how to grow Myanmar’s mobile market and apps culture, challenges in localisation and usage of standard Myanmar font in developing apps, how to promote the mobile apps market as well as buying patterns and behaviours of mobile phone purchasers.
“Young people all around the world are ambitious and want to ensure that their society becomes a better place,” said Ross Cormack, CEO of Ooredoo Myanmar.
“We must be bold in finding new ways to empower the next generation. But being proactive is not enough – we must listen to youths, and partner with government and civil society groups in order to develop technology solutions that are accessible, affordable and scalable, so everyone can benefit.”
Ooredoo was one of two international phone operators, alongside Norway’s Telenor, granted licences to operate in Myanmar’s greenfield telecommunications market, where only a tenth of the population has access to a mobile phone.
The Myanmar government has set the companies ambitious targets to make almost nationwide mobile phone coverage by 2016.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been a large part of Ooredoo’s drive into Myanmar and the company is expected to operate a number of similar programmes.
Ooredoo operates predominately in the Middle East, in countries such as Kuwait and Palestine. It reported revenues of $9.3 billion in 2012 and has a customer base of 92.9 million.