OMREN Summit Kicks Off with High
Note on AI Role in Education, Research

Muscat, 20 Oct (ONA) — A summit on
research and educational technology, codenamed OTS 2025, is being organized
today and tomorrow—20 and 21 October 2025—by Oman Research and Education
Network (OMREN), at Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The summit focuses on artificial
intelligence (AI) as a driving force for transforming education and research,
as part of national efforts to promote digital transition and innovation across
vital sectors.

The opening ceremony of the summit
was held under the auspices of Dr. Rahma Ibrahim Al Mahrouqi, Minister of
Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

OTS 2025 summit seeks to
encourage innovation, enhance cooperation in the field of research, support the
exchange of ideas and expertise, offer new insights and propose practical
recommendations that would drive development in education and research at the
national level.

The event also highlights the best global
practices in using AI technologies to improve the quality of education and
enhance the efficiency of academic and research systems.

Najah Mohammed Al Rashidi, Director
General of the Innovation Centre at the Ministry of Higher Education, Research
and Innovation, underlined the Ministry’s drive to enable educational and
research institutions to use AI in many areas, including the development of educational
curricula and the analysis of learning outcomes and the motivation of applied research.
The aim is to groom a generation of national cadres who are capable of leading change
in the field of research and education, she added.

A guest of honour at the OTS 2025
summit, Dr. Abdullah Sharaf Al Ghamdi, Chairman of the Saudi Data and
Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), delivered a speech in which he
highlighted relevant indicators in Saudi Arabia, their sources of inspiration,
their evolution and the Kingdom’s future approaches to artificial intelligence.

He also outlined the Kingdom’s
efforts to prepare a “National Occupational Standard Framework for Data and
Artificial Intelligence” and its legislative and regulatory framework. His presentation
also touched on SDAIA’s key initiatives in the fields of technical leadership
and social responsibility.

For his part, the Undersecretary of
the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology for
Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Ali Amer Al Shidhani,
spoke about the efforts made by the “National Programme for
Artificial Intelligence(AI) andAdvanced Digital Technologies”
in supporting Oman’s national digital transition.

The OTS 2025 summit also saw
the participation of Marc-Antoine Delac, Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Montreal, Canada, who is also an expert in AI ethics at the UNESCO.

Prof. Marc-Antoine Delac presented paper
titled “Learning and Teaching in the Age of Generative Artificial
Intelligence.” In his paper, he discussed the role of AI promoting
education by generating ideas, personalizing learning through virtual tutors
and enhancing practical training. In the meantime, he highlighted three major
challenges of relevance: unreliability, loss of skills and lack of
authenticity.

The first day of the summit included
two sessions that focused on the potential of AI in developing the system of
education. Its first session dealt with related technologies, legislation,
capacity building and key factors driving the integration of AI into
educational environments.

The second session, titled
“Implications of Applying AI in the Education System”, explored the
opportunities that AI technologies provide in developing teaching methods and
improving the learning experience.

The summit also included a programme
of Future Dialogues that included two sittings. The first dealt with the
challenges of using AI in education and learning. The second sitting discussed
the “outcomes of higher education and the labour market” in the age of
artificial intelligence.

Both sessions discussed the
readiness of academic institutions, the gap between educational skills and labour
market requirements and the role of AI in shaping future jobs.

— Ends/Bishara