Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 32 | Page 12

NEWS CRA issues tips to telecom consumers to avoid roaming bill shocks T he Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) in Qatar has issued tips to telecom consumers to avoid roaming bill shocks. The two service providers in Qatar, Ooredoo and Vodaphone, have a diverse range of roaming packages and services to cater to a range of consumer requirements. However, the CRA advises telecom consumers to make sure they understand the service they want to use before they subscribe to it. It advises them to verify if their service provider offers a roaming package in the destination country and to read the terms and conditions related to the specific service they want to use and clearly understand the cost of it. CRA also advises consumers to understand the activation process before they travel and if in doubt to contact their service provider for clarification and to activate the package before they reach their destination. The organisation says: “Often bill shock is a result of using a non-partner network carrier in the destination country. Service providers have mechanisms in place to automatically connect consumers to their preferred network partner if available. “Consumers should verify with their service providers whether to keep network selection manual or automatic.” ////////////////// Students explore programming at CMU-Q M iddle and high school students from around Qatar showcased their programming skills at the Alice Middle East Computer Science Competition held at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q). This was the first Alice Middle East event under the umbrella of the Hamad Bin Jassim Center for K-12 Computer Science Education. Jassim and Hamad Bin Jassim Charitable Foundation, ExxonMobil Qatar and the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) partnered with CMU-Q for the event. The competition was the culmination of weeks of preparation by the teams, who used the Alice Middle East educational software to create interactive games and animations. The original Alice software was developed at Carnegie Mellon University and adapted for Qatar by CMU-Q, with support from a National Priorities Research Program (NPRP) grant from QNRF. 12 INTELLIGENTCIO With the support of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Alice Middle East is now part of the curriculum at all Qatar government schools that teach information communication technology. A total of 132 students from 13 schools created animations in the categories of space exploration, global warming, FIFA World Cup 2022, health, social responsibility or video games. They were judged for programming skills, creativity, oral presentations and teamwork. www.intelligentcio.com