In Conversation With Ahmad Issa, Regional VP Middle East, Cloudera

Inc. Arabia speaks to Ahmad Issa, Regional Vice President Middle East at Cloudera on the sidelines of LEAP 2025.

Transcript

00:00My name is Ahmed Issa, I'm the regional VP for Cloudera in Saudi Arabia.

00:24Cloudera is the de facto for data, so if you have data you need Cloudera, I'm bragging

00:31about it.

00:32Cloudera is a true hybrid cloud company that helps you convert your data into actionable

00:42insights.

00:43You can apply AI, generative AI analytics so that you can take meaningful decisions

00:52and you can analyze and read your data differently.

00:57So whether you are an enterprise, an organization, a small company, Cloudera is a hybrid cloud

01:06company that can help you generate the most out of your data.

01:10This is an objective and we are here to serve you in this manner.

01:14We are here in Leeb for the fourth year.

01:17Last year we had a booth, the first two years we participated through our partners.

01:22So a manner that we have our own booth, our own meeting room and area to discuss with

01:30our customers, to showcase our products, our services, our value proposition.

01:37This is the event of the year for Saudi, it's like a giant export for Dubai and this is

01:44part of the Vision 2030, you know, the Expo, the World Cup coming.

01:50Saudi is aiming to be the AI hub, you know, at the worldwide level with the project Transcence,

01:57you know, and the investment.

01:59They have announced 100 billion USD in the AI arena.

02:03So this is the event focused mainly in AI and by the way, it is being planned with SADAIA,

02:10Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Agency.

02:15So it's all about data, it's all about AI.

02:18It's all about, if we go back to the vision, to diversify Saudi economy, data is the new oil.

02:25So they're walking away from the traditional oil to the new oil, which is data.

02:30So it is the event of the year, we are proud that we are here, we are participating with

02:35our experts, with our marketing team, with our sales team, so that we can present our

02:40services and we can have those discussions and MOUs and agreements during the event.

02:47I advise them to take baby steps, first to know what to do with their data, to organize it,

02:54to get the most out of it and to start with simple use cases, not the big, like mountain ambitions,

03:01because it will fail, it will fail if you go in big leaps.

03:05So I advise them to go baby steps, to take it one step at a time, to have, let's say,

03:12quick wins every time, to get more found data.

03:16We are committed to invest in the region, we are committed to invest as per the Saudi 2030 vision,

03:23which is all about diversifying the economy and about the data.

03:30So we're investing more in local trends, we're investing more in our support, in our services,

03:38in partners, we have a huge network of local partners and international partners,

03:45that they are helping us, you know, to go and see the opportunity with our customers,

03:51to help them, to prepare them for the future.

03:54So we are committed to invest and to bring more presence to the region.