“I have always had a huge passion for education, and I really wanted to have an impact at scale.” Tarek Jundi, Ankabut

Tarek Jundi, CEO of UAE-based EdTech leader Ankabut, sat down with CNME Editor Mark Forker, where he revealed his lifelong love and passion for education, his desire to have an impact at scale in the sector, how Ankabut has evolved as an entity under his tutelage, and the importance of their partnerships with WeVideo and Dell Technologies.

Tarek Jundi has enjoyed an exceptional career in the technology industry over the last 25 years.

Jundi is a man who wears many hats.

He’s been a CEO, co-founder, entrepreneur, advisor, venture capital builder and  board member.

Now, Jundi is on a mission to transform the education sector in his current role as the Chief Executive Officer at Ankabut.

Ankabut was established in Abu Dhabi in 2006 – and is designed to foster an education environment where learning knows no limits.

Jundi has worked for major global technology companies such as Cisco, McAfee, and Omnix International, so a hard pivot towards the field of education may have come as a surprise to many of his industry peers.

However, as Jundi explained at the beginning of our conversation, education has always been something very close to his heart.

“I have always had a huge passion for education, and I really wanted to have an impact on the education industry at scale. Prior to joining Ankabut, I had a start-up called Mindmovers, which was focused on the edutainment space. The primary objective of the company was to enable our young generation to have access to knowledge from the best minds across the Middle East region. I stepped down from the company, but my co-founder is continuing to manage the day-to-day operations of Mindmovers. However, when the opportunity with Ankabut presented itself, I jumped at it because I felt that this could really allow me to have a much bigger impact beyond my startup, because the scale is different, it’s national, it’s sovereign, and it could impact bigger communities,” said Jundi.

Jundi highlighted how the UAE has demonstrated tremendous leadership in placing education and research at the very core of future-proofing its economy.

“The education sector is evolving across the UAE, and it’s very clear that the leadership in this country made very deliberate decisions where they decided that education and research was going to be the engine and foundation for their knowledge-based economy. The transformation that we are witnessing is not only in the digitization of the classroom, but it’s about rearchitecting education systems completely from scratch. What we need to see moving forward is universities, educational institutions, and research hubs all operating within a single unified innovation ecosystem. That’s the ultimate vision,” said Jundi.

Removing the silos that exist in the academic landscape across the UAE is undoubtedly a challenge, but that’s where Ankabut enters the fray.

“To have this unification between academic institutions and research facilities, you need the digital infrastructure and foundation, and it’s in this area where we come into the picture. Ankabut was initially created to be the National Research and Education Network. Our role was to connect schools, universities, and research centers to be in a unified high-performing environment and serve as a cohesive hub to enable this transformation, so everyone could plug into it,” said Jundi.

However, as Jundi points out, the purpose, objective and overall mission statement of Ankabut have evolved.

“Look, as the wider market and industry evolved, that inevitably forced us to adapt what we do. We are now entering an era that is centered around data, AI and collaborative platforms that define competitiveness. With that in mind, we’ve moved away from being an infrastructure provider and have pivoted into being an EdTech enabler. We are providing what we call an AI-ready unified digital campus and research ecosystem. That’s our new role, and that’s our new mandate, and this is where we are directing all of our investments,” said Jundi.

Over the last number of years, we have seen several enterprises across multiple industry verticals that traditionally would’ve been in direct competition with each other signing strategic partnerships, citing that in the current climate they can no longer do it alone.

Jundi believes the same principles apply in the world of academia.

“To be honest, in my view, an academic institution doesn’t have the capability of innovating on its own, so I believe that collaboration is key, in fact it’s a necessity, it’s no longer a luxury. What we’re trying to do is envision a world in which educators can focus on education, and we take care of the technology element. Universities need to have an agile and flexible infrastructure that will help them to evolve as fast as the technology. However, at the same time there must be an acknowledgement that they can’t do this without engaging in partnerships. There’s no need to try and reinvent the wheel and operate in silos, what we need to do is break the silos. This approach would alleviate issues around total cost of ownership, economy of scale, and ultimately, would make it more affordable. Academic institutions need to move away from a model of fragmentation, and embrace that unified vision,” said Jundi.

Remaining on the topic of partnerships, the conversation shifted towards some of the key partnerships that Ankabut has, including its strategic collaborations with Dell Technologies and WeVideo.

“Our partnership with Dell Technologies will strengthen our compute and data activities to serve as a national sovereign EdTech platform in the UAE. Our partnership with WeVideo is designed to transform the learning experience to be more adaptive, collaborative, and video-based, which in reality is where the future is headed. Students now use a whole variety of different platforms to be educated, and the pandemic only accelerated what was happening anyway. Learning goes beyond the classroom setting. They can now learn through collaborative digital platforms and video-based content, and both our partnerships with Dell and WeVideo are really helping to redefine and rethink the way we roll out education across the UAE,” said Jundi.

There is a rather eerie similarity to the current situation across the Middle East region and that of the global COVID-19 pandemic, with schools and businesses again, almost overnight, moving to fully remote operating models.

Jundi highlighted how cloud solutions that are designed to support remote learning and hybrid education models are totally different from those needed for enterprises.

“The cloud characteristic that supports education and research is completely different. It has a completely different architecture from any cloud platform or systems that support a standard enterprise. Now there is of course a reason for that, and the reason is that the workloads that support education and research would require high-performance computing, low-latency, large data storage and crucially sovereignty. So, when you consider all these factors and elements then that demonstrates the uniqueness needed for any cloud-based platform or system that supports educational institutions through remote learning or on-campus learning,” said Jundi.

The conversation then shifted to the concept of discovery to deployment, and what that means within the parameters of the education sector across the UAE.

“There is a chain and a process when you take an innovation into the cycle of commercialization until it reaches the industries. So, when there is any patent or IP developed in an innovation or research center and it does not allow this innovation to collaborate internationally, it would remain limited within the boundaries of the country. In addition to this, how do we take it further to be adopted by industry-specific testbeds, and that’s where the collaboration comes into the picture with industries such as the Oil and Gas sector. If industries support and fund an IP that comes out of a research hub, then the question becomes how can we commercialize it? How can we build it at scale? That’s where Ankabut comes to the table, we can take it to the marketplace, and we can embed it into the ecosystem, that aligns with our vision, which is to build an AI-enabled unified digital campus and research ecosystem,” said Jundi.

Jundi outlined how the pain of every academic institution across the region is the issue of fragmentation.

“There is fragmentation at 3 layers. The first layer is the fragmentation at the campus layer in terms of energy and sustainability. The second layer is data. There is data everywhere, there is data in your CRM, ERP and in your research software. Now, when you try to build any AI use-case on top of that fragmented data, then the time will be significant. The third layer of fragmentation is the experience layer. So, if you’re a student every single department could have a different type of presentation application. That makes the experience very fragmented if I’m a student. What we want to do is simplify it completely by building a unified approach by focusing on three different areas. By building an AI-ready unified digital campus, we’re bringing the energy, infrastructure and sustainability under one underlying ecosystem,” said Jundi.

Jundi concluded a superb conversation by outlining the role Ankabut is playing in terms of helping enterprises regionally address the talent and skills shortage that is currently impacting multiple industry verticals due to the rapid advent of new technologies.

“We are developing two different programs. One program is related to internships. We are selecting students from the education ecosystem, and we are collaborating with similar organizations to help distinguished students at high school to really be consistent and build a seamless program once they actually start their higher education journey. We are bringing them into factories and giving them real hands-on experience, and at the end of this program, we want these students to be hired at the end of the process, that’s the whole point, it’s an internship program that has real intent and purpose. We also have an initiative with a consortium of universities across the UAE to coordinate at a national level in terms of research and student movement, and Ankabut is enabling this consortium. We’re not just bringing them to Ankabut, we are bringing them to the ecosystem,” said Jundi.