An Inspiring Speech at the Class of 2026 Graduation from the Dr. Murat Unal,
Executive Director of Arkansas State University Qatar
Your excellencies, honourable guests, Class of 2026, families, friends, faculty and of course our valuable Arkansas State University Qatar team that has done a great job in putting our graduation together.
Welcome to our Class of 2026 Commencement ceremony to honour our graduates for their hard work, and perseverance.
Class of 2026, this is a defining Moment in your lives as you completed your Bachelor and Master studies and graduate.
We congratulate you wholeheartedly for finalizing your studies, and achieving a new milestone in your lives. You should be very proud of your achievements.
A big thank you also goes to your families, friends and our staff who assisted you during the entire process.
You might have picked up that I Said Commencement and Not graduation. Commencement because it is the beginning of a new phase in your lives where you not only contribute to Qatar`s National Vision but to society as a whole.
I have Lived, studied, and worked in over a dozen of countries around the world but there are only two countries that I truly call home, Türkiye, and Australia.
And I am very glad to also call Qatar home now, an amazing Country which I have visited for the past 20 years, which has Always been my favourite in the Region. I truly appreciate all the great people I have met during the past 20 years of whom some are in the audience today, like my dear friends Fadhel Annan, and Mohamed Dobashi.
The Change in Qatar, in the past 20 years has been incredible, and I truly hope that we all can contribute to Qatar’s Future in an equally successful manner. When I First arrived in Doha, the Sheraton Hotel was certainly the Icon in WestBay, and we all know what Qatar has accomplished in the meantime, here, and around the world.
I hope that you will Put your knowledge into work for this valuable country in the years to come acting as boundary spanners between Qatar and the rest of the world. We should all be grateful for the opportunities that Qatar provides us.
Again, we call it Commencement, because you are continuing your lifelong learning process, and enriching our Ecosystem. So alumni engagement will be vital for us assisting you in the creation of an alumni club, and working with you together in the future when it comes to linking you up with our students, e.g. through mentorship programs or providing internships and Job opportunities to existing and future Students so that we can increase our scope, Connect meaningfully, in the best interest of our Community, the Country and its Institutions. Soon you will receive our invitation for our first alumni gathering. Internships are indeed vital for our students to apply their knowledge, and get an early foot into the door.
As you might have realized last week, you will also be the first to receive our job openings, and indeed just in the past few weeks we hired three graduates to work with us on making Arkansas State University Qatar a leading choice for students in the future. Who could better understand the needs of our students than team members who have gone themselves through the process.
While we are going high tech, and monitor closely the ecosystem in which we operate, we also focus on high touch, deepening our relationships with our students, alumni, schools in Qatar, Corporates, and other stakeholders
There is indeed a Lot Happening now from which our students and stakeholders will Profit greatly from in the years to come.
The world you are entering is subject to a lot of change, including the current conflicts which we are all exposed to, climate change, and e.g. the never-ending discussion about Artificial Intelligence and its impact. AI indeed has become a catch all word including a vast number of technologies from machine learning, natural language processing to robotics. And many of the technologies presented to us are far from intelligent.
AI has been around for over 70 years now, with many ups and downs, and most recently was hyped in connection with Large Language Models. A Lot of money is indeed invested in the space after investors have lost considerable money in the Metaverse they are now trying to recoup their gains in the AI space.
While the world is investing in high tech, people are longing more than ever for high touch, meaningful, and genuine relationships. Thanks to technology, with all its advantages, we are more connected than ever but at the same time more isolated too with people feeling let alone.
Researchers are more and more identifying the threats behind LLMs to human intelligence. When used in the wrong way it affects our capability to think, to reason, and also be ingenious as it affects our brain capacity. People using e.g. LLMs like ChatGPT or Claude identify less with the work they have accomplished and can also lose their self-worth.
We all need to ensure that the human in the loop remains relevant, and that we do not rent out our brains to Artificial Intelligence but use it properly to augment our capabilities and not replace us.
In your existing and future jobs make sure that you nurture relationships and keep the human in the loop as the combination of humans and technology provides much better results.
We, the entire team at Global Studies Institute, and Astate Qatar, wish you all the best for the future and hope that our paths will cross regularly.
Please challenge your limits, and never limit your challenges. There are so many things in our lives we do not have control of but what we can control is how we react to developments.
If you want to change our world, then start with your microcosm, and reach out to the people in your immediate community.
And always stay positive. Allah also has a plan, and when things unexpectedly change they are not necessarily meant to be negative.
When we are grateful for what we have, our struggles end, and we can focus on what is important and relevant in our lives, like our families and friends.
The people we meet at university, going together through all kinds of challenges, tend to become friends for life, as you have experienced yourselves.
Congratulations again on your achievements, Class of 2026, we are very proud of you !!!
Please join me all in a big round of applause, honouring your hard work !!!
I would now like to welcome our Speaker of Honour, Prof. Salem Al-Naemi, President of University of Doha for Science and Technology, UDST
Prof. Salem Al-Naemi is the first President of UDST, after it was officially established by an Emiri Decision in February 2022.
President Al-Naemi is proud to lead UDST with a strong commitment to excellence and accountability. He brings over 30 years of experience as an Executive Vice President, CFO, and CIO in both government and private sectors.
He has extensive international experience, having served as Managing Director for companies in France, Germany, and India.
He holds an MBA and PhD in Computer Science as well as a Master’s in Mathematics and a Bachelor’s degree with a double major in Mathematics and Computer Science.
Prof. Al-Naemi began his career as a university professor, and his expertise spans organizational strategies, managerial leadership, communication, and operational efficiency, all aimed at achieving organizational success.
Professor Al-Naemi we look very much forward to learning from you and sharing your views, thank you so much for enriching our Commencement today, we are very grateful for you taking your time.
