By Afraa Al Noaimi, Executive Director, Josoor Institute

In 2020, Josoor Institute continued to deliver on its strategic role as the education and training arm of the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC).

It was a year like no other. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our ability to deliver, while accelerating strategic developments that were already in the making. Online offerings and delivery methods were already in our strategic pipeline as a key driver towards revenue and geographical outreach beyond Qatar and the MENA region, but the pandemic stressed the importance of having those mechanisms in place much more quickly than perhaps we originally planned for.

As our students switched to learning from home, we worked closely with our academic partner, SDA Bocconi School of Management, to make sure that our flagship professional diploma programmes in sports management and major events management could be delivered seamlessly online. Between March and December, Josoor Institute and SDA Bocconi successfully delivered four of the six blocks of classes fully online, receiving positive feedback from all participants.

Key to the successful delivery of the programme was the ability of our team to react swiftly in the face of unprecedented circumstances, the experience of SDA Bocconi in online delivery, and, most importantly, the resilience and capacity of our delegates to continue learning. Applications for the next cohort of professional diploma programmes, starting in February 2021, are now open.

We also had a year full of bespoke activities, designed specifically for our partners. In February 2020, we organised a workshop for executives from the Qatar Football Family, in collaboration with Leaders in Sport and other key organisations across the country, at Al Janoub Stadium. It was a workshop that we continued online, through a two-day webinar on new revenue streams and COVID-19 contingency plans for the football industry, developed for the senior management of members of the ASEAN Football Federation in collaboration with the Qatar Football Association.

This past year, we also delivered workforce training as part of our commitment to deliver an amazing FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM. We collaborated with the National Volunteer Strategy in the design, development and some of the delivery of functional and role-specific online trainings for volunteers in the run-up to the tournament. Going forward, we will continue to play a strategic role in the workforce training domain, including volunteers and other target groups, which will include, for example, a tourism human capital development programme.

In parallel, Josoor Institute established a regular online presence by means of an ongoing series of online webinars and panels on a variety of topics, including sports and events management, education and research, youth, environmental sustainability and sports diplomacy. These were developed in collaboration with other teams at the SC, including Sustainability and Generation Amazing, and with partner organisations including UNESCO and UCFB.

Towards the end of the year, we launched Hiwar, a two-day online event that featured topics and speakers in sports and events management for alumni, partners and friends from the Josoor Institute community. Hiwar is going to become a regular quarterly event, offered in a blended format as soon as conditions return to normal, making physical gatherings possible.

Over the next two years, Josoor Institute will prioritise the delivery of education and training to build the capacity of key groups in the run-up to Qatar 2022. At the same time, we will develop and deliver a blended educational offering in sports and events, and hospitality management for a greater audience in Qatar, the MENA region and beyond.