Dubai, UAE, 23 April 2018: The addition of an HVACR category in the EmiratesSkills event, to be held from April 23 to 25, is a key milestone for the UAE industry, said Ziad Al Bawaliz, Regional President, Danfoss, Middle East, Turkey and Africa. Bawaliz spoke against the backdrop of the company’s efforts having paved the way for the introduction of such a category in the National Competition, through its partnership with EmiratesSkills. “Through educating and developing the young students of today,” Bawaliz said, “we are setting them up to become the leaders of tomorrow, particularly when the industry is moving towards a more digitalised approach.The HVACR sector is incredibly important in the engineering field and the industry is rapidly growing – particularly in this region where we have an extreme climate.”

Bawaliz shared that the company’s decision to support Roudha bin Bahr in last year’s World Skills, Abu Dhabi, served as a catalyst to this end. “It was through Roudha that the introduction between Danfoss and EmiratesSkills was made,” he said. “For this year’s EmiratesSkills, Roudha will be a mentor to the students participating in the category, along with technicians from Danfoss. It is incredible to see how far she has come from when we initially sponsored her.” After extensive training, Bawaliz said, bin Bahr identified the HVACR category as a field that she would like to pursue a career in. “She is a very inspirational young woman,” Bawaliz added, “and has a lot of potential to grow within the sector.”

Bawaliz emphasised that nurturing local talent is paramount and the new category in EmiratesSkills is a stepping stone towards increasing interest in the HVACR sector amongst students. “We hope that the exposure will highlight the importance of the industry,” he said, “and encourage them, and other young people, to pursue a career in this field to ultimately drive the industry forward in the years to come.” Bawaliz added that this milestone will help encourage the necessary training the industry entails. At Danfoss, Bawaliz said, the goal is “to engineer for tomorrow” and the company is investing in R&D and education through the ‘Danfoss Learning’ platform to equip engineers with technical skills required in the field.

Hannah Jo Uy is Features Writer at Climate Control Middle East magazine. She may be contacted at hannah@cpi-industry.com