A BAHRAINI scientist believes his winning a Parliament seat would make him the voice of the nation’s technology-driven future.
Former national Taekwondo champion, Ghassan Yousif, is running from Northern Governorate Constituency nine (Hamad Town West), and is up against veterans including sitting MP Yousif Zainal.
The co-founder of startup Takeone, an e-device to monitor martial arts training via mobile phones, said he was keen on developing sports using artificial intelligence (AI).
“Technology in sports using AI is the way forward to help athletes in the country – and the nation’s future is technology-driven. I have the intelligence and the methodology and I am also a good teacher in my field,” the election hopeful told the GDN.
He filed his candidacy at the Yathrib Intermediate Girls school, Hamad Town.
“We have talents and good creative engineers – we are soon going into the field of robotics and AI. By being innovative we can have our own pool of intelligence resources, than having to depend from those outside.”
“As an innovator, I need an environment that supports us by way of legislations and my voice in Parliament will be in this direction.”
The electronics and telecommunication engineer was part of Qatar Foundation’s Stars of Science (season eight) – a reality TV show which features young Arab inventors, focusing on encouraging people to discover science and technology.
“I have always been very curious on how things work and searched for ways of improving them,” he said.
“I studied engineering and have practised Taekwondo since I was 15 years old.”
Born in Manama, the 39-year-old reminisced that as a child he always watched dubbed cartoons about robots.
“In fact, this is what drove me to be a scientist and at the same time a fighter. This shaped my character and my love of technology and creation.”
A third-degree black belt in Taekwondo, Mr Yousif was the national champion in 2002 and 2004.
“As I grew up, I found myself loving two things more than anything in life – being a scientist/inventor and Taekwondo – so I enrolled in a technical school and later at the university for engineering and practised Taekwondo at the same time,” he said.
raji@gdnmedia.bh
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