Wedo Academy and AUK’s CAPA Formalize a Relationship

The Center for Academic and Professional Advancement (CAPA) continues to expand its professional network, to the end of providing professional development for the faculty, staff, and students of the American University of Kurdistan (AUK). The latest partner is the Erbil-based Wedo Academy; the formalization of the partnership took place on the AUK campus, via the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU), on February 15, 2023.

Dr. Bayar Shahab, the director of both Wedo Academy and NassWallet Digital Banking, started his day at AUK with a talk targeted at those most interested in banking. He delivered a presentation in the AUK Auditorium for faculty and students mainly drawn from the Department of Computer Science & Information Technology and the College of Business. The presentation’s title was “Payment Landscape in Iraq and Kurdistan,” and it was effectively a SWOT analysis (covering “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats”) of Iraq’s financial system. The “strengths” were an already considerable contribution by the banking sector to GDP (19.4%, as of 2021) and a large employment-age population connected to the internet and conversant with today’s trends. The “weaknesses” were the near-total reliance on oil for exports, limited access to certain banking services due to the dearth of ATMs, and deficient support for MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises). The “opportunity” directly promoted by the Central Bank of Iraq itself is “financial inclusion”: improving wide-scale access to the digital payments which will move the economy away from its current cash-based culture. Dr. Shahab demonstrated how the NassWallet app will contribute to this digital agenda. The “threats” were money laundering, burdensome bureaucracy, and the lack of trust in the banking sector. The audience voiced concerns over the general deficiency in financial literacy, the perception that Iraqi banks “just take money from people,” and the prejudice that many banking services are “haram”.

Next, Dr. Shahab joined AUK President Randall Rhodes for the official signing of the memorandum of understanding. The MoU calls for collaboration between Dr. Shahab’s Wedo Academy and CAPA. Specifically, the MoU mentions joint training projects; Loucine Hayes, Director of CAPA, and Dr. Shahab had already started planning for Wedo Academy’s involvement in this summer’s CAPA Tech Bootcamp. The collaboration may also include government capacity-building in the areas of project management and financial literacy. More initiatives will be planned for the future.