- November 10, 2022
EPISODE #
#42 Amazon Alexa’s Dr. Raf Fatani on why technology must cater for Arabic speakers
About this episode
Dr. Raf Fatani is spearheading Amazon Alexa in Arabic globally, building the complex voice technology from the ground up with Arabic speaking teams in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Inspired by an article written by Brown University’s professor of comparative literature Elias Muhanna: Translating Frozen into Arabic, Raf decided that the modern standard Arabic (or Fusha – فصحة) cannot be the de facto language used for Alexa.
Raf takes us through the process and series of decisions that led to Alexa’s launch in Arabic. We then discuss the utility of voice as a technology beyond gimmicky tasks and how it can be used to simplify our lives.
Raf maintains that Amazon Alexa in Arabic is still Day 1 but the vision would be for Alexa to seamlessly optimize our lives “without annoying us” as he puts it.
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guest profile
Dr. Raf Fatani
Dr. Raf Fatani oversees Amazon Alexa programs and strategies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. With over fifteen years of experience leading teams in global tech firms, Fatani was previously Amazon’s Head of Public Policy in Middle East, Africa and Turkey for its retail and cloud businesses and was part of the core Amazon team working on the acquisition of Souq, the largest e-commerce business at the time.
Prior to Amazon and AWS, he held various consultancy roles, servicing the likes of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Dell and other tech, telecom and satellite firms. He also supported numerous non-governmental organizations, and worked for the U.N. Internet Governance Forum in Geneva.
Fatani has been widely published, and was part of an Advisory Committee to ICANN’s Board of Directors, the body responsible for coordinating the technical management of the Internet.
He taught Politics at the prestigious University of Exeter in the UK, from which he holds a multidisciplinary PhD on Global Internet Policy Challenges and Associated Stakeholder Stances, a M.A. in International Affairs, and a BSc. in Internet Engineering.