GE highlighted the importance of nurturing youth talent for the oil and gas industry through special sessions organised for university students at the Student Programme being held as part of Mepec 2013.

The sole sponsor of the programme, GE also introduced the Young Engineering Panel (YEP) discussion, which was launched last year in the UAE, to engage young engineers in a productive and thoughtful discussion on career opportunities in the oil and gas sector, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

Additionally, GE's Global Talent Recruitment team engaged students on a wide range of topics including career navigation, power networking, how to impress your recruiter, your personal brand and social media, it stated.

"Sponsoring the Student Programme and introducing the Young Engineers Panel are a testament to GE's commitment to the Middle East region to support the creation of a large talent pool of professionals locally for the process engineering industry," said GE Middle East, North Africa and Turkey chief executive Rami Qasem.

"It is important that we create the future generation of business and technology leaders for the industry.

"GE will work with governments, our business partners and academic institutions to strengthen knowledge transfer to the student community, and potentially create rewarding career opportunities."

A Deloitte survey in 2012 reported that oil and gas executives in the region feel there is a looming talent shortage in several areas of the industry including operations, IT, risk and regulatory functions and research and development.

They observed that human capital management is of primary importance for the region, which is reflected in GE's focus on training, guiding and supporting technically qualified students.

At Mepec, GE Oil and Gas is presenting advanced technologies that are relevant to the region in addition to presenting the GE Oil and Gas University, a professional programme designed to build the skills of the local workforce, which has been conducted to strong response from participants in Abu Dhabi and Doha.

GE Digital Energy is showcasing solutions that help modernise and optimise how energy is generated, moved and consumed.-TradeArabia News Service