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As the young men and women thronging every coffee shop in Riyadh can attest – should they ever glance up from their glowing laptop screens – Saudi Arabia’s tech scene is undergoing an extraordinary transformation. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has committed to spending more than $7 trillion to position the Kingdom as a global hub for innovation – and it is not only the country’s plugged-in youth who have noticed.
In the last few months alone, Google has inked a $10 billion agreement with Aramco, the Saudi oil and gas giant now swiftly pivoting towards robotics; Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, IBM and Cisco have all signed up to provide training for the country’s growing software development and coding sector; and Huawei has revealed plans to open its largest overseas flagship in Riyadh, amid surging demand for digital products and services.
At the same time, the Kingdom’s homegrown entrepreneurs have been quick to join this tech revolution. While the number of startup deals dropped across the Middle East and North Africa in the midst of the pandemic, startups in Saudi Arabia saw a 102 per cent year-on-year increase in funding in the first half of 2020 to $95 million, according to a recent MAGNiTT report.
As part of the Kingdom’s forward-thinking agenda, August saw the unveiling of Launch – a wide array of initiatives, worth more than $1.2 billion, aimed at improving the digital skills of all its schoolchildren. The ambitious target is to train one programmer out of every 100 Saudis by 2030 in a bid to create 25,000 jobs in the data science and artificial intelligence fields by 2030. Launch also marked the start of registrations for the Apple Developer Academy, the first of its kind in MENA, which will, in its first phase, focus on women. Equally symbolically, the event was also used to announce the manufacture of the first Saudi-made smart chip.
A digital Davos
Such far-reaching futuristic plans will be the backdrop for the supersized technology event LEAP, a kind of next-gen World Economic Forum, which will be held February 1-3, 2022 at the Riyadh Front Expo Centre. Here, some of the world’s most influential thinkers, tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and government representatives will converge to engage with new technologies and explore how to tackle some of the planet’s biggest challenges. They will be joined by more than 700 startups that could each have a major impact on the way we all live our lives.
With its brimming programme of keynotes, workshops and assemblies – which embrace everything from smart cities to space and satellites – LEAP mirrors Saudi Arabia’s own epic digital journey. Indeed, on day one, His Excellency Abdullah Amer Al-Swaha, the Kingdom’s minister for communications and information technology, will outline the role of digital transformation as an essential catalyst in upholding the Kingdom’s strategic plan of Vision 2030. Additionally, he will provide updates regarding this ongoing transformation.
“We are delighted to be leading the creation of this unique platform that will allow the global tech community to come together, share ideas and get inspired for change,” said the minister, in an official statement in October. “As a nation, we have seen rapid acceleration in the adoption of new technologies and are looking forward to welcoming the world to Riyadh to join us on our journey of discovery, to explore the technology reshaping the way we live as a society.”
LEAP will also host a series of sessions which promise to delve into the strategic priorities that many other countries, as well Saudi Arabia, are currently facing. These will be split into seven main areas – Health Tech, Creative Economy, Edutech, Fintech, Future Energy, Retail and Smart City – with each one addressing specific challenges as well as the bigger societal picture. The Fintech session, for instance, will look at how to create a seamless, biometric-enabled life, but will also consider how tech will determine global finance hubs in the future. Similarly, the Health Tech session will explore which technologies can help deliver food and water security to the region, but will also examine how the human body could be augmented with robotics.
Strong Artificial Flavour
Everyone wants to experience a day in a future full of possibilities. The event has its own dedicated “LEAP Forward” stage that covers the most prominent future technologies—from self-driving vehicles and AI, to exosuits, nanorobotics, augmented reality, and bionics. There are also various sessions on the future of reality, exponential AI, future cities, smart living, and future health care.
Rangarajan Raghuram, chief executive of VMware, the California-based cloud computing giant, is among the high-profile speakers confirmed for the event. Others include: Börje Ekholm, president and chief executive of Ericsson; Carlo Ratti, founding partner of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, which researches the impact of new tech on urban living; Dr. Saket Kumar, chief data scientist for Global Premium Services at Google; Celeste Fralick, the chief data scientist at security software company McAfee; Siim Sikkut, the government chief information officer in Estonia; and Supreet Manchanda, managing director of Silicon Valley and Toronto-based tech investor Raiven Capital.
Regional keynote speakers, meanwhile, include Manar Al Moneef, CEO of GE Renewable Energy, MENA; and Ghinwa Baradhi, CIO for MENA at HSBC, who have are both involved in some of the massive projects being financed and being delivered right now in Saudi Arabia. In total, LEAP is expecting 400 speakers and 40,000 visitors are expected to attend the event..
“Innovation is always about leaping into the unknown. And at LEAP we are truly leaping into a future that will revolutionise the world,” says Raiven Capital’s Manchanda, who is currently focusing on AI, 5G and the Internet of Things. “I feel that humanity is at the next inflection point where AI will change the face of the future. I see robots and humans working together, hyperloops moving us faster, new medicines saving us and coming technologies propelling us to the stars”.
“The greatest thing I see however is that we create hope for our coming generations,” he adds. “In 2022, it will begin at LEAP.”
Net Gains
The event is also rich in inspiration and insight from the sporting world, including keynotes from France’s Stephane Houdet, the world’s top Paralympian tennis player, and soccer legends Roberto Carlos and Luis Figo, who recently partnered with SportsIcon in one of sport’s first non-fungible token (NFT) schemes. They will be joined by former Real Madrid teammate Michel Salgado, who now runs the Dubai team Fursan Hispania.
According to Mike Champion, regional executive vice president of Informa Markets, which is staging LEAP, the event is integral to MCIT’s five-year strategy aimed at accelerating the growth of the Kingdom’s digital economy by 50 per cent, elevating its GDP contribution by $13.3 billion.
“Informa receives many proposals from countries to help build them a global technology event. In this instance it was clear to us that Saudi Arabia was the forerunner,” says Champion. “We believe that the Kingdom is a future epicentre of technology – the inspiring vision of the government, coupled with its enormous energy to achieve huge strides in technology adoption has meant that when LEAP kicks off, it will be the largest technology event ever launched.”
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
