RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has announced investments worth $6.4 billion in future technologies as the kingdom pushes ahead with massive digital transformation.
The announcement was made by Saudi Minister for Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Alswaha at LEAP 2022, the largest debut tech event ever which got underway at the Riyadh Front expo centre yesterday.
* The investments include a $2bn joint venture between eWTP Arabia Capital, a fund backed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), and Alibaba, and Indonesia’s J&T Express Group.
* Saudi oil giant Aramco will inject $1bn through its Prosperity7 Ventures fund to help entrepreneurs build transformative start-ups, while Saudi Telecommunications Company (STC) will put $1bn in submarine cables and data centres.
* Neom, a futuristic megacity coming up on the Red Sea coast, has launched $1bn investments in a metaverse to serve the city’s residents and visitors, in addition to another platform, M3LD, to help users take control of their personal data.
* The government also expects $1.4bn to be spent in entrepreneurship and allocated funds to support digital content, including an initiative known as The Garage, a space in Riyadh that will host start-ups specialised in new technologies.
“Right now, the tech and digital market in the kingdom is around $40bn which is by far the largest in the region,” said Alswaha.
Meanwhile, the best and brightest brains in the tech industry have converged at the event.
Attending the three-day event are thousands of pioneers, innovators and disruptors from across the world who will explore and engage with the latest in technology.
With more than 500 speakers from 80 countries, 1,000 start-ups and around 100,000 visitors participating, the event has been dubbed the “Digital Davos”.
Successful tech entrepreneurs and trailblazers are expected to share their inspirational stories, while start-ups will have the chance to participate in a major competition, giving them the chance to pitch their solutions in front of regional and international powerhouse investors to secure recognition and all-important funding.
Contestants in LEAP’s Rocket Fuel Start-up Competition will have six minutes – a three-minute pitch followed by a three-minute Q&A session – in front of a panel of major global investors and entrepreneurs.
The top 10 competitors will proceed to the grand finale tomorrow (Feb 3).
The top four awards are:
The Shooting Star Award is for start-up beginners, with the winner taking home $150,000 and the runner-up $100,000; the Technology for Humanity Award (winner: $150,000, runner-up $100,000) is for the start-up that best embodies the spirit of LEAP “technology for humanity”, while the Aviatrix Award (winner: $150,000, runner-up $100,000) is for the most innovative start-up pioneered by women.
The most outstanding start-up in the whole competition will walk away with the $250,000 LEAP Award.
LEAP 2022 is a strategic effort led by the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Ministry, Saudi Federation for Cyber Security and Programming and Informa Tech to transform the kingdom’s economy and position Saudi Arabia as a visionary tech powerhouse linking three continents with the global industry.
About 30 Saudi government agencies are participating in “Digital Saudi”, organised by the Digital Government Authority, to review the kingdom’s successes in the digital environment in line with the rapid developments in information technology.
LEAP 2022 comes on the heels of a $1.2 billion initiative launched last year to improve the digital skills of young Saudis.
The Launch Programme includes training one in every 100 Saudis in programming, and creating 25,000 jobs in data science and artificial intelligence by 2030.
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