IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Government organizations in charge of innovation will need help to keep up with the pace of economic digital transformation, a Saudi minister said on Thursday.

Speaking at the G20 Digital Economy Ministers’ Meeting 2021 in Trieste, Italy, Abdullah Al-Sawaha said “bridging the digital gap globally is the way to achieve the prosperity of societies.”

The date for implementation of the new service has not been finalised yet, but it is expected to begin within three to six months.

Raghu Athimoolam, chief operating officer of VFS TasHeel International, said that adequate arrangements have been made to meet the requirements.

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Digital Transformation Unit to develop exploratory projects and empower emerging technologies.

The deal seeks to build beneficial ties between the two institutions as part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. Emerging technologies covered under the agreement include 5G technology, drones, autonomous vehicles, smart cities, robotics and more.

All expatriate residents in the UAE travelling to Saudi Arabia, for Haj and Umrah or otherwise, will soon have to give their biometrics for entry into the Kingdom.

All such applicants planning a visit to Saudi will have to provide their biometrics at VFS TasHeel, which manages and administers the Saudi Arabian visa applications, senior officials of the firm said on Monday.

Saudi Arabia and South Korea have announced the establishment of a ministerial level committee to boost cooperation, enhance business networking and ensure sustainable support for the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic reforms.

The Saudi-Korea Vision 2030 Committee “focuses on supporting business ventures between the two countries,” Youngjae Kim, diplomat and negotiator at Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Saudi Arabia, told Arab News on Tuesday.

The director of the National Information Center at the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), Dr. Esam bin Abdullah Al-Wagait, confirmed that the Kingdom has launched initiatives in the field of smart cities inspired by innovation.

He made a speech on Wednesday during the Smart City Expo World Congress held in Barcelona, where he said that generative artificial intelligence (AI) integrated into city services and urban solutions will become the cornerstone of future smart-city initiatives.

There will be more than 26 smart cities across the world by 2025

The smart city market will grow over $2.46 trillion in 2025, presenting significant opportunities for solution providers operating within the smart city space, according to a recent analysis by Frost & Sullivan.

The research and consultancy firm also noted that the coming decade will see a widespread uptake of smart city solutions, especially in medium-sized cities and cities in developing nations.

Naver has partnered with Saudi Arabia’s National Housing Company to launch a digital twin venture, advancing smart city projects and urban planning.

South Korean Naver Corporation has partnered with Saudi Arabia’s National Housing Company to establish a joint venture focused on digital twin platform projects in the Middle East. Digital twin technology, which creates virtual replicas of real-world environments, will be central to the collaboration, enabling advanced urban planning, real-time monitoring, disaster prediction, and smart city development.

Tata Communications and Zain KSA have entered into a strategic engagement to fuel digital transformation journeys of enterprises and government organisations in Saudi Arabia. With this collaboration the combined ecosystems will deliver solutions and platforms to remodel cities with smart street lighting, smart waste management, connected workplace, healthcare and connected cars.

The project to bring smart street lighting solution is for one of the key cities in the kingdom. Tata Communications IoT ecosystem will provide the hardware, platform, application and insights while Zain KSA will expand the footprint with its business-to-business (B2B) offerings through joint projects related to software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and global contact centres, as well as the application of smart transport and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions enabling smart waste handling, smart metering and other smart city use cases.

The new offering will enable service providers to deliver next-generation networks and technologies and powering the future of smart city innovations.

TAWAL has launched Fibre To The Tower (FTTT) and Coverage as a Service (CaaS) as new products developed by Commercial Portfolio Department of the Commercial Sector and adding them to TAWAL’s innovative products portfolio.

How Neom's ambitious project is adapting to new realities amid economic shifts

The Line, a centrepiece of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, is a reimagining of urban life. Announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in January 2021, the $500 billion mega-project aimed to construct a 170-kilometre linear city across the desert landscape of Neom, a planned area in northwest Saudi Arabia. Set to accommodate 1.5 million residents by 2030, The Line promised a futuristic blend of smart city technologies, sustainability, and high-speed transportation systems, all functioning within a car-free environment​.

News that a Saudi court has sentenced three members of the Huwaitat tribe to death for opposing eviction to enable the construction of a controversial desert ‘giga-project’ has been met with outrage from human rights groups, who have described the verdict as “extremely shocking”.

According to a report by ALQST, a London-based NGO that works to defend human rights in Saudi Arabia, Shadli al-Huwaiti, Ibrahim al-Huwaiti and Ataullah al-Huwaiti were convicted on 2 October 2022 by Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court for organising resistance to the eviction of local people in Tabuk Province, north-western Saudi Arabia to make way for Neom, a US$500 billion futuristic development that is currently under construction.

Saudi Arabia is currently building some of the world’s most audacious infrastructure projects as it seeks to decrease its reliance on the exportation of oil, reports Catrin Jones.

The Saudi Arabian construction industry, valued at US$120.4 billion in 2021, is poised for expansion with an anticipated annual average growth rate (AAGR) of 4% or more from 2023 to 2026, according to a report from Gulf Business.

When Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman unveiled a $500 billion project of a world where humans, robots, and AI co-exist, many began to wonder if we are heading toward a utopian or dystopian future.

Sixty years ago, The Jetsons cartoon series envisioned a utopian smart city that was set 100 years in the future. At the time, a society obsessed with technology, gadgets, and smart homes was nothing but pure wonder and whimsy.

But today, the convergence of emerging technologies such as edge computing, IoT, and 5Gis beginning to bring the concept of smart cities to life. However, as sci-fi meets reality, there is mounting concern around increasing the size of the threat landscape and the price tagthat will come with progress. But despite these reservations, there is also an awareness that something needs to change.

"We see a very positive growth, thanks to new technologies," Audai Altaie, regional head of enterprise business, Enterprise Business Group, MENA HQ of Samsung Electronics, told Khalil Hanware of Arab News in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of Samsung's recent MENA Forum 2013 in Dubai.

The chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Industrial Development Fund Eng. Yusuf bin Ibraheem Al Bassam signed on behalf of his organization.

• Discover NEOM KSA tour kicked off in Saudi Arabia
• The event will host multiple meetings
• NEOM is a planned smart city in KSA

An event ‘Discover NEOM KSA tour’ has been kicked off in Saudi Arabia that will host meetings with local investors, potential business partners, and stake holders of multiple industries.

Saudi Arabia’s keenness on undertaking a large project like The Line at this time, in addition to the follow-up by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, affirm the seriousness towards diversifying the economy and promote development, NEOM board member and Minister of Commerce and acting Minister of Media, Majid Al-Qasabi, told Al Arabiya.

The Line project aims to fulfill the transformative model for future cities, so that NEOM will become a global interface to attract a unique urban model across the world, Al-Qasabi added.

The World Summit Award (WSA) is a global follow-up initiative of the United Nations Summit on Information Society. It partners with the key UN organizations and agencies in the framework of the UN Geneva Agenda and the Tunis Action Plan and selects and promotes the world's best e-Content and innovative ICT applications.

The CEO of Al-Elm Information Security, Dr. Khaled Ben Abdul Azeez Al-Gonaim, 'The number of residents subscribing to the service exceeded 400 000 to date. This reflects the great satisfaction among the owners of private organizations for this service and its importance in helping them to facilitate the process of their sponsored employees.'