Saudi Green Initiative to play key role in tackling climate change: AI expert
SGI Forum ‘marks a milestone in Kingdom’s drive to transform its oil-based economy into a cleaner and more sustainable one’
The Saudi Green Initiative could play a major role in tackling climate change, an international technology expert has claimed.
Dr. Nahid Sidki, chief technology officer with the Saudi Public Investment Fund-owned Research Products Development Co., was speaking ahead of the SGI Forum running in Riyadh on Saturday and Sunday.
He pointed out that the conference marked a milestone in the Kingdom’s drive to transform its oil-based economy into a cleaner and more sustainable one.
In addition to planting 10 bilplanting, lion trees (covering 30 percent of the country’s total land area), the SGI aimed to create vast protected zones, conserve marine life, and encourage alternative forms of agriculture. And technology would play a key part in the effort, Sidki told Arab News. An authority on robotics and artificial intelligence, he said: “The SGI is a great initiative that can produce a clean future, reduce carbon emissions, and impact climate change. AI and robotics can play a major role in this, not only here in Saudi Arabia but across the Gulf region.”
The not-for-profit RPDC operates for the commercialization of Saudi-based research and breakthrough technology.
A leader in the realm of agricultural technology, Sidki added: “To plant 10 billion trees in a country like Saudi Arabia, one has to ask how they will be monitored and how their health will be sustained for decades to come. We cannot rely on just hoping for the best.
“We need to look to the ultimate goal and then work backwards in terms of the development and implementation of technology. It’s like a closed-loop ecosystem: monitoring, irrigating, and harvesting the trees.”
A primary consideration of the SGI is the use (and misuse) of water resources.
‘The SGI is a great initiative that can produce a clean future, reduce carbon emissions, and impact climate change.’
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bdullah bin Kadasa — executive director of communications and PR
Abdullah bin
Mansour bin Kadasa was appointed executive director of communications and public relations at the executive office of Tourism Minister Ahmed Al-Khateeb in September 2021.
Bin Kadasa is an international communications and media professional and advisor, who has been responsible for a number of ground-breaking strategies and leadership of strategic communications plans and media campaigns.
He was previously an advisor and general manager at the General Administration of Corporate Communication at the Ministry of Finance between April 2020 until May 2021. He worked closely with the executive leadership there to develop the ministry’s corporate mission statement.
Bin Kadasa served as general director of the Media and
Strategic Communications
General Directorate at the Saudi Development & Reconstruction Program for Yemen between June 2018 until March 2020, managing a large team across SDRPY’s provincial offices and ensuring that its activities were aligned with the Kingdom’s communication strategy and foreign policy priorities regarding Yemen.
He is the co-founder of Deem Communications Technology Co., where he was CEO from August 2016 to June 2018. He worked as a faculty member at the Media and Communication College of Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud University between August 2014 and June 2018, and before that served as the director of the Marketing & Communications Directorate at the Arabian Printing and Publishing House from May 2013 to July 2014.
Bin Kadasa worked as a journalist at Dar Al-Hayat newspaper from April 2009 to June 2013 and as an interactive communication and television production coordinator at Al Baraheen International Company from 2005 to 2009.