TOMORROW’S economy
With the single-largest tech fund in the world, Saudi Arabia is doubling down on the essentials of tomorrow’s economy.
95% of smartphones displayed today are made by chipsets made in partnership with Saudi Arabia. Some 40% of the innovative material in these smartphones are made in Saudi Arabia by ARM and SABIC. ARM is the chipset manufacturer owned by SoftBank and the Vision Fund of Saudi Arabia. SABIC is the second-largest global petrochemical company that makes the innovative material that goes into smartphones. Saudi Arabia is transforming at the speed of light, leveraging its factor-based economy and leadership as the 18th-largest economy to leapfrog into the future powered by digital and our global and regional partners. This started with the announcement of Vision 2030, the most audacious, once-in-a-lifetime journey of transforming a nation that is the heart of the Arab and the Muslim world and an investment powerhouse.
Already USD100 billion has been committed to the Vision Fund, making it the largest tech fund in the world. Our ambition to create a thriving and dynamic economy is underpinned by a national digital agenda that will empower women and fulfill lives. Only by empowering and engaging people in healthcare, education, and smart cities can our nation, region, and planet remain prosperous. Secondly, it is about how a digital economy can supercharge the existing one and leapfrog it into the future. 10% of global trade is now digital, and Saudi is one of the fastest-growing opportunities for digital commerce and trade. Last but not least is a digital government—and how we move from red tape to red carpet.
We are moving at light speed, and here are some examples. The first is close to my, and everyone’s, heart: healthcare. In 2018, we leveraged a new business model with a mobile app called My Health—
Sehha. In 2018 alone, this app delivered 1.4 million virtual consultations, reduced waiting times for doctors from months to days, and, the cherry on top, reduced human-related errors by up to 90%. In 2019, we have started in partnership with you—global innovators, telecom operators, and national digital champions in collaboration with local entrepreneurs—to leverage connectivity, big data, and AI, and have found some surprising things. 50% of all doctor visits can be delivered virtually, out of which 50% can be delivered by a physician and 50% by machine or AI. Delivering healthcare by machine, data, and AI, we managed to reduce the cost of healthcare from USD100 to USD15-30, and in some cases to USD1 for medical consultations delivered by machines.
We are also one of the top-10 fastest-growing nations in e-commerce, growing at 35% and recently crossing the USD7.5 billion-threshold. We are projected to cross the USD10 billion-mark by 2020. When it comes to moving from red tape to red carpet, in the Kingdom today, one can hand over power of attorney digitally in less than 10 minutes via smartphone, obtain a trade license in a day, or get their passport within 24 hours.
All these are underpinned by a National Digital Agenda whose foundation we are doubling down on—a foundation powered by you: the local, regional, and global players that are changing the world. In a USD24-billion market, where everywhere else is stagnant or declining by single digits, the Kingdom is growing by double digits and fast tracking into an ICT market that is the largest by a mile in MENA, at USD12 billion. ✖
“In the Kingdom today, one can hand over power of attorney digitally in less than 10 minutes via smartphone, obtain a trade license in a day, or get their passport within 24 hours.”
Extracted from speech delivered at MWC Barcelona in February 2019.
Ahmed Sindi
CEO, DAWIYAT INTEGRATED
Abdulaziz Aljowair
CEO, TAQNIA ETS Where does TAQNIA ETS fit within the TAQNIA group of companies, and what is your primary expertise?
What do you envision as your role within the sector?
As our nation embarks on a journey to realize unprecedented levels of digitization with a digital government, smart city initiatives, and a more perfect harnessing of data, citizens are increasingly expecting digital experiences that are more citizen-centric. As such, we are working to develop this digital ecosystem, which is currently helping the government navigate the digital transformation. Our focus remains on unifying digitization efforts across the government and ensuring every entity strives to work towards one shared purpose for the betterment of our nation. We are also collaborating with representatives from all ministries to streamline their respective digital strategies. Our core aim through the creation of this digital ecosystem is to ensure that citizens are satisfied in terms of IT efficiency and the public functions-related digital services that improve their quality of life. The goal of this is to build a digital public sector worthy of the Kingdom’s future.
We plan to create a culture of innovation in our organization and across the entire public sector that will help resolve government problems, increase efficiency, and better serve the populace. To do this, we will shortly launch an innovation platform to help bring the best ideas beyond their conceptual phase. This will include working on robots and AI.
What are your plans and expectations for the year ahead, apart from your immediate priorities?
To create a digitally enabled public sector of the future, we must focus on five critical areas. The first includes an enhanced customer experience in which we make it easier for citizens to use government services. Today’s citizens expect public services to be as personalized and responsive as the services they get from the private sector. So we need to reimagine how digital can be used to enhance the citizen’s end-to-end experience. This requires the adoption of a ‘citizen-first’ culture and mindset in designing policies and delivering services. The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of service, promote transparent and efficient interaction, enhance the level of public trust in government, and drive better citizen outcomes. Acknowledging the fact that the Kingdom is home to a young population with high social media usage, we will work with government entities to embrace our social media culture and leverage it for greater transparency and collaboration between government and citizens. Here, we will also continue our efforts to increase our ranking in the UN e-Government Survey to the top 30 by 2020. We will also focus on optimizing the return on public investment and find sustainable ways to finance public services and infrastructure. Digital technologies create opportunities to explore new models for providing services, improve management of resources through smarter spending, and link the money invested in programs and services to the outcomes they produce for citizens, boosting accountability and trust in the process. Our efforts will focus on the use of emerging technology to deliver better public value. Our third area of focus will revolve around open data. We have a refreshed second version of our Open Data Portal, which now hosts around 5,000 datasets from across different categories including health, social services, education, and more. Fourthly, a digital government could lead to greater vulnerability of cyber attacks. We will work with ministries and the National Cybersecurity Authority to enable and support the government in protecting critical citizen data and securely grow our digital government through preventative cybersecurity and privacy measures. We will ensure that entities prioritize the privacy and security of all our citizens and the sensitive data we exchange to build a safe digital Kingdom. Finally, Yesser will continue its efforts through the national office established to govern IT deployment and support government entities in building standards, measurements, practices, and architecture to deploy IT effectively and efficiently within their respective EA functions. ✖
“We need to reimagine how digital can be used to enhance the citizen’s end-to-end experience, which requires the adoption of a ‘citizen-first’ culture and mindset in designing policies and delivering services.”