20 Saudi innovators participate in tech summit

More than 20 Saudis recently participated in the 7th annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Silicon Valley, showcasing some innovative work aimed at helping to create a better life for fellow citizens in the Kingdom.
The summit featured thousands of specialized technology companies with a market value estimated at over $3 trillion, working to support innovation and stimulate small entities to succeed and deliver their products and services to the world, according to a report in a local publication on Friday. The report said that the presence of these citizens coincided with a new push in the Kingdom to develop the economy away from its dependence on oil, as represented by Vision 2030, and the launch of the National Transformation Program 2020, led by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Prince Mohammed’s visit to the United States this past week has been marked by a message to the world that the Kingdom was developing a knowledge economy, with a focus on creativity and innovation, the report said.
One Saudi at the event, Malak Al-Thaqafi, who works at a research company in San Francisco, is aiming to ensure Saudis develop skills in the genetic field and set up private business entities that can assist the Ministry of Health and the private sector.
Al-Thaqafi is a consultant physician specializing in neurological and genetic diseases at King Fahd Medical City, head researcher at the Saudi genome laboratory in Madinah, assistant research professor at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in the genome research center, and a faculty member at Harvard University.
In her speech at the summit, she said she was working on a joint scientific project with leading genetic analysis companies, as part of the Saudi genome initiatives adopted by KACST through the “Badir” project, and the Ministry of Health, to support entrepreneurship.
Al-Thaqafi said that her aim is to ensure that Saudis can take up specialized positions in the Kingdom as part of the objectives of Vision 2030. Her project is expected to reduce cost and time taken for therapy, by getting a better understanding of gene mutations that cause disease. Early diagnosis and assisting people in the country, rather than sending them overseas at great expense, was the aim, she said.
Another citizen at the summit, Ahmad Al-Ghazi, was selected in 2013 as one of the Kingdom’s top 10 students, out of 90,000 studying in the United States. He holds four US patents, designs medical devices for the elderly, and is a guest speaker in the engineering faculty at Stanford University.
Al-Ghazi, who holds a master’s degree in software engineering from Santa Clara University, said that he was motivated to design devices to aid the elderly when he saw his grandmother fall. “I wanted to find a way to help her move, and so the result was winning the ‘Stars of Science’ Award for inventing Goom, a motorized walker and lifter designed to help the elderly and people with special needs to stand up and move.”
Al-Ghazi said that after receiving his master’s degree in 2013, he joined Stanford University to learn how to create a specialized technology company. His dream came true in 2014 when he founded a company in Silicon Valley with Saudi and American investors to promote knowledge exchange between the Kingdom and companies operating in the valley including Google, Apple, Intel, Yahoo, HP and research centers at Stanford University, NASA and Berkeley University.
Al-Ghazi is also working on developing the application “Hofrah” with several other Saudis that allows users to identify street hazards such as potholes, bumps, water and floods, snow and ice and road construction, to be launched in 2017.
The summit, which recently concluded in Silicon Valley, was attended by more than 1,500 businesspeople, investors, educators and government officials representing 177 countries including Saudi Arabia. The aim was to identify and support new technology firms in the United States and abroad.