The largest digital conference in the Kingdom will gather more than 1600 leaders and entrepreneurs

For the sixth year in a row, ArabNet Riyadh - the largest and most influential digital conference in the Kingdom - is gathering Saudi Arabia’s government, largest corporations and 1600 regional/international digital professionals, leaders and entrepreneurs, to discuss the future of digital in the region. The conference will be held on December 11 - 13 at the Burj Rafal Hotel Kempinski.

The event is hosted by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and supported by the Badir Program for Technology Incubators, and sponsored by some of the Kingdom’s major companies, including the Strategic Sponsor, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and other sponsors like InspireU, Al Ahli Bank (NCB), Digital Media Services (DMS) and Al Khaleejiah.

A key focus of the event this year will be the progress of the National Transformation Plan and its visible achievements in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Saudi Arabia. ArabNet Riyadh 2017 will feature four forums: Digital Transformation, Adtech, Innovation and Investment and Digital Commerce; with speakers from across the world and MENA region.

The Digital Transformation Forum will reveal best practices for building an innovation economy in KSA and the region, with expert speakers like Former Deputy Mayor of Barcelona Antoni Vives, Michael Dooijes from Startupbootcamp FinTech & CyberSecurity and many others. Also, the Adtech Forum will explore the trends shaping the future of digital advertising, bringing together digital media experts from Twitter and Criteo among others.

Meanwhile, at the Innovation and Investment Forum, attendees will witness the largest aggregation of investors, including Jonathan Nelson of HACK VC and Hackers/Founders as well as the Chairman of AlRajhi United, Fawaz Alrajhi.

Finally, the Digital Commerce Forum will present insight on the latest trends in online and mobile commerce in KSA and MENA, presenting Abbas Safadieh from JollyChic.com and Alpesh Doshi from Fintricity among others.

ArabNet Riyadh will also feature initiatives that are aimed at supporting the creation of new businesses and job opportunities in Saudi Arabia and the region. The ‘Startup Battle’; ‘Ideathon’; and ‘Creative Combat, taking place for the first time ever in Riyadh, encourage innovation and hone local talent. The top three winners of Startup Battle will compete regionally at the ArabNet Startup Championship in Dubai in April 2018, and go global. Notably, the Saudi startup, Sihatech won last year’s local round in Riyadh as well as the ArabNet Championship with an acceleration in Silicon Valley.

Furthermore, the event will showcase ‘The MatchUp’, a series of 1-on-1 meetings between high-level executives and fast growing startups; the ‘Prototype’ day, a series of workshops to help entrepreneurs build their skills; and ‘Women Mentoring Women’, a networking session designed to engage female attendees at ArabNet Riyadh with regional women leaders and provide them with a beneficial networking opportunity. Finally, the ‘Banking-Fintech’ program is an invitation-only workshop for banking leaders featuring two hands-on workshops that cover two key trends for financial institutes: Blockchains and best practices in lead generation and CRM.

Past ArabNet events have notably attracted top speakers, participants, and partners from corporations such as Smart Dubai, OMD, Souq.com, Du, Touch, Alfa, TBWA, Facebook, DMS, Majid Al Futtaim, JWT, STC, Twitter, Starcom, Criteo, SkyNews, VISA, Leo Burnett, Deloitte, LBC, Microsoft, Uber, Vivaki, GE, MakerStudios (Disney), FP7, 500Startups, International New York Times, and many more.