Latest news with #HumanCapabilityInitiative2025
Gulf Insider
15-04-2025
- Business
- Gulf Insider
Saudi Arabia To Teach AI In Schools
Saudi Arabia has launched a new high school course titled 'Introduction to Artificial Intelligence' as part of its efforts to localise AI education and build a digitally skilled generation. The initiative was announced by the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) in partnership with the Ministry of Education during the Human Capability Initiative 2025 conference, a high-level forum that brought together more than 300 global leaders, policymakers, and experts across academia, the private sector, and non-profit organisations. The course, targeting 12th-grade students in the general track, is being introduced as an elective and is designed to align with global technological trends while offering students foundational knowledge in AI and its real-world applications. More than 50,000 students across the Kingdom are expected to benefit from the first phase of the programme. Delivered through a custom-built digital platform, the course offers an interactive learning experience that blends multimedia content, teacher supervision, and project-based assessments throughout the academic year. SDAIA said the platform reflects a modern teaching model that places equal emphasis on theoretical understanding and practical engagement. 'This initiative represents a key step toward empowering the next generation with the tools and skills they need to thrive in the data-driven economies of the future,' SDAIA said in a statement. The curriculum also falls within Saudi Arabia's vision to become a regional and global leader in data and AI, reinforcing the Kingdom's shift toward knowledge-based and innovation-led growth. The course is one of several projects led by SDAIA to boost national capabilities, improve data infrastructure, and cultivate AI talent across various sectors. Source Gulf News
Daily Tribune
15-04-2025
- Business
- Daily Tribune
Saudi Arabia Launches AI Course in Schools to Prepare Students for the Future
Email : Saudi Arabia is stepping into the future of education with the introduction of a new high school course dedicated to Artificial Intelligence (AI). The initiative, launched by the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) in partnership with the Ministry of Education, aims to equip the next generation with crucial digital skills. The course, titled Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, is part of a broader effort to localize AI education and foster a digitally skilled workforce in the Kingdom. Announced during the Human Capability Initiative 2025 conference, which gathered over 300 global leaders and experts, this move aligns with Saudi Arabia's push to become a regional and global leader in AI and data. Course Details and Target Audience The new AI course targets 12th-grade students in the general track and is being introduced as an elective. The first phase of the program will benefit more than 50,000 students across Saudi Arabia. The curriculum is designed to offer students a solid foundation in AI and its practical applications, aligning with global technological trends while preparing them for the rapidly changing job market. Students will learn through a custom-built digital platform, which provides an interactive and engaging learning experience. This platform blends multimedia content, teacher supervision, and project-based assessments to ensure both theoretical understanding and hands-on application of AI concepts. The program will run throughout the academic year, emphasizing student engagement and real-world relevance. Preparing for a Digital Future The course is an essential part of Saudi Arabia's broader Vision 2030 initiative, which aims to transform the Kingdom into a knowledge-based economy. By investing in AI education, the country is preparing students to become leaders in the data-driven economies of the future. SDAIA emphasizes that this move is a key step in developing the talent required to lead and innovate in various sectors, including technology, healthcare, and engineering. Supporting National Growth and AI Innovation The launch of the AI course is one of many projects spearheaded by SDAIA to build national capabilities in data and AI. The initiative supports Saudi Arabia's ambition to build robust data infrastructure and cultivate a generation of AI professionals who will help shape the future of the Kingdom's economy. "This initiative represents a key step toward empowering the next generation with the tools and skills they need to thrive in the data-driven economies of the future," SDAIA said in a statement, reflecting the Kingdom's long-term vision of knowledge-based and innovation-led growth. Looking Ahead With the introduction of AI into the school curriculum, Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as a global frontrunner in AI education and technology development. As the course rolls out, it will be closely monitored, with the potential for expansion and adaptation to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving digital world. This new chapter in Saudi Arabia's educational journey underscores the nation's commitment to developing a digitally literate generation ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow's global economy.
Arab News
14-04-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Al-Qasabi calls for Saudi-UK partnership to future-proof skills, jobs
RIYADH: A Saudi-UK Center of Excellence should be established to help secure the future skill sets needed, according to the Kingdom's minister of commerce. During a panel discussion titled 'Human Capital Reimagined – Launching the Saudi-UK Skills Initiative' on the second day of the Human Capability Initiative 2025 taking place in Riyadh, Majid Al-Qasabi explained that this initiative aligns with the UK's reputation as a global center of excellence in education, home to top universities, leading research institutions, and world-class vocational schools. Al-Qasabi speculated on future areas of collaboration: 'We need to collaborate and cooperate and coordinate in three areas. Track A, we create a Saudi-UK Center of Excellence for future skills, where we can bring democrats like me, policymakers, private sector opinion leaders, educators, all the stakeholders to co-design future skills.' He also shed light on additional areas where the two countries should collaborate, including vocational training and leveraging digital platforms. 'We know that the UK, they're the center of excellence for vocational training, and we desperately need vocational training in Saudi Arabia. So, second track, we create the center of excellence or vocational academies, jointly UK-Saudi Vocational Academy, where your software, your brain power, your experience can be transferred to our boys and girls because this will also be used in the health sector and the newly developed sectors,' the minister said. 'Last, how can we leverage digital platforms to accelerate learning and continuous life learning because things are going too fast, so we create maybe a joined platforms to have continuous education even in the service sector. You know, the UK is the second largest exporter of services globally,' Al-Qasabi added. He went on to note that the tourism, culture, sports, and creative industries are expected to create 1 million jobs by 2030. The creative economy alone already supports over 80,000 jobs, with strong growth anticipated in film and design, fashion, and digital arts. 'The digital economy is projected to grow from 4.4 percent of GDP in 2020 to over 19 percent by 2030. The health care sector is projected to reach SR250 billion ($66.6 billion) by 2030,' the minister said. Al-Qasabi added: 'The green economy expected over SR2 trillion worth of investments in the pipeline, like sustainable construction, renewable energy, circular economies, and so forth.' He also emphasized that with 65 percent of the population under the age of 35, investing in lifelong learning is not a choice but a necessity. Also speaking during the panel, the Kingdom's Vice Minister of Sport, Bader Al-Kadi, noted that the National Sports Strategy was developed by drawing on insights from other markets, particularly the UK, which has been closely studied as a model for sports development. 'With that learning taken, we have worked on building capabilities in Saudis to ensure that we have the right talents. Not only as athletes, but as a physiotherapist, as psychiatrists, as sports managers, as coaches, and everything around building the ecosystem,' Al-Kadi said. 'We learn also from the UK sustainability in the sports sector. The UK sports sector is 90 percent funded by the private sector. That's a great target, an ambitious to achieve. In Saudi Arabia today, 15 percent of the sports sector is funded by the private sector, so a big gap and a big ambition for us to work on toward achieving,' he added. The minister also emphasized that human capability is one of the key enablers underpinning the National Sports Strategy and plays a central role in its development. 'The sports sector will contribute to 13 percent of those jobs that are being created by sports entertainment and tourism sectors,' Al-Kadi said. 'Obviously, sports (sector) is expected to also contribute to the economy. We aim to have sports reaching up to 3 percent of GDP by 2030. This is an ambitious target that we have for ourselves,' he added. Also present in the same panel, UK's Minister of Early Education Stephen Morgan underlined that the country wants to start by sharing their work with the Kingdom and, in turn, learn from the Ministry of Education's initiatives to upskill and retain early-year staff. 'We could also share our experiences of introducing new modern teaching methods, and these include educational technology that tailors learning to individual children and produces data-led results to measure impact,' Morgan said. He added: 'And it's through the sharing of our practice and resources and knowledge that early education can become a key building block in our partnership on skills training for older students and I have absolutely no doubt that the UK-Saudi Skills Education Partnership will be accessed with a success and we've already had notable achievements in our work together on education, such as increasing the number of UK independent schools in the Kingdom and we're working really hard to deliver more important higher education partnerships for the future.' Steve Field, UK special healthcare representative to Saudi Arabia, said: 'You have a large number of nurses, majority of which are currently working very effectively in the hospital setup. You've got some brilliant hospitals, but to deliver the vision you will need to focus on prevention, on primary care and on mental health in addition to your hospital world and of course, if you can do that, you can move care out of hospitals, reduce the cost of healthcare, and also prevent illnesses before you have to treat them.' He added: 'So we're here to help you. Our universities are really keen to partner with you to develop more nursing schools to support you in your faculty development, in your leadership, and we want to be on this journey with you and finally just to reassure and assure you that the UK government are right behind this and are with you right till the end and beyond.' Mazen Fakeeh, president of Fakeeh Care Group, who also participated in the session, disclosed that the nursing shortage is a global issue, not just specific to Saudi Arabia. 'Nurses constitute 40 percent of the workforce required to provide care across the globe. Saudi Arabia, we have about. 6.2 nurses per 1,000 population. In Saudi Arabia, the current intake in nursing school is about 5,000 a year. For us to meet the gap, the existing gap and the future gap between 2030 to 2040, we need to increase that intake from the current 5,000 by 150 percent,' Fakeeh said. He added: 'So, there is a huge demand on nursing, nursing training and education. For that, the government had the initiative to reduce the number of years without compromising the quality of training from the current four years plus one year of internship to three years, which is the expedited nursing curriculum in the UK.'
Arab News
14-04-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Uzbekistan's $220m education project signals shift toward skills-driven systems: GPE CEO
RIYADH: Uzbekistan's $220 million education reform deal reflects a growing global shift to align schooling systems with economic transformation, according to Global Partnership for Education CEO Laura Frigenti. Speaking to Arab News on the sidelines of the Human Capability Initiative 2025 in Riyadh, Frigenti said the agreement, signed with the Islamic Development Bank and the Uzbek government, aims to help the country 'accelerate that process of transformation.' Fully aligned with Uzbekistan's national education strategies, this project aims to enhance the quality and efficiency of the education system while supporting the achievement of the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 4. 'Uzbekistan is a country that has a very well-functioning, in a way, education system because under the Soviet Union, education was a big priority,' she said. 'At the same time, [it] was a system that was designed thinking about a world that doesn't exist anymore. And so, because they are moving very quickly at transforming their own education, they do want to have resources to accelerate that process of transformation and that is the sense of, you know, of the project that we signed today,' Frigenti told Arab News. The $220.25 million 'Smart Education' program includes $160.25 million from IsDB, a $40 million grant from GPE, and a $20 million contribution from the Government of Uzbekistan. The project is already under implementation, with early work focused on school construction and partnerships with UNICEF and UNESCO. 'It's also a project that is part of the process of finding innovative instruments to finance education,' Frigenti said. 'Education, as I'm sure you know, is a very expensive type of sector that, until now has been basically mainly funded either through domestic financing or with the development assistance resources.' Education for growth Frigenti emphasized that education systems must shift to meet the needs of evolving economies, and focus on producing skills that are needed to make society progress and facilitate process of growth and so on. Saudi Arabia, she noted, has made significant headway in this area. 'Saudi Arabia has been understanding this connection between skills and economic growth very well and they have invested in this over the past couple of decades significantly,' Frigenti said. 'Other countries need to get to that and so the kind of things that we are trying to do is to see how can this re-alignment of education with the needs of the economy be translated for countries that do not have the same resource base of Saudi Arabia.' She added: 'And this is where we are working on issues related to financing of the sector, efficiency in the administration of the resources, etcetera.' Women's workforce gains Frigenti also highlighted Saudi Arabia's progress in gender inclusion. 'I think having a very clear political vision that sets a specific target, like 50 percent of the labor force needs to be female, as in the Vision 2030, and then having the ability of designing a set of policies and programs that leads to that results in record time — that is quite an extraordinary result,' she said. Zooming out, she described the Kingdom's broader economic transition as strategic and well-resourced. 'Saudi Arabia is a country that has several strong things going for it. First one, there is a clear vision of where the country, you know, needs to go — and the country needs to go toward an economy that is more diversified, that is not depending on fossil fuels and where you know that there is a whole range of new activities that needs to be started and stimulated.' She added: 'The second part is that to be able to get to that different type of economy, you need a different type of skills. You need people that can do different things, people that can work in services, for example, people that can work in manufacturing and so on and so forth.' The CEO went on to say: 'And then you need to have the resources that on one hand create this skill mix and on the other hand, put in place the infrastructures that allow this to happen. That is rather unique.' Young population Frigenti sees Saudi Arabia's youth bulge as a pivotal advantage. 'The very young workforce is accessing the labor market and is going through the education system at this time. So all this has been an exceptionally fertile ground for transforming the education system on one side, but the economy on the other in a very quick time.' She said they had created 'a working group, a forum' that brings together ministers of education, heads of major technology companies, and key government players — with Saudi Arabia playing a particularly strong role. According to her, the Kingdom wanted not only to contribute its experiences but also to learn from others. 'Attention to technology and the role it can play in education is something that I feel is going to be very much at the center of the education portion of the Vision 2050,' she said, adding that this would be highly relevant going forward. She concluded by saying that Saudi Arabia is actively looking to share and absorb best practices globally. Frigenti also emphasized that Saudi Arabia is eager to engage in a global exchange of best practices — sharing what has worked for them while also learning from successful experiences elsewhere. 'They are very keen on having a kind of exchange with the rest of the world around good practice, what works and what doesn't work,' she said. 'Events like HCI 2025 are just an example,' the CEO concluded.
Arab News
13-04-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Saudi Arabia continues to leverage AI to propel mining sector, says Alkhorayef
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is investing in artificial intelligence to drive growth in the mining sector, according to the Kingdom's minister of industry and mineral resources. Speaking in a fireside chat titled 'Human Potential – The Critical Foundation of Industrial Transformation' on the first day of the Human Capability Initiative 2025 taking place in Riyadh on April 13-14, Bandar Alkhorayef explained that this focus is significant given that mining is often viewed as a traditional industry where innovation has lagged. This falls in line with Saudi Arabia's goal to increase the mining industry's gross domestic product contribution from $17 billion to $75 billion by 2035. It also aligns well with the nation's efforts to establish mining as the third pillar of its industrial economy. During the session, Alkhorayef said: 'When we launched our Future Mineral Form three years ago, actually in this center, we had a small zone that we called tech zone where we invited different innovators from around the world to showcase some of their ideas. It was amazing to see how small ideas can actually be accommodated in the mining sector from up to upstream in mines, for example, where we can see more safer mines, more productive and more energy efficient mines, and so on.' He added: 'So, in industry, it's the same thing. We believe that Saudi Arabia has a great advantage in terms of our energy efficiency. Also, AI needs a lot of energy, as you can imagine, and we are spending a lot of money to create the infrastructure to build AI, to build data centers, to allow also the investors to come at the same time.' The minister went on to highlight significant regulatory efforts — from cybersecurity to broader frameworks — that enable artificial intelligence to operate safely and under strong governance. 'We have a program that we launched two years ago in the ministry called the Future Factories Program where we incentivize industry investors to tap into new technologies, robotics, or AI,' Alkhorayef said. He added: 'When we look at the industry and mining coupled with the human capital development program, the RDI, the Research, Development and Innovation Program, it creates an ecosystem where talent-based human capital is developed, where we are creating opportunities for the young in the form of jobs but also creating opportunities in the form of actual investment or building the next interpreters.' Regarding the Human Capital Development Program, the minister emphasized that it is a key national asset. He noted that the ministry is working to ensure strong coordination between the program and the industrial and mining sectors, as it addresses the broader needs of the nation. 'Today's world is moving so fast, and it is very hard for sectors on their own to be responsible for the agility in a cost-cutting element of the economy, which is education and training and skilling and reskilling. So, I think that it's a great asset for us because it allows us to focus on our own plans where we are at the same time very confident that there is a great effort with great coordination for the sector to have the right talent in place for us to achieve our targets,' Alkhorayef said. The two-day event unites government entities, the private sector, and nonprofit organizations to foster collaboration and drive innovation. Organized by the Human Capability Development Program — a part of the Vision 2030 realization initiatives — in partnership with the Ministry of Education, the conference is expected to explore breakthrough learning models and strategies for future workforce readiness. HCI 2025 will host over 100-panel discussions across four main stages, focusing on key future trends in developing human potential. It will explore innovative methods to empower individuals and communities while fostering stronger public-private sector collaboration to create sustainable and impactful solutions for the future.
