Leaping into the future

Last week thousands of people arrived in Riyadh for the second annual edition of LEAP, Saudi Arabia’s flagship technology conference. Companies from around the world featured their latest technology while sector specialists provided insight and analysis across a range of technology-focused topics from Artificial Intelligence, web 3.0 to cybersecurity, smart solutions and much more.

I attended the conference and was pleasantly surprised how such a young event could attract so much attention. If this year is anything to go by, LEAP is fast becoming a major global tech conference and a clear demonstration of Saudi Arabia’s digital ambitions.

Building resilient economies

Like LEAP, we are applying the same importance to digital and data at The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU). Our mindset is?shifting from digitally enabled to digitally driven. This digital transformation is driving the regeneration of #AlUla as a leading global destination for cultural and natural heritage, and creating resilient economies that will empower our community. Digital and data will be fully integrated in the AlUla ecosystem, transforming AlUla without physical barriers, protecting heritage and culture for generations, and embedding and sustaining nature for residents, visitors, and investors.?

Smart County infrastructure

One of the 12 principles of the AlUla Sustainability Charter is ‘incorporate imaginative infrastructure’. The development of AlUla as a Smart County through digital transformation is one way we will achieve?our master plan goals.?RCU is creating an advanced infrastructure network that minimises demand on resources through its exemplary interrelationships with the environment. This will embed advanced technology, resilience, green infrastructure, and the circular economy. Building physical infrastructure that anticipates and adapts to emerging technology is a primary goal of RCU.?

RCU’s digital transformation is following a four-step process:?

Step 1: Community as the centrepiece, featuring stakeholder consultation to brainstorm ideas through a humancentric design lens.?

Step 2: Policy and framework as the foundation for community digital experiences 24/7/365.

Step 3: Technology and data as accelerators of digitisation, with digital platforms following the ‘5-S’ methodology: stability, scalability, solution, sustainable and securable.

Step 4: Continuous feedback and improvement of the solution, using innovative tools in creating seamless and interoperable customer experience business models.

Through this process, digital and data will create interactive and immersive experiences in blending nature, heritage, and culture for current and future generations to explore, bringing prosperity and building social and economic opportunities. The result will be?communities that are connected and not divided by technology and data.

Partners for progress

We are moving forward. At LEAP, RCU signed four agreements with Saudi and foreign partners to build the imaginative digital infrastructure of AlUla as a Smart County. Etihad Etisalat ( Mobily ) will work with RCU to explore ways of cooperation through the development of digital infrastructure. This will complement existing partnerships to achieve RCU’s objectives of raising the quality of services and quality of life in AlUla County, as part of our commitment to fulfill the goals of #SaudiVision2030 and under the leadership of HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister and Chairman of RCU.?

stc , aligned with the telecommunications ecosystem, will activate 5G services throughout AlUla. This builds on an earlier agreement with STC, signed in late 2021, to collaborate with RCU in developing digital strategy and Smart County plans. Riyadh-based Elm Company , a pioneer in digital solutions research, will carry out analysis and review of applied scientific projects and research of common interest, developing and harmonising them before setting the mechanisms for implementation. RCU will support the partnership’s framework for research, including granting permits and coordinating with the concerned authorities.?

California’s Cloudera , the hybrid data cloud company, will support RCU in maximising the power of data to shape our data and edge-to-AI strategy through the Saudi Cloudera platform, a first of its kind in the Middle East. RCU will use Cloudera’s hybrid data platform to streamline its data stream, making it more efficient and effective.

Living Museum to life?

Technology and data are ensuring the realisation of AlUla as the largest Living Museum in the world. Two recent success stories perfectly demonstrate this.?

Last week, RCU unveiled Hinat, the first known facial reconstruction of a Nabataean woman. Her near-complete skeletal remains were discovered along with around 80 other people in 2008 during the Mada’in Salih Archaeological Project, led by La?la Nehmé. Using cutting-edge technology, Hinat's reconstruction now stands proudly on display at Hegra, a unique opportunity created by archaeology and realised by technology.

And in November, RCU entered the world of the Metaverse with a to-scale and completely immersive 3D model of Hegra’s Tomb of Lihyan, Son of Kuza. This made Hegra the first UNESCO World Heritage site in the Metaverse. Created in the vast and rapidly expanding digital landscape of Decentraland , the Metaverse version of the world-famous monument expands its accessibility to virtual visitors who are able to take a 360-degree tour of Hegra’s most famous tomb, set amongst a realistic rendering of AlUla’s desert landscape. A focal point for the online exploration of AlUla, Decentraland tourists are able to immerse themselves in Hegra’s history by stepping through the tomb’s imposing doorway, something that is not possible in real life.

These are achievements that even a decade ago would have seemed impossible. And yet here they are, transforming AlUla and Saudi Arabia.?

We dream, we plan, we build, we leap.