Today, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia participated in the Ministerial Session of the Seventh United Nations Multilateral Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (STI Forum), held in New York, which aims to develop innovative technical solutions to address the impact of the pandemic coronavirus and promote sustainable development.
The Kingdom was represented at the forum by HE President of the City of King Abdulaziz for Science and Technology, who led the founding group of the Office of Research, Development and Innovation Development Dr. Munir bin Mahmoud Al Desuki.
Dr. El-Desuki stressed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has taken great strides to harness science, technology and innovation, achieve the sustainable development goals and resiliently recover from the Corona virus epidemic by contributing half a billion dollars to support the world’s epidemic control efforts, and its development and dissemination of effective digital tools and platforms to ensure the continued operation of government during and after the pandemic.
His Excellency indicated that the Kingdom has established a high committee and body dedicated to the development of research, development and innovation in order to accelerate the Kingdom’s transition to an innovation-based economy and enhance the role of the private sector in addressing development challenges.
He explained that the Kingdom has launched many important initiatives to support research, development and innovation in the areas of the digital economy, circular carbon and healthcare, and launched the Line city project in NEOM as a modern model for cities of the future. which is based on modern technologies and in which carbon emissions are 100%, because the city will feature AI-enhanced interconnected cognitive communities spanning more than 170 km in a silent environment, without vehicles or traffic jams.
His Excellency referred to the Kingdom’s launch of the Green Saudi Arabia Initiative and the Green Middle East Initiative, which will chart the direction of the Kingdom and the region in protecting land and nature and put it on a roadmap with clear and ambitious targets and will make a significant contribution to achieving global goals by planting more than 50 billion trees to displace 130 million tons of carbon emissions.