RIYADH, 15 April 2005 — With several IT and technology parks on the drawing board, representatives of the private sector say that there will be a huge demand for Saudi science and IT graduates, for whom thousands of job opportunities will be created.
In separate interviews with Arab News, Hussein Al-Athel, secretary- general of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Abdulrahman Mazi, president of International Network Engineering, said these IT and high technology projects would require large-scale training programs to groom them for a career in IT as well as science and technology.
Already, Al-Andalus Institute for Technology and Training has been set up in the Kingdom following the approval given by the General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training. Its training courses relate to computer programming, hospitality industry, programming and system developing, consultative services as well as diploma courses in English language, publishing, public relations and tourism.
Al-Athel said the IT park project envisaged in the KKAI complex is intended to be a job-oriented project. The park will provide employment opportunities for students of software and hardware engineering. It will be a pilot program that could be adopted in other parts of the Kingdom.
Mazi disclosed that another IT park is being financed in Riyadh by the Pension Fund. It will come up in the vicinity of King Saud University and King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology.
He said the Pension Fund has also signed two contracts — one with Saudi consulting firms for drawing up a master plan and another with the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) for implementing the project, which has started attracting investments from the UAE.
The executive pointed out that the Saudi Organization for Industrial Estates and Technology Zone (SOIETZ) in the Eastern Province will also set up a huge technology zone there for industries in the field of advanced petrochemicals and material sciences. IT Parks planned for the Jeddah-Makkah area will have units specializing in Haj and Umrah-related technologies.
Jeddah BioCity company is in the process of establishing the first Bio Park in the Middle East where a highly dedicated and focused biotechnology research park will be developed with the aid of professionals provided by the company. The Science Park will be located in King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah. A major IT Park, already in operation, is the Prince Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz Science Park (PASP) established in 2003. Located on a 300,000 square meter site, north of the King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) main campus, the park will be closely integrated with the university.
