“The annual conference and related workshops, organized by KACST, will gather international and local experts in technology incubation, connecting them with the Kingdom’s academic institutions and private sector to promote technology innovation, entrepreneurship and incubation,” said Abdul Aziz Al-Hargan, director of the Badir Program.
The event is being held with the support of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.
The Badir incubation program is a KACST initiative to help innovators and entrepreneurs develop their research findings into technology businesses. Its mission is to stimulate economic growth, which in turn would help solve the Kingdom’s unemployment problem. The conference and accompanying workshops will focus on technology innovation, and other factors that make entrepreneurs succeed in developing their enterprises. It will also discuss investments in projects and the support that can be given to entrepreneur networks. It will also hold academic and training forums for managers and workers of technology incubators, said Al-Hargan. “The three-day conference — carrying the theme ‘Innovation and Entrepreneurship’ — will in its eight sessions examine the international experience in incubators with more than 25 speakers including a number of international experts,” he said.
He added that Badir helps people develop their ideas into profitably viable projects. Badir will also build bridges between innovators and international establishments, which offer support for such inventors, he said.
He said 1,500 Saudi innovators are seeking the help of Badir to develop their new ideas. “Already, 37 ideas in the fields of information technology, telecommunication and biotechnology have been converted into economically viable projects,” he said.
Two workshops are also being conducted on the sidelines of the conference, he said.
Badir, a national technology incubator program, was launched by KACST in 2008 and has helped develop many new projects in the Kingdom apart from setting up incubators in Saudi universities.
It currently has five technology incubators focusing on nanotechnology, information technology, biotechnology, environment and advanced manufacturing technology.
Speakers at the event include Curtis Carlson, chief executive officer, SRI International, Stanford; Waleed Muhanna, professor of Accounting and MIS, Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University; Peter Hiscocks, fellow in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship, Department of Engineering, and fellow in Entrepreneurship, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge; Julian Webb, managing director, Creeda Projects Ltd., Australia and World Bank infoDev Incubation Program Facilitator — Asia; Steve Giddings, chief executive officer, SRG Consulting, South Africa and World Bank infoDev Incubator Program Facilitator — Africa; Sue Preston, consultant, Kauffman Foundation, US; Khalid Al-Zamil, incubator, King Fahd University; Sultan Mubarak, director, KACST BADIR Bio-technology Incubator; David Elsy, partner, Withers & Rogers, UK; Tom Sweeney, managing partner, STC Ventures, Saudi Arabia; and Mohammed Al-Majed, director of the Space and Aeronautics Sector of Badir.
