Muhammad Al-Suwaiyel, president of King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology (KACST), opened the conference aimed at increasing awareness about technology incubators, which are now at the forefront of developing new innovative technologies.“KACST invests in science and technology and innovation, and innovation is crux of technological and economic development based on knowledge,” the president said, adding that it would help achieve sustained growth for Saudi Arabia.Prince Turki bin Saud bin Muhammad, vice president for research institutes and chairman of Badir program, spoke about the big gap between developed and developing countries in innovation due to discouraging environment and lack of skilled people.“The national policy for technology incubators aims at establishing 20 incubators in 2015, 25 in 2020 and about 30 incubators in 2025,” Prince Turki told the conference. He said KACST has established a number of technology incubators in the city.The overall objective of the conference is to create the largest gathering of stakeholders, leaders, decision makers and contributors to the Kingdom's awareness and understanding of technology innovation, entrepreneurship and incubation. It provides a conference for government, financial institutions, investors, universities, research institutions, technology entrepreneurs, corporate business and chambers of commerce to discuss with local and international experts the issues and solutions to technology entrepreneurship and business growth.Both international and local experts in technology incubation are attending the conference. 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.
