Makkah forum to boost innovation, leadership

An initiative to encourage innovators and entrepreneurs and to discover creative talents begins at the Makkah Cultural Forum on Jan. 7.
The forum, “How to be an example,” is run under the cooperation of King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) in the innovation field, and Badir, the program of King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), in the field of technology business leadership.
Participants will be trained and prepared to turn ideas in telecommunication and information technology into pioneering projects and real products.
Activities will include filling in the admission forms, trading-off between participants and communication with candidates, implementing an intensive training program to get to know the innovation and entrepreneurship bases and achieve the ideas’ commercial value, and embracing the winning projects through the partners of the initiative’s success by exposing projects in the final exposition accompanying the Makkah forum, during which the committee will announce the winners’ names.
The initiative aims to launch smart innovations and non-traditional projects to benefit Makkah and the people of Makkah. The initiative also provides instructions and support for the nominated innovations (innovative ideas and pioneering projects) to turn them into products and services of high social value. It will connect and support nominees to boost opportunities and ensure continuity and sustainability.
The forum’s organizers said that participants should be residents of Makkah, with projects focusing on serving the local community, and original and innovative ideas of clear benefit and direct social or financial impact. The priority will be for ideas with commercial value.