Saudi Arabia is harnessing technology for the future - now is the moment to embrace change

In our connected world with its layers of rapidly advancing technology, there are huge opportunities for innovation and creative solutions to many previously intractable problems.

We are seeing the stuff of science fiction turn into accepted reality; the new developments of the emergent fourth industrial revolution are going to aid development, power growth and deliver change in ways we may now barely conceive.

That’s the big picture. It is exciting, it is bracing and it is something that we in Saudi Arabia know we must embrace.

At the Misk Foundation, established by the Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to advance and cultivate learning and leadership for the Saudi Arabia of tomorrow, we are focusing on a range of initiatives aimed at delivering on this progress: progress for our economy, and progress for our next generation.

And, we are seeking to harness the power of the internet age to bring people together. To allow our young people to learn from peers internationally, and foster a greater and more positive cultural understanding between nations.

This was all exemplified by the 'Misk Medical Internet of Things Hackathon’ we hosted in Riyadh and London last week.

Hackathons, popularised in Silicon Valley, allow coders and software experts to come together to solve a programming challenge in a collective environment over a time limited period.

For our event, we brought together 400 young men and women from the UK and Saudi Arabia and challenged them during a gruelling 48 hours of non-stop brainstorming to help make healthcare fit for the future with a cash prize incentive for the top three winning entries.

The fierceness of the competition at our Misk Hackathon matched the daunting nature of humanity’s problems in healthcare: a rapidly growing - and aging - global population, the spread of pandemics and diseases, and the rising cost of care pose enormous challenges to government across the world.

Providing people with the best possible healthcare is a priority for the government of Saudi Arabia, as it is with all responsible countries. We are striving for a system that can be easily accessed by all, provides the highest levels of quality, and is financially sustainable over the long term.

We are also striving to improve the wellbeing of our young people, primarily through the unlocking of their talents and potential, and empowering them to seize new economic opportunities. We are keen to learn from others in pursuing these goals.

We chose London as our partner for the inaugural event quite simply because it is a global capital for tech and education, with brilliant students and world-leading companies. It also has a world class healthcare system, rated number one globally in the US-based Commonwealth Fund’s report in 2015.

Equally, we wanted to contribute to the continued strength and warmth of partnership and purpose between our two nations, founded and nurtured over many, many decades.

There are many such opportunities ahead. Saudi Arabia is currently implementing the most significant reforms in its history under the official 'Vision 2030’, and, looking at healthcare specifically, our Ministry of Health has more strategic objectives than any other part of government.

These objectives include improving health-sector efficiency and effectiveness with IT and digital solutions. According to a recent report by Accenture, Saudi Arabia’s optimisation of digital tools could add as much as $31bn to our GDP by 2020. This naturally presents an enormous opportunity for British health businesses as world leaders in this important sector.

The Saudi government is also committed to doubling the number of women in the workforce over the next four years. Here too the UK can help. The Hackathon benefited greatly from the involvement of a number of the UK’s leading organisations that promote women in tech: HealthTechWomen, Tech London Advocates, Women Who Code, Stemettes, Code:First Girls and GrowthEnabler are just a handful of examples.

Competitors in the Misk Hackathon could hardly have found a more exciting time to put their minds to work. We were proud to witness the enthusiasm and rich endeavor on display by all participants.

We were equally proud to grant the winning team from Riyadh with the $100,000 prize for devising a 'LinkedIn of blood banks’ as well as professional mentoring to take their compelling idea through to proof of concept.

As our lives are radically changed by technology in the future, initiatives such as youth Hackathons will only become more important to steer advances in areas that benefit us most.

By linking people in different countries and across cultures to address shared problems through these initiatives, we are able to harness the positive aspects of globalisation for good. As a health check on the plans for progress in Saudi Arabia, it shows that the prognosis is good, the future exciting and the opportunities boundless.

Bader Al-Asaker is the secretary general of the Misk Foundation and senior advisor to the Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia