DR. Bakri Bin Matouk Assas, President of Umm Al-Qura University, and Ahmad Farroukh, Mobily Chief Executive Officer, discussed the aspects of cooperation between Mobily and UQU with the presence of high-level delegation from both sides. A number of important matters were discussed during the meeting, like both sides agreed on creating a joint work group to set the aspects of cooperation in providing training and development programs from both sides, in addition to joint cooperation between Mobily Application Society and related authorities in the University. Moreover; both sides will cooperate in hiring university graduates in Mobily, and refereeing major-related students and encourage them to participate in Mobily App Community, and developing joint programs in the field of training, qualification, and recruitment for young talented Saudis, and providing services to the university students and staff. Dr. Assas, explained that the university welcomes this cooperation with Mobily to serve university students and implementing a number of important initiatives for the students and university staff. He added that cooperation between government and private sectors contributes in knowledge development, manpower investment, and society development; praising of what Umm Al-Qura University reached in terms of scientific research distinction through its research facilities and translating them into patents and then products through Makkah Techno Valley; and establishing many startup companies in various fields contributed in society service. Farroukh said "we are pleased with our cooperation with Umm Al-Qura University in the fields of training, development, and providing services, and we believe that education is the base to reach a developed society, and from this point, the Saudi government concentrated all capabilities to support this orientation. We always aim at Mobily to push the education wheel by supporting learning methods which qualify young males and females to occupy leading positions in large enterprises." Mobily and UQU cooperated before when Mobily sponsored the Third Scientific Forum For Health & Medical Colleges Students in UQU, which aims to spread the scientific research culture among health & medical students kingdom wide. Currently at the computer science college, a free course is provided by Mobily to those who are interested in mobile application development, which will increase the graduate capabilities in competing in labor market and meet the demand on technical vacancies. Both sides also cooperated in Mobily App Community contest (Mobily Hackathon) which helped in supporting the academic student community and developing youth talents, whereas Umm Al-Qura University was member of judging jury in the contest which was held recently in Riyadh between mobile application developers. The winner team will travel to Silicon Valley in the USA on a paid trip aims to support developers in exploring the latest technologies in the technical and business field.
