King Abdulaziz University is driving Saudi Vision 2030 goals of youth empowerment and innovation by becoming the Middle East and North Africa's first educational institution to establish an SAP Next-Gen Hub on its campus. The Next-Gen Hub, part of SAP University Alliances Global Academic and Innovation Network, will allow KAU students and faculty to engage in innovative research initiatives and projects in collaboration with SAP partners. Students and faculty will be able to learn and work on real world problems and platforms with industry leaders, and connect with SAP's 320,000 global customers. Demonstrating the need for innovative skills, cloud, statistical and data analysis, and data presentation all rank in the top 10 most-needed employer skills, as per a recent LinkedIn survey. "We are proud to bring the SAP Next-Gen Innovation Hub to Saudi Arabia, the first of its kind in the whole MENA region. This indeed demonstrates the commitment of the KAU leadership to lead Saudi Arabia toward its 2030 Vision and becoming a knowledge-based economy. "The hub, we believe, is an important milestone in making Jeddah a smart city and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a smart nation," said Dr. Amin Noaman, vice president of development at the university. The acadmic institution will benefit from SAP ecosystem events, including design thinking workshops, coding and networking events, and coding competitions called "hackathons" to crowdsource innovations. "The High Performance Computing Center at the university is aiming to accelerate innovation in Saudi Arabia through academic, industrial and government partnerships. The establishment of the KAU-SAP Next-Gen Innovation Hub would allow KAU to leverage SAP's long-standing enterprise software leadership for mutual advantage with a far-reaching impact on Saudi Arabia," said Dr. Iyad Katib, director of the university's High Performance Computing Center. SAP Next-Gen Hubs are part of the SAP University Alliance program, which partners with more than 2,900 educational institutions in 105 countries. "It is fitting that King Abdulaziz University, one of the Arab World's top-ranked universities, is the region's first Next-Gen Hub. The university is demonstrating global best practices in driving public-private-academic partnerships to empower youth, preparing them for successful careers and link to innovative digital hubs. SAP is committed to helping to seed disruptive innovation in the university setting, with the Saudi leaders of tomorrow driving Saudi Vision 2030 transformation goals," said Ahmed Al-Faifi, managing director, SAP Saudi Arabia. The Next-Gen Hub will be linked with SAP Next-Gen Labs in innovation centers worldwide, where industries connect with students on developing projects. KAU students and faculty members will also be able to tour global innovation hubs such as Berlin, New York, and Silicon Valley to learn about Digital Economy innovations. "King Abdulaziz University's Next-Gen Hub will provide an innovative platform to enrich the learning experience for students, who will be exposed to thought leadership and entrepreneurship, and gain global hands-on co-innovation and research across fields such as educational technology, exponential technologies, and machine learning," said Wissam Kadi, director - Middle East and North Africa of the SAP Education Network for Digital Transformation and SAP University Alliances Program.
