HUAWEI DAY KSA 2021 was held in Riyadh on the 30th of November, bringing together industry thought leaders, ICT experts, ecosystem partners and consultants to delve into the experience and implementation of digital transformation. Participants, who included high-level customers and government officials, also discussed how to solve customers' core business difficulties, seize digital economy opportunities, and jointly build an intelligent Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is driving government and industry digitalization through robust government policies. Guided by Vision 2030, the country is rolling out ambitious plans and initiatives such as smart government, cloud-first, new energy, and Industry 4.0. ICT, as the key enabler of industry digitalization, is accelerating these efforts. 5G, AI, cloud, and optical are vital technologies for digitalization in government, energy, education, and healthcare industries. CEO of Huawei in Saudi Arabia Mr. Eric Yang delivered the keynote speech titled, "Innovating Nonstop for Faster Digitalization". He reiterated Huawei's commitment to supporting Saudi public and private organizations with innovative technologies to enable new business models and deliver superior customer experiences. Huawei's technologies such as 5G, cloud and digital energy are helping businesses in various verticals such as energy, finance, public sector and more digitize their operations, secure their data and, more broadly, promote national economic development. Speaking at the event, Dr. Ahmed Hamdan Altheneyan, Deputy Minister for Future Jobs and Digital Entrepreneurship, Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), said: "Huawei is a long-term strategic partner for MCIT, for which we are grateful. The company's support in talent development through Seeds for the Future, the annual ICT Competition and other initiatives have inspired thousands of Saudi youth to pursue careers in the digital field and contributed to the continued digital transformation of our industries." Dr. Ahmed Hamdan Altheneyan and Mr. Eric Yang later presented awards to the six winners of the Huawei ICT Competition finals in Saudi Arabia. Huawei is a key enabler of digitalization in Saudi Arabia through its cloud services, leading digital infrastructure innovation, low-carbon development, and building a partner ecosystem and talent ecosystem. These technologies enable intelligence and faster digitalization of services for government and enterprise customers. They also eliminate complexities associated with manual configuration and management of networks, resulting in self-healing, self-optimizing and autonomous networks. Further, digital technologies are fundamental to low-carbon development; integrating digital and power electronics technologies, information flow, and energy flow can accelerate energy industry evolution to build a green and bright future together. Organizations can only embrace digitization if they have the required digital talent. Partnerships with universities and governments to cultivate talents for the future is therefore crucial. Huawei's ICT Academy, Seeds for the Future and ICT Competition continue to produce ICT professionals armed with the advanced skills that industry demands. Huawei is committed to working with Saudi Arabia's partners and customers to build an intelligent Saudi Arabia and assist Saudi Arabia's government, energy, and FSI industries in building leading ICT infrastructures and digital business processes. As a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solution and service provider, we are deeply engaged in digitalization to create new value in the industry. — SG
