RIYADH — The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) have harnessed its advanced technical efforts including the AI systems to facilitate the pilgrims' entering procedures into Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj rituals of this year's season, SDAIA's President Dr. Abdullah Bin Sharaf Alghamdi confirmed. Integrated projects were implemented during this year's Hajj with a number of government agencies in order to facilitate the pilgrims' trips who came from all over the world to perform Hajj rituals with comfort and to return to their countries safely, he said. Speaking to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Dr. Alghamdi said that this comes within the framework of the care Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman attach to serve the pilgrims and providing all what they need. He added that this is in addition to their great support which emphasizes the importance of providing all the means that help to benefit from advanced technologies. SDAIA intensifies its efforts annually during the Hajj season in order to achieve digital empowerment for government agencies operating in this period. It also assists in providing advanced technical support to contribute to helping them implement many of its tasks, which include the pilgrims' traveling procedures from different countries of the world to Saudi Arabia through the Makkah Road initiative. This is in addition to the services provided to pilgrims during their arrival at the Kingdom's air, sea and land ports until they reach Makkah. SDAIA also continues to provide advanced technical support during the pilgrimage period in the Holy Sites by providing logistical services that serve the pilgrims, in support of the objectives of the Pilgrim Experience Program, one of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 programs. The authority, through the National Information Center (NIC), has worked on providing technical support for 15 ports in Saudi Arabia, as well as sorting sites and security control centers. The NIC has also provided systems, services and technical products and raised the level of integration with other government agencies such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah. Through these steps, SDAIA was keen to ensure that the pilgrim's data was provided before they came to the border crossings, with the aim of reducing the time it took to register their crossing into Saudi Arabia, and even in the Makkah Road initiative at the airports of the beneficiary countries. Dr. Alghamdi indicated that the authority has also worked to carry out preventive maintenance for data rooms, network devices and workstations through a plan that includes all periods of Hajj even after its end. SDAIA has worked on harnessing data technologies and artificial intelligence to serve the pilgrims by launching several services, including "Banan", which is a mobile device that aims to provide services for identifying and verifying individuals' identities through their vital features for the agencies operating in the field. Banan contributes to enabling the automation of crowd identification management procedures at various sites to enhance a smooth experience for pilgrims. It also contributes to verifying travel and pilgrimage records, and verifying the validity of permits. Tawakklna app and Tawakklna services app have also an important role in benefiting the pilgrims, as SDAIA provided several features in the app, including reviewing the Hajj pilgrims card, entering the Holy Sites permits, help services, volunteer cards, in addition to the Holy Qur'an, prayers time, Qibla direction services, and much more. SDAIA's services are diversified to include services outside Saudi Arabia, as it participated for years as a digital enabler for the Makkah Road initiative, which this year included seven countries for the first time since its launch. The countries benefiting from the initiative are: Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey and Côte d'Ivoire.
