RIYADH — The National Olympiad for Programming and Artificial Intelligence (ATHKA) made history with a record number of 260,000 Saudi male and female students enrolling in the competition. The students represent more than 10,000 middle and secondary schools in Saudi Arabia. The record number of enrollment in ATHKA, which means "smarter", proves an increase in the level of awareness among Saudis about programming techniques and artificial intelligence. The great interaction with ATHKA also proves the success of the fruitful efforts made by the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), in partnership with the Ministry of Education, and the King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity (Mawhiba) to support its Olympiad. The olympiad is considered as a national initiative to create a generation capable of dealing with programming and AI, in order to achieve the objectives of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 in building human capabilities. The high level of awareness of Saudis regarding the uses of data technologies and artificial intelligence is what contributed to making Saudi Arabia, in April 2023, ranked second globally in societal awareness of AI. This came as a result of an opinion poll that revealed a high rate of Saudi citizens' confidence in dealing with AI products and services in the Kingdom, according to the 6th edition of the Artificial Intelligence Index report issued by Stanford University in the United States. Since its inception in 2019, SDAIA has pledged to work on raising awareness in the field of DATA and AI, within the framework of the support and guidance it receives from Crown Prince, Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, who is also the Chairman of the Authority's Board of Directors, to bring the Kingdom to global leadership in these two fields. It is noteworthy that within the framework of stimulating the enrollment in ATHKA olympiad, an event under the name of "The road to ATHKA" has been held with the attendance of more than 10,000 male and female students. Another initiative was also organized under the name of "Artificial intelligence Hour", which is considered as a training program directed to students on the concepts of AI, benefiting 575,000 male and female students, and witnessed the participation of 9,700 male and female teachers. "ATHKA", which received exclusive sponsorship from the Saudi Technology and Security Comprehensive Control Co. Ltd. (Tahakom), is one of the national initiatives, programs and projects that SDAIA worked on to develop human capital in the field of data and AI, which requires building the capabilities of young people at an early stage to reach highly qualified and globally competitive competence.
