The Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in spreading technical awareness, enriching technical Arabic content, and exchanging expertise to promote policies pertinent to smart technologies, artificial intelligence, big data, and innovation policies.

Dr. Salim M. AlMalik, Director-General (DG) of ICESCO, and Engineer Haitham bin Abdulrahman Al-Ohali, Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, signed the memorandum of understanding in Cairo during the 14th General Conference of ICESCO held on December 8-9, 2021, and hosted by the Arab Republic of Egypt under the patronage of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

The memorandum of understanding seeks to step up cooperation in exchanging expertise in the development of professionals’ leadership, practical and technical skills in the fields of artificial intelligence, smart technologies and innovation. It also aims to further cooperation in the preparation of joint research papers in these fields, promote the exchange of best practices for the advancement of scientific research and emerging technologies, contribute to supporting artificial intelligence projects, ICESCO Digital Home initiative and the Organization’s digital cultural project.

Other objectives of the memorandum include the commitment of the Ministry to provide ICESCO’s beneficiary Member States access to the “Attaa Digital” initiative and develop the relevant platform based on their public policies, jointly promote the initiative’s activities, transfer the necessary expertise and practices to the working team in each Member State, and share statistics relating to the initiative’s activities participants and beneficiaries. In this respect, ICESCO will make the necessary legal arrangements to launch the initiative, determine the official entity in charge of managing the platform and following up on its performance, help publicize the initiative and engage a legal expert from the Organization to provide advisory services to the entity responsible for implementing the initiative.