stc enhances its partnership to improve research and innovation during the Sustainability Partnership Conference

stc Group, the leading digital enabler in the region, participated in the Sustainable Partnerships Conference through signing a number of partnerships with several Saudi universities, to support research and innovation projects in the technical field in the Kingdom.

During his session, stc Group Chief Strategy Officer, Abdullah Abdulrahman Alkanhl, emphasized on the group’s pioneering role in encouraging research and innovation through several pillars, including the InspireU program, which the group launched in 2015, to support emerging projects for entrepreneurs and university students. The program succeeded in graduating 75 startups that provided more than 600 thousand direct and indirect jobs. The group also supported direct investments in the research and innovation area through venture capital funds through its support to STV Fund with $500 million. “We recently elevated the value of investment to $800 million”, said Eng. Alkanhl. Moreover, Alkanhl concluded his session by highlighting the most important pillar provided by the group to this sector, which is the partnership launched by the stc Group with King Saud University through the establishment of a chair for scientific research in the field of artificial intelligence, that aimed to find solutions to the technical challenges facing the private sector.

During the conference, stc group signed several partnerships with the Saudi Telecommunications Engineering Society / King Saud University, another partnership with Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University through stc Academy, and Taif University, aiming to develop the communications sector by innovative means, develop engineering communications, raising the scientific and professional level of the communication engineers in the Kingdom. The partnerships also tend to cooperate and contribute to the digital transformation of the universities’ services and projects in relation to communications and information technology as well as emerging technologies. stc Group emphasizes its interest by these partnerships to improve research and innovation in the field of communications and advanced technologies, encouraging the exchange of scientific and technical knowledge, supporting and enabling the development of educational programs and joint research projects. The group constantly intends to nominate distinguished researchers and shall apply the scientific research in the fields of communications, information technology and emerging technologies that can be developed, in a step to enable innovative activities such as competitions and hackathons. Moreover, stc seeks to enrich the registered intellectual property content.

“The signed partnerships stand out as one of the main elements for achieving our goals in sustainable development in the field of research and innovation, as our strategy revolves around enabling more vibrant sectors in the Kingdom. This will facilitate and accelerate the process of digital transformation, because of its positive impact on the public interest, whether on individuals, society or the business sector”, said Eng. Alkanhl.

The Ministry of Education has arranged this conference within its initiatives to combine universities’ efforts as a source to develop and enhance knowledge among vibrant industries and sectors that can best contribute to the development of the national economy and sustainability, especially that scientific research has a great impact on development through applying knowledge and the outcomes of research with the different industries.