Name: Vision in Action
Uploaded: 2025-05-21
Duration: 19 min 28 s

Cultivating a world-class workforce is key to advancing national competitiveness in today’s global landscape. How is Saudi Arabia expanding access and opportunity for women and young people? What bold strategies are being deployed to transform its education system into an engine of innovation and opportunity – and attract more visitors and business leaders to the Kingdom? We’ll hear from two of the most accomplished women in Saudi government about the tools, policies, and long-term vision required to unlock talent and balance rapid growth with cultural preservation and global perceptions. 

Vision in Action

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Take a moment to point out the centerpiece medallion here which on stage it was designed and made by the design department at Eat University in Jeddah. So I want to recognize that's something I've found beautiful and transfixed the whole time I've been up here. So thank you for that. Our next conversation is one that's very close to my heart about how do you build a world class workforce to advance national competitiveness. I know that's been a priority here. In the kingdom it's something we think about all the time, of course, in the US and the rest of the world and how is Saudi Arabia meeting this moment expanding opportunities for women, but also for young people? It's something that came up earlier today with us to discuss this is Her Highness Princess Haifa bint Mohammed Al Saud, Vice Minister of Tourism for Saudi Arabia. I know her as somebody who's played an instrumental role in opening up this country to tourism. And also Her Excellency Professor Elna Elisa, the Vice Minister of Education for Saudi Arabia. So I'd like to invite my two distinguished guests to join me here on stage. Your Highness, Your Excellency, can I point out back in the green room, it was very clear to me you both know each other very well. Is that fair to say? How did you meet? I'll let you tell the story. If I tell it, I'll tell parts I'm not supposed to say, so I'm always on script. We met on the plane to Davos in 2020 just before you met on the plane you didn't meet in Riyadh, never met before on the plane and we didn't stop talking the whole trip through. OK, well that's, that's, that's a good. I love that. OK, let me start. Your highest, let's set the landscape right now as to where are we in terms of the progress that the kingdom has made. I know we're talking about workforce, but obviously more broadly as well in terms of opening up the kingdom and is the talent keeping up, but give us a sense of the landscape as you see it. I mean, absolutely, and thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me, and it's it's such an honor to be, to be here with all of you today. I can't tell you how exciting it is having Fortunes International Women's Summit in Riyadh, a concept that maybe 7 years ago people would have been like, What's that really a women's summit in Saudi Arabia. But yeah, today very, very proud that we're at the forefront of such things and very honored to be here with Her Excellency Dr. Inna Eissa. We are, we have become very good friends since then. Um, uh. I think if we want, we want to just take a step back and talk about the transformation that has that this kingdom has witnessed and we're still undergoing, I mean we're still today just at a milestone from Vision 2030. We've been through a lot. We can both tell you we've had so many sleepless nights, but it's all worth it when you when you're doing this. For your country when you're doing this for your people, for your children, um for your parents, people think that we're just doing it for the future generations. We're doing it for all generations, and we can see them taking part in it. Where we were before, I'll just give you an anecdote of what it looked like. My kids used to have friends from all over the world, and they used to always be invited to go visit them in their countries. And they'd always ask me the question, Why can't I invite my friends to see my country because I am very proud of who I am. We have so much to show the world, to tell the world. And look, this conversation started 6 years ago. Today when we look at where we are, we've had over our tourist numbers already. We've surpassed our 2030 target of 100 million visits. That includes domestic and international. Inbound last year alone, over 30 million people visited us from outside the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I mean, I was one of them, so. I love it. My kids invited their friends and so again, the story just from that lens and what we can do today and what we're able to do today at the participation in the workforce we talked about capabilities. We're talking about today women's participation in this sector, in the tourism sector has increased by 72% just since opening up our doors in 2019. So it's not just about. New frontiers and new sectors that are being opened, entertainment, sports, culture, none of this was there. I mean, uh, when, when I started I fenced and, and there was nothing for me to do in fencing. I could, I could never participate officially and properly. And today I, when I started working with the fencing Federation, there were no women. Today there are over 200 women in the fencing Federation alone, one of which is my daughter. So it's just to, it's just to tell you it's not just about tourism. Tourism is a platform. It's a platform in which we can open up our doors. We can get to share who we are and what we are with the world, and they get to see it because tourists, tourists are natural agents of good, so they travel to connect. To meet the like-minded, to share experiences. So today where we are versus where we were, we've made long, long strides. True, and you create a lot of brand ambassadors. I know you've done that here. A lot of people who are here for the first time seeing where you are and where you're going is very powerful. Let me move, Your Excellency. Give us your sense of the landscape from where you sit and the priorities. Where are we today in the kingdom with regard to Workforce development talent, etc. Thanks, Dan. Welcome everyone. I'm so happy and delighted to be here and um, on record, usually I have slides. I'm the academic at heart. I have numbers and I have pictures of real women and I, you know, I say I'm not going to participate without slides and they said, Yes, sure, we'll have your slides, but then just 2 minutes with Diane and Haifa, I was convinced just to sit here and tell a story. So thank you all a great storyteller, and I really enjoy being here and the energy I have with the, you know, with a room full of women reminds me of my job that I left two weeks ago where I worked in in women's only university, the largest women's university, Princess Noura Abdel Rahman, and if you really want to know more about Vision 2030, I advise you to go visit Noora because it's a clear manifestation of what we're living today. Uh, let me tell you something about prevision and post vision. So I've had my PhD since 2004. I'm a dinosaur in education, but I'm also a second generation PhD holder woman. Early education in Saudi Arabia for women started in 1951, early 1960s we started uh higher education for women, but there weren't really many milestones for women prior to 2016. Before 2016, we were OK and very happy to be doing half twice as much to achieve half to work half as hard to achieve half as much post 2016. the vision of course explicitly states the willingness to tap into the female potential and enable them to take a lead in the transformation of the country. So what happened since we launched, to be honest, I can't comprehend what we are living today. We surpassed, just like Princess Haifa has mentioned, we surpassed all expectations. So unemployment dropped from 35% to less than 30%. Employment rate increased to above 35%. In the ICT sector where women usually are misrepresented or underrepresented, the jump was from. 7 to 35% new sectors open open for women. Women in sport was nonexistent for before 2016. I had the picture of the first football team. Do you play on the we have a fencer. Well, I won't disclose this on stage, but just because my kids will penalize me for saying it out loud. But um, so yes, Hanan just mentioned about our first female astronaut going into a space mission. It's booming everywhere. The political willpower and the intention that we have to support us moving forward is really keeping the momentum. Before vision, we used to say focus breeds excellence. Post vision we say trust breeds trust in ourselves, in our teams, trust in our superior, trust in our government, trust in our future, and that's how we keep on. I love that. I think that's very powerful. And, and I think that that I mean I'd love to talk about this in this large workforce one of the places in the world where of course very young workforce you mentioned earlier the um perceptions of, of Saudi Arabia, people coming. How do you feel about that right now in terms of the perceptions of the kingdom and you mentioned attracting a lot of visitors? What would you like to change to attract even more? I mean, uh. First of all, the perception issue is real and it's live and it's still ongoing today and, and one of the first perceptions uh that that I've heard a lot, the misconceptions was that women can't. I think this room proves otherwise. I don't need to say much on that. My fellow panelists, the people who were here before me that spoke over the course of the past two days, we're clearly way beyond the concept of women can't, and women did in Saudi Arabia. It's not can they or can't they? They have, so again, women can't is still unfortunately a very real misconception that's happening abroad. Actually on that subject, specifically, many people were saying that, um, but you're trying to attract tourists, and I said yes. They said female tourists and I said yes, and they said, is it safe for a woman to travel on her own. Actually, Saudi Arabia, Medina specifically was ranked for 3 years in the row, the most safest city in the world for female travelers, for solo female travelers. How's New York? No, I'm kidding. That's where I'm from. Never mind, never mind. I could all that index. But but again, it's just to show you I've traveled alone. I've traveled with female friends. I mean, I'm not going to go and sell something that I haven't done myself. It's easy for me to come and say I'm selling this destination because I'm from this destination and it's who I am, but I've tested it all. I've traveled alone. I've traveled with my kids alone. I've traveled with. With female friends and I, I, I never faced any of the issues that I face in many other countries. So again, is it safe? I think it's the global indices that have nothing to do with me indicate that it's one of the most safest destinations. The second thing that people say is, yeah, but what months in the year should we come because, you know, you're all desert. And I'm like, well, we have a 1800 kilometer coastline that says otherwise, and it's on the Red Sea and it's preserved and it's untouched and it's sustainable and it's one of the only places remaining on Earth that has the most vibrant, colorful coral reefs that have been untouched. You're making me want to go to the Red Sea. Very good at your job. I love that. And now first we didn't have hardware to match that that natural offering. Today we have resorts in the Red Sea. Today we have airports in the Red Sea. Today we have so many different types of offerings in the Red Sea. So it's no longer a concept of activating. It's active, it's live, it's there, and I advise everyone to go and visit. And I think the third part was, sorry, on that part of you're just desert, we, I remember in 2019 I met with my European counterparts. And we were talking about the landscape of Saudi Arabia, and I said, you know, one day you're going to come skiing in Saudi Arabia, and they all laughed and here we are hosting the Olympic Winter World Cup in 2027. So again, this is the place you get things done. I sense to get, you know, I want to, I'm going to Your Excellency, talk about the workforce technology. One of the Things I definitely know about Saudi Arabia is that this is a place that very much is becoming a hub of innovation, technology, AI. There have been conversations of that being both a net good, of course, new tools and something that's disruptive, especially to young people in terms of that on-ramp to careers. What are, what are you seeing as the priorities to engage the workforce to give them the tools they need. To be that workforce of the future, especially having come from an educational institution into this role, of course legislation plays a great role, and I think the the previous panel have tackled that. But human capital development is quite relevant. Saudi Arabia has a very unique perspective, unique experience in the number of women in STEM education. The global average is 35%. In Saudi Arabia, we have over 570. 57% of enrollment in STEM are women. We have more graduates from ICT schools, females than males. So we have, we're also reaching not just only parity but also power. A lot of the 24% at the moment, leaders in the digital sector are females. Now these numbers speak for themselves. It tells you how organically this this force is developing. This unique experience in Saudi Arabia has led to the establishment of the first Apple Developer Academy in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. It attracts 25 nationalities from around the world. We not only cater for our students locally, we have a platform called Studying KSA where we have. A number of academic offerings from short courses to prolonged programs, and we want to really invite students from all over the world and one of the best experiences I had in my career and I attribute this to Doctoral Latifa Freyan. We had a trip to England. We were visiting a number of universities, and she said, Newcastle, we should take our girls to play a game in Newcastle. And that's exactly what we did. Our soccer team from Noura University, they played the game in Newcastle together with the Vice Chancellor of Newcastle. We watched the game and then the Newcastle team came to Saudi Arabia and played the game. So that's, I won't say, OK, good point. You're very I think it's a very international talent pool here as well. I've seen for hospitality as well. Actually, I wanted to comment on that. There's a project that we worked on together. It's we, we basically created the Rial School for Travel and hospitality. It's going to be the largest, it is the largest school for travel and hospitality in the world, and we, we opened a temporary campus in Princess Noura University. And this is one of the projects that we worked very closely on together that was actually endorsed by international organizations and the campus is set to eventually move to Ga, which is going to be the largest entertainment city in the world, in order to talk. About the future types of talent that are going to be needed when you're talking about entertainment, sports, hospitality, travel, the future of aviation, what that looks like, and have real practices on ground. And this was actually one of the projects that we worked on and and. There was a very funny incident that happened. I don't know how much of that I can say, but I'm going to wing it and say a few minutes and 36 seconds. It's about how how politically correct it is to say, but I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway. So the incident that took place was um. We had a very se international figure that was coming to open up the the campus, the temporary campus, and it was myself and Her Excellency that were supposed to be there to greet her, obviously we were supposed to be there before, and what happened is that figure arrived early. I was there. He was there and I called her and I said, listen, and this is where please women supporting women is so important, please, please. I'm stuck in traffic. I called her. I said, Listen, he's almost there. I'm stuck in traffic. We all know what real traffic looks like. I'm stuck in traffic. Help, help me. Can you please go greet this this very senior international figure? She did. She winged it. She invited him for coffee. She took him around the campus, and it was like it was part of the design. So women supporting women. I love that. That's how things get done. I know we only have a minute left. I want to get. Each of you a chance, very few words. What milestone would you like to see us hit in 10 years? I'm going to start with you. You. You know, I want a global engagement with the entities working in Saudi Arabia on the ecosystem of women empowerment. We have, we monitor the progress through the National Observatory for Women. You're all invited to, you know, to collaborate. We assess the future of doing studies and research through Sara Suderi Center for Women's Studies. We celebrate women's success through an annual prize under the patronage of the king himself, Noura University. sorry, Princess Noura Prize for Women's excellence, and we develop talent and we support women and we build, we build networks to support women through the leadership center. So I urge everyone to connect with these entities and really have. I love that. And of course in about 35 seconds, what would you want to convey in terms of the milestone you'd like to see us hit? I just, you're all here. You're in Saudi Arabia. Please visit Saudi Arabia. Please go around. See, see what magazines are not going to tell you, what TV is not going to tell you, what media is not going to tell you. Meet a local. Wait, I'm the media here. No, I'm kidding. I'm going to tell everybody. Meet the locals. We're all here. I'm happy to be somebody's tour guide while you're here. I'm sure I'm volunteering you as Tribune. I'm sure is happy to be somebody's tour guide. Please, since you're here, just take the time, go around, see this beautiful, this beautiful, beautiful city, meet these beautiful people, and create your own impression. All right, I love that. Thank you, Your Highness, Your Excellency. Thank you so much. What a joy to talk to two people who get such joy from each other. You go off, I believe.