Made in KSA: How to take fashion forward

From left: Julien Hawari, Ghizlen Gunenez, Philippe Blanchard, Rania Masri and Ramy Fares at the Ithra conference in Dhahran on Thursday. (AN photo)
Updated 26 October 2018
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Made in KSA: How to take fashion forward

  • Princess Norah said: “For me ‘Made in KSA’ is about the ability to manufacture in the same place that I work and live
  • Hatem added: “We are having so many fashion weeks in the country but we are not getting solutions

DHAHRAN: Fashion was the talk of the town as the creativity season at Ithra, Dhahran, continued its celebration of the creative arts. Fashion movers and shakers Rania Masri, Ramy Fares, Philippe Blanchard and Ghizlan Guenez took a look at the future of fashion at “Tanween” on Oct. 25. They took the floor to discuss the hot topic of “Tech Disruption” — how technology is changing the fashion industry.
Rania Masri, the chief transformation officer at Chalhoub group, kicked off by describing how technology works as a catalyst in the retail industry. “Digital has disrupted our industry quickly evolving our consumer in a way that we were not expecting, and we need to react very quickly to it,” Masri said.
Ramy Fares, the director of retail at Microsoft in the Middle East and North Africa agreed that “retail has been fundamentally transformed by effective technology.
“The market player we are all trying to catch up with in retail is Amazon, and at the heart of Amazon is artificial intelligence, learning just from your clicks what you have in your shopping cart (and using that information) to profile the kind of products (the company needs) to have in the warehouses to fulfill your needs.”
Ghizlan Guenez, the founder and CEO of UAE online women’s fashion retailer Themodist.com was asked if she would have been able to conduct her business in the same way without this digital revolution, and she said no. The Modist has built a reputation as a portal offering modest fashion from luxury brands.
“What we wanted to do is to reach all modest dressers globally, regardless of why they do so and smash a little bit of a stereotype around modesty — that it’s about a particular religion or one particular culture or religion.”
Guenez also discussed how technology allowed her business to stretch beyond national boundaries to capture a wider market.
“For us it was very important to be able to reach a large audience — from Indonesia to the Middle East all the way to America — to ensure that this positioning was clear. And so e-commerce was crucial for us in the way we launched the business.”
Philippe Blanchard, founder and CEO of sport technology company Futurous, discussed the relationship between humans and technology.
“We cannot be in a situation where we are setting new sets of rules, policies and tools and we expect that artificial intelligence will substitute human intelligence and responsibility. He elaborated: “It is our collective responsibility to keep our humanity and to make sure we are not becoming dependent or unaccountable.”

Fashion and innovation
Discussions on fashion and innovation continued at “Made in KSA” with Hatem Alakeel, Reem Alkanhal, Cyrille Fabre and Princess Nourah Al-Faisal.
This event focused on how culture, fashion and entrepreneurship need to work together to move society forward and tackle the challenges that Saudi designers face in producing their designs locally.
Princess Norah, the founder of Nuun Jewels, said: “For me ‘Made in KSA’ is about the ability to manufacture in the same place that I work and live, and to have the structures that allow me to do so.
“I am talking about having training, infrastructure, workshops creating essentially an industry that does not exist at this time. I think in terms of design in Saudi Arabia you are talking about creating industries that do not exist and that’s a big job. That’s huge!”
She emphasized the importance of working collectively to achieve this target. “It is not something that one person can do ... it’s down to those of us who are already in the business and the only way we are going to be able to do it is by working together.”
The award-winning designer Reem Al-Kanhal talked about her determination to have pieces manufactured locally.
“I insisted ever since the day I started that I want ‘made in KSA,’ and I did it. I had one of my collections distributed in some Gulf cities and the label said ‘made in KSA.‘ It was really difficult, and I took a longer time to finish the collection, but I found out that it’s like a ripple effect; you see everything in front of you.”
To Al-Kanhal the problem was clear: “We have a lot of local tailors who cannot find jobs because there are no factories, and as a designer I need investors and I need a whole team.”

Industry
Hatem Alakeel, the designer and founder of menswear brand “Toby,” shared the concerns of fellow designers: “We are forced to become industrialists.”
“We, as designers, find ourselves wearing too many hats; we have to become entrepreneurs, we have to think of ROI (return on investment), we have to think about all these details,” he said.
Hatem added: “We are having so many fashion weeks in the country but we are not getting solutions. I always have to go out of the country to manufacture when I we would like to be able to manufacture where we are; logistically and cost-wise it makes more sense.”
Cyrille Fabre, Middle East Bain & Co. partner and director, said the problem was the lack of local brands: “In France, Italy or the UK almost everybody would be wearing a brand from their own country. You go to the mall in France or UK and at least 60 percent or more of the mall would be national brands.”
Fabre said the problem is caused by the small number of experts in the region. “There are just a few SMEs, but let’s try to say mostly in the creative industry.”
Reem, Princess Norah and Hatem also talked of the importance of changing consumer perceptions of pieces made in the Kingdom, agreeing it was essential to change the consumer’s mindset and educate designers. The panelists agreed that working as a team, rather in silos, was the only way to rebuild the industry and change perceptions in Saudi Arabia.


KSrelief delivers winter aid and dates to Yemen’s vulnerable

These packages form part of the emergency shelter project in Yemen. (SPA)
Updated 23 sec ago
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KSrelief delivers winter aid and dates to Yemen’s vulnerable

RIYADH: The Kingdom’s aid agency KSrelief has delivered dates and winter shelter to vulnerable people in Yemen, the Saudi Press Agency reported late Thursday.

KSrelief’s volunteers distributed 100 winter bags in Thamud district, Hadhramaut governorate, for 600 individuals from 100 vulnerable families.

These packages form part of the emergency shelter project in Yemen. (SPA)

The aid is a part of the agency’s emergency shelter project in the country.

Meanwhile, 2,459 cartons of dates were delivered in Al-Wadi district, Marib governorate, for the benefit of 14,754 people.


KSrelief continues international relief efforts in Chad, Pakistan

Updated 18 min 49 sec ago
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KSrelief continues international relief efforts in Chad, Pakistan

RIYADH: Saudi aid agency KSrelief has delivered aid to people most in need in Chad and Pakistan, reported the Saudi Press Agency.

Some 201 food parcels, benefiting 1,206 people, were distributed in the village of Sharkaya, in Hajar Lamis province, as part of the 2024 Food Security Support Project in the Republic of Chad.

Aid has also been given to 10,500 vulnerable people in flood-affected areas of Pakistan as part of the fourth phase of KSrelief’s initiative to provide shelter materials and winter bags to the country.


Saudi agency KSrelief delivers food, hygiene kits in Syria

The aid is a part of KSrelief’s projects to support earthquake-affected people in northern Syria. (SPA)
Updated 32 min 22 sec ago
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Saudi agency KSrelief delivers food, hygiene kits in Syria

  • The aid is a part of KSrelief’s projects to support earthquake-affected people in northern Syria

RIYADH: The Kingdom’s aid agency KSrelief has distributed food and hygiene kits to thousands of vulnerable people across Syria, the Saudi Press Agency reported late Thursday.

The agency’s volunteers delivered 750 food parcels and 750 hygiene kits in Al-Hasakah, Syria, benefiting 4,500 people.

The aid is a part of KSrelief’s projects to support earthquake-affected people in northern Syria. (SPA)

Meanwhile 745 Syrian families, comprising 2,652 people, in Al-Dana, Idlib governorate, received food and hygiene kits.

The aid is a part of KSrelief’s projects to support earthquake-affected people in northern Syria.


How Google aims to bridge the AI skills gap in Saudi Arabia and the wider region

Updated 08 November 2024
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How Google aims to bridge the AI skills gap in Saudi Arabia and the wider region

  • Backed by local partners, Google will boost AI upskilling for women, youth, migrants, and rural communities
  • The AI Opportunity Initiative aims to equip half a million people across the MENA region with AI skills

DUBAI: As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes industries, job roles and skill requirements, the Middle East and North Africa region is actively embracing advanced technologies and collaborating with tech giants to bridge the skills gap in an evolving labor market.

One such collaboration is with Google’s newly launched AI Opportunity Initiative, which offers training and education opportunities to make AI technologies more accessible and inclusive across the region.

By collaborating with local organizations, the AI Opportunity Initiative seeks to “train half a million people in the next two years,” Anthony Nakache, managing director of Google MENA, told an audience at the recent AI Connect MENA event at Dubai’s Etihad Museum.

To achieve this, Google “will give a grant of $15 million to fund local organizations,” Nakache said.

Najeeb Jarrar, regional director of marketing at Google MENA, told Arab News: “We are very excited about this AI Opportunity Initiative, especially since we are seeing the Saudi community is fully embracing AI both on the consumer side and on the developer and resource side.

“This is an initiative that we have launched globally and we now are bringing to the region. One of the aims of this initiative is how we are leveling the playing field for AI and AI education and skilling across the entire region,” he added, noting that students will learn to use AI more productively, including skills such as prompt engineering.

To bridge the digital divide in the labor market, Google’s AI Opportunity Initiative aims to upskill underserved workers in AI by offering tailored training materials in Arabic, in partnership with the non-profit Manarat, online course provider Coursera, and other organizations.

Google’s largest AI project in the region, the AI Opportunity Initiative will focus on four key areas: AI skills development, research, products, and infrastructure.

DID YOUKNOW?

• The new AI Opportunity Initiative is Google’s largest AI project in the region.

• It aims to equip 500,000 people in the MENA region with AI skills within two years.

• Google is granting $15 million to local organizations between 2024 and 2027.

• The Saudi government is reportedly creating a $40 billion fund to invest in AI.

“We also worked with local NGOs and local players in the market to ensure that we are also reaching out to different partners,” Jarrar said.

Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, has announced plans to contribute $15 million between this year and the end of 2027, providing funding to organizations across the region to ensure accessibility to AI opportunities.

The AI Opportunity Initiative also aims to equip 500,000 people in the MENA region with AI skills in the first two years. This includes students, academics, developers, entrepreneurs and underrepresented groups.

Speaking about the issue of accessibility, Jarrar said: “We wanted to ensure first that this local initiative does not feel like an initiative that is hard to get for the average user.”

Google’s largest AI project in the region, the AI Opportunity Initiative will focus on AI skills development, research, products, and infrastructure. (Supplied)

He pointed out that both language and local partners, such as Injaz and Raspberry Pi Foundation, play a major role in improving accessibility.

“The content is all in Arabic, we have local examples that we are actually able to showcase,” he said. “We are partnering with local partners that know the market and the community very well and are able to reach more people that are beyond what we can initially reach to.”

The AI Opportunity Initiative enables Google to expand the Maharat min Google program, which targets high school and university students, by introducing a new AI curriculum in Arabic.

As part of its mission to support underserved communities, Google.org is funding Village Capital, a non-profit that supports entrepreneurs tackling environmental, social and economic challenges.

Village Capital will equip business support organizations to offer AI upskilling opportunities to underserved workers. 

The program targets women, youth, migrants and rural communities across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq. 

The Raspberry Pi Foundation will use grant funding from Google.org to train teachers in AI literacy, equipping students aged 11-14 in the region with AI safety skills to better understand and navigate the challenges of AI technologies.

Opinion

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Speaking at the Google AI Connect Event, Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer for Alphabet and Google, said: “AI is estimated to contribute $320 billion in economic growth for the Middle East by 2030.

“Google is working to ensure that people and communities throughout the region have the skills needed to capture the upside of this emerging technology.” 

She added: “Our local non-profit and university partners will help bring this program to people and communities throughout the region, ensuring that everyone can benefit from the opportunities that AI can deliver.”

 Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer for Alphabet and Google, speaking at the Google AI Connect event. (Photo courtesy of Google)

Since 2005, Google has invested more than $400 million in academic research globally.

The tech giant also announced during its Dubai event the launch of new Arabic AI products, including Gemini Live in Arabic, Gemini for Teens, Imagen3, and Gems on Gemini in Arabic. 

“For the previous year, we have worked hard with partners, with experts globally and from the region, to understand what are the constraints that we need to implement to make this product safer for teens, teens aged 13 to 18,” Jarrar said.

“We worked tirelessly to make sure we have the right guardrails to ensure that we had the right controls and the proper Q and A and testing, and today we are happy to say that Gemini for Teens is available for users and teens here in the region.”

These efforts are expected to support Saudi Arabia’s ambition to become an AI leader, ensuring its population stays aligned with the latest developments in the labor market.

A September report by the Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence showed that 75 percent of the Saudi population is familiar with the concept of AI, and 64 percent are aware of its applications.
 

 


Saudi Arabia’s recreational spaces ready for holiday season

Updated 08 November 2024
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Saudi Arabia’s recreational spaces ready for holiday season

AL-BAHA: Saudi authorities have announced extensive preparations of public recreational facilities ahead of the school holiday season.

The Al-Baha municipality has readied 142 parks and recreational areas, along with municipal squares, public spaces and streets, to welcome visitors and tourists.

According to regional secretary, Ali bin Mohammed Al-Sawat, these facilities span more than 4,188,559.98 million square meters and feature amenities including children’s playgrounds, green spaces, shade structures, lighting, sidewalks, seating areas and parking, and facilities for activities such as walking and cycling.

The Al-Barouqi Tourist Farm in Al-Baha region features agricultural terraces, famous trees and old wells. (SPA)

Meanwhile, the Eastern Region Municipality has completed the preparation of 979 parks and public squares, 18 public recreational parks, 14 waterfront areas and 213 walking tracks.

The facilities are timely as moderate weather conditions and school breaks attract more outdoor activity.

The municipality emphasized its commitment to regular maintenance of these facilities, considering them vital breathing spaces for citizens and residents.
 

Al-Nakheel Park Tabuk region's Haql governorate is more than just a recreational destination. It is a place where residents and visitors can uncover stories of the past, shared by their ancestors. (SPA)