Leading figures to talk world’s future at Saudi forum

Renowned speakers will discuss the world’s future on Nov. 8 and 9 at the International Conference on Giftedness and Creativity.

The event is organized by the King Abdul Aziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity (Mawhiba), and the G20 Saudi Secretariat.

The event comes as part of the international conferences program held during the G20 Saudi Presidency, and will be held under the patronage of King Salman and inaugurated by Riyadh Gov. Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdul Aziz.

The two-day conference consists of four dialogue sessions, with two each day. The central high-level inaugural session is titled: “Imagine the Future: Empowerment of Youth to Shape New Future Horizons,” and will feature Minister of Energy Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman, Minister of Education Dr. Hamad Al-Asheikh, and Henrietta Fore, UNICEF executive director.

The conference will also include three keynote speakers: Michio Kaku, US theoretical physicist, futurist and science communicator; Neil deGrasse Tyson, US astrophysicist, cosmologist, planetary scientist and science communicator; and Gerd Leonhard, a futurist and author specialized in the interaction between humans and technology.

The first day concludes its activities with a second dialogue session titled “The Digital World – How will it change the identity of the future?” with Dr. Abdullah Al-Ghamdi, chairman of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority; Eng. Nadhmi Al-Nasr, CEO of NEOM; Anthony Salcito, vice-president of worldwide education at Microsoft; and Hong-Eng Koh, global chief government industry scientist at Huawei.

The second day of the conference begins with a session titled “The Future of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.” The list of panelists includes Jonas Kjellberg, co-founder of Skype; Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri Inc. and formerly a director of engineering in the iPhone group at Apple; Dr. Esther Wojcicki, vice chair of the Creative Commons advisory council and Andreas Weigend, former chief scientist of Amazon.com.

The second day’s second session is titled “Global Visions – How they shape the future of humanity?” It will feature Sally Krisel, former president of the US National Association for Gifted Children; Lianne Hoogeveen, president of the European Council for High Ability; Noriah Ishak, former president of the Malaysian National Gifted Center; and Andreas Schleicher, director for the Directorate of Education and Skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Mawhiba is the leading international establishment in the field of discovering, adopting and empowering talents, and it has discovered more than 161,000 talented Saudi students and expanded its work overseas.

It has achieved international successes by achieving 339 international victories in worldwide scientific competitions.

Mawhiba is aware that moving towards an economy independent of oil requires raising a generation capable of finding solutions to the problems of the future. The establishment has developed its methods based on the latest scientific means and practices to invest in the potential of talented individuals and empower them.