U.S. tech giant Apple Inc. has chosen Riyadh University (also known as King Saud University) in Saudi Arabia’s capital city to host its latest Developer Academy, and the first such academy in the Middle East. The new academy will be a partnership with the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security, Programming, and Drones; the Tuwaiq Academy; and the Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, the world’s largest women’s university. The academy will provide tools, training, and other support for entrepreneurs, developers, and designers, especially female entrepreneurs, to establish tech start-ups and place young developers into jobs in the country’s burgeoning mobile/iOS applications sector. Specific focus tracks include programming, business applications, marketing, design, and professional skills, according to Federation Chairman Faisal Al-Khamisi. Under the country’s Vision 2030 initiative for economic modernization and diversification, partnerships with leaders in the tech field such as Apple are an important step in achieving the initiative’s goals for supporting technological innovation and transformation.
