Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Prince Muhammad Bin Salman Foundation’s (Misk) Initiatives Center is participating in the World Economic Forum, which will begin in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.

Around 3,000 delegates representing 117 countries, including 53 heads of state, are attending the four-day 50th annual gathering. The theme of the conference is “Stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world,” with a focus on renewing the concept of stakeholder capitalism to overcome income inequality, societal division and the climate crisis.

The Center for Initiatives will review its experiences and initiatives in meeting the challenges of the future and creating solutions, especially its empowerment programs in diverse fields.

This comes at a time when the world’s attention is turning towards the Kingdom as it currently holds the presidency of the G20 Summit 2020.

The international profile of Misk Initiatives will be enhanced with its presence at the Davos Forum for the third year in a row and its participation represented with a host of events, including a pavilion which showcases the Kingdom’s interactions in general and young leaders in particular, on global issues in 2020, along with discussions at the Global Misk Forum, organized by the Center for Initiatives annually in Riyadh with the presence of world leaders and influencers to discuss the knowledge economy and empowering entrepreneurs.

The pavilion also includes a space for bilateral dialogues among delegates of Davos, after the center, through the Misk Global Forum, presented global programs on the future work and empowering young people in diverse areas, particularly in areas of entrepreneurship and innovation.

There is also a cultural space at the pavilion with interactive digital content called the “Saudi Café, where delegates from various cultures get to know the Saudi culture and its society, and show them a brief about “Misk Charitable Initiatives” and its role in empowering youth, in an experiment that simulates the activities offered by the Center through its various programs.

The Café gives attendees multiple opportunities to conclude agreements of participation in any of Misk’s diverse initiatives in the fields of business, culture, technology and media.

The Center will also organize a reception for more than 100 dignitaries participating in Davos event, in which joint talks will be held between the attendees and the participants in the sessions, as the Foundation provides them with an opportunity to exchange experiences and possible solutions to international challenges.

The Kingdom affirms the leadership position in supporting youth, not only at the local level, but also extends its support to the world’s youth, as Saudi Arabia and the Forum signed in 2019 a memorandum of understanding aimed at setting a framework for cooperation in various fields at the global level, and intends to continue to activate its presence to achieve common global goals to meet the challenges.

The participation of Misk Charity confirms its goals that it pursued since its inception, as it presented in the last version of the Misk Global Forum a number of discussion panels that dealt with the role that young people can play in building a better economic reality for the world, and generating influence in achieving the sustainable development goals, and strengthening the role of entrepreneurs in the MENA region, with the participation of international speakers.

The Center for Initiatives shares its experience by attending the Davos forum in empowering young people, and creating opportunities to find artificial intelligence solutions to meet economic challenges, and how it contributed through its various initiatives in building an environment, friendly to entrepreneurship at the local and global levels.

The Center for Initiatives enables interested participants in the Davos forum to explore opportunities for cooperation with the Misk Foundation, as well as to build partnerships and international cooperation to expand the impact of its initiatives and empower the largest number of young people.

These include World Cup for Entrepreneurship, in which 100,000 young men and women from more than 180 countries participated, and Misk 500 Program, in which Misk Innovation cooperated with the best “500 Startups” in the Silicon Valley and that enabled more than 160 entrepreneurs from several countries in the region to help develop their projects, in addition to undertaking training and qualification programs with international organizations, world class universities and advanced companies.