Dr. Turki bin Saud: KACST’s Winning of the Informatics Award is an Indicator on the Importance of Building- up National Capabilities in Fields of Information Technology and Communication
Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Kuwaiti Crown Prince of and Deputy Governor of the country handed Prince Dr. Turki Bin Saud Bin Mohammad Al Saud, Vice President of King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) for Research Institutes, Sheikh Salem Al Ali Al Sabah Informatics Award in Kuwait today.
Prince Dr. Turki expressed his pride of KACST’s wining of this Award and his deep thanks and appreciation to the Emir of Kuwait and his Deputy for honoring KACST, meanwhile, highlighting the importance of this Award in supporting prominent contributions to information development on the level of the Arab World.
The Prince stressed that KACST’s winning of this Award emphasizes the success of the approach adopted by KACST in the application and implementation of the requirements of The Comprehensive National Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation (CNPSTI) in many areas of strategic technologies, including the information development sector that the Government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques gives a great deal of care and attention.
The Prince elaborated ” Among the most prominent programs implemented by KACST in the information technology sector is King Abdullah Initiative for the Arabic Content that targets enriching Arabic content on the Internet and comprehends a large number of projects that are implemented in cooperation with the concerned stakeholders in the Kingdom, and the Arab world. Among the most distinguished of which are the Arabic Logs that contain what is written in Arabic throughout history in various specializations, the Interactive Computer Lexicon, along with the strategy of enriching both the local and Arabic contents through the project to enrich the Arabic Wikipedia encyclopedia, and competitions to enrich the Arabic content.”
KACST Vice President for Research Institutes revealed that KACST took over the establishment of Internet service in Saudi Arabia since 1998 and supervised it until 2004 when this service was put under the charge of Telecommunication and Information Technology Commission, indicating meanwhile that KACST currently oversees providing the Internet service to the academic sector and some government bodies in Saudi Arabia, as well as it supports and encourages scientific research in the field of information technology, where it supported many projects at Saudi universities and research centers.
Prince Turki pointed that KACST has implemented a number of projects in Arabic language computerization through the Institute of Computer Research, including (a Search Engine, an Automatic Reader, Arabic Characters’ Optical Character Reader (OCR), Machine Translation, Arabic Morphological Analyzer, Morphological Base for Arabic language Items, Open Source Software, Arabic Names Translator, Arab Numbers Analyzer, Automated Classification of the Arabic Texts, The Saudi Voice Bank, calculating prayer times, Hijri Calendar and others.
KACST Vice President for Research Institutes went on stating that KACST has established the Center of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at the Space Research Institute that provides many services to various government bodies and the private sector as well besides its being one of the best specialized centers in the field of geographic information systems. The Prince added that KACST has also established a number of programs and centers of excellence that serve this sector including the Wireless Broadband Communication Research Center in collaboration with Intel Corporation, the Open Source Software Center in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program UNDP, Multimedia Center in collaboration with the Japanese Company Index, Saudi Center for Software Development, the Saudi- Indian Center for Excellence in Communications and Information Technology and The Joint Program for Information Technology in collaboration with the California Technical Institute at California University, San Diego.
Prince Turki concluded that among KACST’s most
Notable efforts is supporting small enterprises in the field of informatics is establishing BADIR Information and Communication Technology (ICT) incubator to assist in establishing an industry based on technology and accelerate the process of transition and transformation to the knowledge society.