New Delhi: In an effort to create an innovation ecosystem in the Kingdom, Saudi and Indian tech startups and investors who formed partnerships at the recent G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance Summit have begun working on their joint projects.
The YEA Summit was held in New Delhi in the middle of July to highlight young entrepreneurs from G20 nations as agents of societal and economic renewal.
The Saudi delegation, led by Prince Fahad bin Mansour, president of the Saudi G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance, formed several alliances with other attendees, particularly the host nation, India.
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One of them involved Pravaig Dynamics, a producer of electric vehicle equipment based in Bengaluru, India's principal tech hub, which inked an MOU with the investment company Saudi India Venture Studio.
Following the signing ceremony on July 16, the companies stated in a joint statement that their collaboration aimed to "revolutionise the automotive industry" and "propel technological evolution in the EV, battery, and AI sectors."
According to Siddhartha Bagri, CEO of Pravaig, the collaboration offered the chance to influence the global technology landscape.
"The MoUs is to do manufacturing across the next few years, and we hope to first establish an ecosystem of brains over there," he said.
This Memorandum of Understanding signifies our shared intention to invest heavily in talent, technology, and resources while also creating an ecosystem in Saudi Arabia.
By the end of the year, he anticipated having a plan in place for a Saudi Arabian EV manufacturing facility that would be able to produce at least 1 million vehicles annually, meeting demand not only in the Kingdom but also in other Gulf nations, Europe, and the US.
Bagri believed that Indian innovators had enormous potential to advance their concepts and technologies, particularly with the megaprojects like the $500 billion smart city NEOM, which is the Kingdom's flagship project.
Especially with NEOM, the new city, he said, "it is an opportunity for the world's minds to possibly look at a new destination to have very interesting creative outlays, where almost anything is possible."
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Another agreement signed at the G20 YEA summit sought to connect female-led businesses, particularly startups, and assist them in thriving in Saudi Arabia, so that option also applied to female entrepreneurs.
The Circle Work, a Gurgaon-based business accelerator, and Dr. Huda Al-Fardus, CEO of HealthGena in Riyadh, signed the agreement to support scaling startups.
"(At) the Saudi-led entrepreneur ecosystem incubator and accelerator in Riyadh that I run, we are looking to collaborate with female-led initiatives and programmes, as well as startups from India," Al-Fardus said in an interview with Arab News.
Since my team also consists of 80% women, we will essentially be helping them to develop here in the Kingdom and access opportunities for the market itself, for the investment, and for their talents.
She was optimistic about future collaborations with India thanks to her work with The Circle and the speed with which they were able to consider the options and come to an agreement at the New Delhi summit.
Everything was completed in three days. On the first day, when we first encountered them, we learned about their ecosystem. Then, after finding out what they do and how it fits with what we want to see in the ecosystem, we quickly devised a plan for working together. The MoU was signed on the third day with the support of the entire delegation, she added.
India, in my opinion, is a fantastic country with which to work towards building the global ecosystem for entrepreneurship.
The Circle's innovation director, Nemesisa Ujjain, expressed her enthusiasm for the partnership.
"We discovered really strong women in the Saudi delegation, and it was wonderful to know that they share our desire to empower women and support female entrepreneurs. We want to do this a lot more, I think that's a cool synergy," she told Arab News.
We will run exchange programmes where delegations will visit and learn about the economy, market opportunity, and investment because, as you may know, Saudi Arabia is quickly rising to become one of the biggest investors in technology and startups worldwide.
The partnership, in Ujjain's opinion, will help change the startup climate in Asia, where she estimated that only 2% of projects led by women received funding.
We want to change that statistic, she declared. "I think that would be a great milestone to achieve if we can do something together, if we can give this extra push," the speaker said.