Dr. Faisal Al-Osaimi, Director of the Innovation Department at the Saline Water Conversion Corporation, revealed an initiative with the National Center of Meteorology using satellites, noting that the Corporation has been working on the initiative for several months, pointing out that the initiative will provide real-time sensing of the quality of water in the stations, so that it will dispense with Taking samples from stations and analyzing them.
He added during the dialogue session entitled “Opportunities for Commercial Innovation in the Environment, Water and Agriculture” as part of the “Innovation Week 2024” activities recently organized by the Enterprise Support Centers, that the Foundation has established an innovation agency due to the extreme importance, adding that the institutions are developing policies and legislation, with the aim of adopting ideas. Innovation, implementation and application on the ground, stressing that the Foundation has established several channels to support innovation by launching the “Motivating Innovative Employees” initiative, by presenting innovative ideas, where internal committees are established to evaluate and activate the ideas, adding that the Foundation provides financial incentives for ideas of economic value. In addition, the Foundation established the “Research and Innovation” Agency to attract research ideas from several parties.
He stated that the Innovation Agency contains several departments “research – designs – artificial intelligence,” adding that the institution focuses on innovations in the sectors of “supply – transportation and distribution – sewage and waste treatment.” He explained that the reverse osmosis technology controls water desalination processes. Saltwater, as there are initiatives to improve this process through the use of “nano” materials, as this technology enters the water and excludes salts through very small openings, adding that agricultural stations are 30% less in capital cost than seawater stations, where the water is designed Produced according to the plant’s need for minerals.
He said that the corporation is cooperating with an entrepreneur to produce water from the air, with production ranging between 60 liters – 5,000 liters per day, adding that it is working to install stations with this technology in Rabigh and Jubail, as this technology serves the areas that are difficult to deliver services to in the appropriate manner. He explained that the state attaches great importance to innovation, which contributed to the Kingdom reaching 48th place according to the innovation index, so that the Kingdom jumped about 16 places within 18 months.
He pointed out that the most prominent challenges facing innovations are the lack of infrastructure to implement innovations, as the Corporation is establishing the “Desalination Oasis” project in Rabigh that includes research centers with an area of 42 thousand square meters, so that companies and entrepreneurs will be able to implement innovations related to water desalination, expecting completion. of the “Desalination Oasis” project in the coming months, with the completion rate reaching 35%.
He stressed that the Saudi Innovation Center for Water Technology embraces ideas worth 585 million riyals, pointing out that the center aims to localize knowledge, increase local content and develop the water sector market, adding that the center will launch its second edition next June, indicating that the center targets entrepreneurs. Who have ideas that are applicable to the market.
He revealed that the Corporation launched the “International Award for the Desalination Sector” worth 10 million riyals, adding that the winners in 2023 numbered 7 innovators out of a total of 105 innovators from 27 international countries, pointing out that the Corporation aims in 2024 to about 250 innovators to participate in the award. Registration is available to all innovators in the desalination sector, explaining that the volume of bottled drinking water in the Kingdom exceeds 8 billion riyals.
Engineer Moaz Bou Aisha, Director of the Research and Development Department for 3D Printing Technology – NEOM, said that NEOM is keen to attract people with the skills to solve problems in the best ways, indicating that innovation contributes to finding unconventional solutions to address various challenges, pointing out that innovation is the process of using the mind to break away from The natural pattern, indicating that innovation consists in abstracting from the various known patterns by creating an appropriate atmosphere to develop solutions to various challenges.
He added that NEOM focuses on preserving the environment, reducing carbon emissions, and working with clean energy as much as possible, noting that there are many investment opportunities for entrepreneurs in the “NEOM” project, including benefiting from current construction processes and working to innovate solutions to reduce carbon emissions, stressing that NEOM is working to reduce carbon emissions by using a 3D printer to produce concrete pieces in construction buildings, estimating the reduction in carbon emissions at about 95%, calling on entrepreneurs to search for solutions in construction and building technologies to preserve carbon emissions.
He pointed out that there are great investment opportunities in the “NEOM” project, as the innovator needs to search for appropriate solutions to many challenges, including, for example, “salt reflux” resulting from the desalination of salt water, calling on entrepreneurs to benefit from wasted things or distant things.
Engineer Fahd Al-Saghan, Executive Director of Research and Innovation Department at the National Water Company, explained that innovation consists of transferring an idea to reality by creating a qualitative shift, adding that innovation contributes to creating an economic feasibility for stable training, stressing that the company is keen to preserve the environment by producing Renewable energy and power generation through water networks, which contributes to reducing operational costs, noting that the company has contributed to reducing carbon emissions from several different projects, by reaching more than 20 million tons annually, calling on entrepreneurs to search for appropriate solutions to increase the volume of carbon emissions reduction. By finding appropriate innovations.
He stated that the company was keen to build a strategy for innovation, in addition to focusing on governance through procedural systems and policies and establishing specialized committees, in order to deal with innovators in a correct manner, adding that the company, after completing the legislative procedures, launched the “Wabel” program, indicating that the company intended To launch challenges to receive ideas and then sort them, explaining that some ideas reach the prototyping stage without the ability to implement them, stressing that the company was able to receive more than 1,000 ideas, some of which found their way to implementation.
He explained that the market needs innovations related to waste from plants that contain a lot of chemicals and organic materials, so that they can be invested in power generation or other processes, calling on entrepreneurs to try to benefit from waste from desalination plants in recycling and creating facilities with economic returns.
