Page 5 - 201909G20Entrepreneurship Newsletter

Saudi Science City Accelerator Produces 20 Tech Innovations

King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST),
represented by the Badir Program for Technology
Incubators and Accelerators, has organized a graduation
ceremony in Riyadh to celebrate 20 technological
innovations produced by the second inventions transfer
accelerator for 2019. The accelerator aims to activate
patents across a variety of services aimed at speed up the
implementation, development and marketing of inventions
to within a maximum of six months.
The ceremony featured a documentary about the second
accelerator and its intensive six-month training and
orientation program, in addition to presentations for
the graduating startups. An exhibition accompanied
the ceremony for the entrepreneurs to present their
innovations, projects and plans to investors and attendees.
During the ceremony, several financing, investment and
business development agreements were signed between graduating projects, the Badir Program and Monshaat.
The number of applicants to the second accelerator, supervised by KACST’s Intellectual Property Development and Investment Bureau,
reached 46, 26 of which were qualified to enter the training bootcamp. Twenty inventions from various industrial fields, including biotechnology,
water technology and electronic technologies, were qualified to enter the accelerator.

UK: Nearly £1m of EU Funding to Boost Tech Skills in UK SMEs

An initiative led by the Department for Work and Pensions will focus on Lack of basic digital proficiency is another issue. The Lloyds UK
enhancing skills in rural locations to unleash competitiveness in areas consumer digital index 2018 found that 13% of the working population
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such as agri-tech and bio renewables. The government has launched in Yorkshire and Humber don’t have full basic digital skills, compared
a call for applications for a program aimed at increasing the level of with the national average of 10%. Scarcity of expertise in areas such as
digital skills in rural communities to enable greater competitiveness in coding, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting the potential
areas such as agricultural technology (agri-tech) and bio renewables. of SMEs to remain competitive and poses a potential barrier to new
inward investment, according to the document, as well as continued
The call issued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) development of important sectors such as agritech, biorenewables
will commission projects funded by the European Social Fund. and engineering with increasing automation and robotics use.
Approximately �900,000 of European Union (EU) resources are
available for the project’s lifetime, which will be guaranteed even in Under the digital skills program, the current skills profile of individual
the event of a no-deal Brexit. employed people will be assessed and digital skills training provided
to update the existing workforce. SMEs will also be supported to adopt
The York, North Yorkshire and East Riding (YNYER) area will be the
regional focus for the initiative. According to the call for proposals, the new technologies to increase productivity, competitiveness and enable
region is a rural economy where small and medium-sized enterprises entry into emerging markets.
(SMEs) and micro-businesses account for over 97% of all businesses, Another priority under the initiative will be to support SMEs in identifying
but these are often based in isolated communities with limited and evaluating new technologies that could drive business performance
potential workforce. and productivity and create access to new and emerging markets, and in
identifying the skills barriers within organisations that prevent this.