Your Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai
Your Royal Highness Prince Khalid AlFaisal
Your Highnesses
Your Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am very glad to stand here today speaking to elite of intellectuals and opinion leaders in the Arab World. First of all, I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to the Arab Thought Foundation and his Royal Highness and chairman for providing this precious and special occasion to gather Arab thought interests. I would also like to thank Dubai for its hospitality and reception, seizing the opportunity to congratulate the Emirati people and leadership on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the United Arab Emirates’ National Day.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is important for me to stand up here today, talking to you during times that are witnessing accelerated developments every day. And Dubai, this lovely city which is hosting this conference, is my constant reminder that our dreams are achievable and our future will indeed be bright.

The Arab Thought Foundation (ATF) is one of the basic awareness pillars in the Arab World. And when I recollect on the Foundation’s history I notice the tremendous and unique achievements. I also notice how ATF always focuses on the big Arab Dream as well as the active and energetic Arab Youth, as if ATF was foreseeing the future and recognizing the Youth’s active role in its changes and developments. For ATF understood that the Youth is a source of challenge and hope at the same time. Therefore, and for this purpose it organized seminars and made exhaustive studies and researches.

Many individuals, who are my age, recognize that Youth have their own world and their new language. It is the cyberspace that goes beyond time and place. It knocked at every door in our Arab World, reached poor and rich, illiterate and educated and imposed itself on people’s hearts and minds through its social networks and its leaders. The best example of its effectiveness, contributions and impacts on our youth, is our Arab Spring where in only one month, and with its ferocious waves knocked down regimes that have been strong and stable for decades.

Since I witnessed the important space the cyberspace occupies in the life of today’s Youth, I would like to share with you a personal experience in Saudi Aramco where, every year, we choose the best Saudi high-school graduates and send them to the best universities around the world to prepare them for working in our company. For example, we now have around one thousand two hundred students abroad. In the last years, the majority of students applying for the scholarship chose the same specialization “Computer Engineering”. We were forced to explain to them that working at Saudi Aramco meant working in one of the strongest companies in the world in information technology and that computer engineering is the sinews of oil drilling, extraction and refining. Their glittering eyes whenever they hear this explanation makes us happy. They are actually choosing the needed specializations in different engineering branches.

I will say it loudly: the future is for the Cyberspace. If we do not learn its language and invest in its potentials and unlimited opportunities, the gap between us and our Young Generations will widen and we will not be able to bridge it.  Our world today requires us to quicken the pace to preserve our place. The world of business and industry understands well the importance of this quest and this change. We have examples that confirm this fact: Even big and stable companies might not understand that they would miss their chance and would face bigger challenges from competitors that recognize the importance of change and development. They might give the opportunity to people like the late Steve Jobs to provide creative initiatives that threaten the domination of other companies and create exceptional opportunities.

The world of Oil business is also full of challenges. Every production day shows more and more need for development and creativity, in order to extract bigger quantities of oil and gas, develop production and transportation means, improve environmental measures of oil discharge, integrate in petrochemical industries and develop their techniques. One of the most important reasons for change in our company is the young generation under the age of thirty that forms around 40% of our manpower from now till the coming five years. This year, we have launched a plan for an accelerated strategic change. It will transform Saudi Aramco from an oil and gas company into an international company in the fields of energy and integrated petrochemicals in less than a decade.

What relates most to our theme today is that Saudi Aramco will transform itself to a source of innovation and leading technologies.

The imperative change in the world of business and companies based on the facts I have already mentioned is similar to the imperative change that hit our Arab World. Some Arab countries were affected by internal factors and deteriorated economic situations in the world; the most affected category was the youth under the age of thirty who represent 70% of the Arab World population and who always dreamt of a better present if not a better future. They always aspire to freedom, better life and development and prosperity opportunities. I am not talking about the essential change requested in the Arab World since I am sure that intellectuals and opinion leaders, who are present with us today, are capable of understanding the extent of developmental challenges facing our Arab Nation; therefore I will limit my talk to the techniques of successful change and the associated information technology infrastructure.

It is obvious to every intellectual and seeker of change that there are four pillars on which the quest for change, development and progress is erected. We cannot talk about change if it does not reach the heart and mind of people and convince them of its importance and in their turn be the messengers. The second pillar is to build the environment that promotes innovation and creativity which opens the door to creative ideas in every single workplace. With developed ideas and accelerated change comes the third pillar which consists of building the human capital and finding training and learning opportunities, allowing skills to go along with change requirements. The fourth pillar, which is also important, consists of following-up, meticulously and transparently, on the change, its effectiveness and consequences in order to make the suitable modifications during this arduous period of change.

In the quest for change in Saudi Aramco, we found in information technology the right companion and supporter. Aramco has built an international electronic network that is the basis of our business. Moreover, our intranet constituted an excellent means of communication among employees, especially the youth, and contributed to their understanding of the incentives, objectives and means of change. In the Arab world, these networks will contribute to the communication between youth and their leaders in order to reach a common vision regarding the objectives and means of change.

In the world of innovation and creativity, Saudi Aramco considered every employee a prospective source of innovation and creativity. Thus, it built a special electronic system that forms a forum to present creative ideas and innovations. Employees offered more than one hundred thousand creative ideas. These ideas, suggestions and innovations would be referred to concerned departments and parties, where they would study, follow through with them until they are ready to be implemented. In addition to thousand of internal development ideas, the program led to 139 patents bringing the number of registered patents to exceed 360. I seize the opportunity to call upon everyone to focus on the culture of innovation and creativity in the Arab World through an integrated IT system that guarantees the assessment of creative ideas, insuring a strong and competitive economic platform worldwide.

In the field of building human capital, the company’s IT programs contributed to the provision of needed competences, specializations and skills, and helped in exploring and planning for the future. Our Arab World is in deep need for IT systems to plan for human capital and follow-up on the implementation of development plans. IT systems related to personal learning and training in Saudi Aramco, provided opportunities to support essential training needs as well as change requirements while keeping the beneficiary a productive employee. The training offered to employees exceeded 270,000 sessions. I believe that e-training programs constitute an excellent means to provide learning and training to our youth in the Arab World, and the low cost makes it affordable to everyone.

In the programs of change and development in Saudi Aramco, IT programs allowed the preparation of more than five thousand periodical reports on follow-up and assessment and insured excellent opportunities to reach higher levels of transparency, seek opinions about different change programs and continually and promptly follow-up this change and make suitable and timely modifications. These IT tools are unquestionably an essential means to follow-up on the implementation of development plans in our Arab World, in an accurate and transparent way on decision making, follow-up, supervision and legislation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I hope that our experience in Saudi Aramco, helps in explaining the importance of Information Technology, as a base for successful change, fulfilling youth aspiration and maintaining a tight communication with them. At the Arab World level, we are glad that investments in IT technology and telecommunication are increasing and maybe the figures in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia makes it on the top list of investors in the Arab world in this field with a total expenditure of 27 billion Saudi Riyal in 2010.

This investment is requested in different fields: provision of networks, elimination of IT illiteracy, spread of IT skills and provision of requested digital content. And in this regard, I am glad to say that Saudi Aramco began more than a year ago, and in a precious collaboration with ATF, to prepare an important study on the Arabic digital content on the internet. Yesterday witnessed the launch of the first secondary report of this study included in the cultural development report issued by ATF.  The main report will be hopefully published next year.

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Aramco is building an ambitious cultural project called King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture. The Center will embody a unique vision for the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, in regard to thought, culture and development as essential elements for many social activities. In addition to its creative architecture, the Center is characterized by its technical and interactive design that addresses and attracts young generations. Through its diversified programs and high level information technologies this center helps better interact with our Global, facilitating the access to dependable resources in Arabic and providing the 21th century technology skills, quick learning, collaboration with others, and translation of creative ideas into practical solutions and market value products that help in the economic development.

Ladies and Gentlemen

We perceive the major contribution of IT as a weapon of change in the latest Arab events. While we raise the question “Arab Spring, What’s Next?” I think that this active weapon can be used to serve in an even better way, in the quest for development and change. It is the key that leads to youth and is one of the cornerstones of their economic future. It gives them the opportunity to differentiate between a world that consumes the technology and a world that creates it, a world in which economy and development are impeded and a world on the other hand that is flourishing. Nowadays, this is not a dream; IT is available to those who would like to invest in it and our youth are not less intelligent or less competent than their counterparts in the world. The investment in IT and improvement of its infrastructure is an urgent and mandatory duty in which our Youth has to take part. Let them carry the flag of the Arab World renaissance, in its summer, winter, spring and fall. Our commitment towards them stands in all seasons.

Thank you.