Building Saudi Arabia’s AI talent pipeline — from a nationwide awareness movement to national platforms, credentials, and bootcamps.
Since April 2023, I have served as Consultant to the Academy & Capacity Building Sector at the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), the entity leading the Kingdom’s national AI agenda. My work sits at the intersection of technology and talent: designing the platforms, programs, and frameworks that upskill students, professionals, leaders, and entire sectors in artificial intelligence — at national scale, in direct support of Vision 2030.
Impact at a Glance
Flagship Initiatives
SAMAI — One Million Saudis in AI
SAMAI is one of the world’s most ambitious national AI literacy initiatives: equipping one million Saudis with practical AI awareness and skills. I oversaw the technical platform development behind the initiative — the infrastructure that lets a nationwide program register, train, assess, and certify learners at population scale.
samai.futurex.sa →
SAMAI 2.0 — AI Productivity Across 11 Sectors
Building on SAMAI’s reach, SAMAI 2.0 moves from awareness to productivity: sector-specific AI enablement across 11 national sectors. I directed the initiative’s expansion, aligning content, platforms, and delivery with each sector’s real operational needs.
AthkaX — The National Academy Platform
AthkaX is SDAIA Academy’s national learning and training management platform (LMS/TMS), built with AI-powered features and launched at the national level of Saudi Arabia. I led its development end-to-end, ensuring the platform serves the Academy’s business goals, operational demands, and strategic priorities — from enrollment and learning pathways through assessment and certification.
athkax.sdaia.gov.sa →National Digital Badges Framework
Skills only count when they are recognized. I developed and led the Kingdom’s national digital badges framework — verifiable credentials for AI Engineers, AI Researchers, and Data Scientists that give individuals portable proof of capability and give employers a trusted national standard.
Competency Frameworks & Standards-Aligned Assessment
A credential is only as strong as the assessment behind it. For the AI Engineer and Data Scientist tracks, I led the development of competency frameworks defining the knowledge, skills, abilities, and tasks (KSAT) that each role genuinely requires — and built the standards-aligned question banks that assess them. Every badge issued is backed by a rigorous, competency-mapped assessment rather than a generic quiz.
National Occupation Framework
I contributed to the national occupation framework for AI and data roles — mapping emerging professions such as AI Engineer and Data Scientist to formally defined occupations with standardized competency profiles, so that national upskilling translates directly into recognized career pathways.
Content Development Methodology
National programs fail when every team builds content its own way. I developed a standardized content-development methodology — a repeatable process for designing, producing, and quality-assuring learning content — now used across SAMAI 2.0, the K-12 AI curriculum, and other national initiatives. One methodology, many programs: consistent quality at national scale.
National & International Bootcamps
Intensive, hands-on programs that convert learning into job-ready capability, strengthening both the national talent pipeline and Saudi Arabia’s global AI partnerships.
Elevate — Women Empowerment in AIInternational AI bootcamp. I finalized the program’s content, platform, and delivery strategy end-to-end.
AthkaUSDAIA’s university-focused AI capability program, taking AI skills into the Kingdom’s student pipeline.
Athka KSUOne of the largest AI-focused education events in the Kingdom, hosted at King Saud University in Riyadh to accelerate AI education and innovation.
ICAN 2026 — International Conference on Capacity Building in Data & AI
I served as one of the organizers of ICAN 2026, held in Riyadh in January 2026 — working across the full arc of the event: shaping the conference theme, selecting speakers, and designing the workshops and panel discussions. The conference brought together global leaders in AI talent development and concluded with 27 agreements and seven new initiatives, placing Saudi Arabia at the center of the international conversation on AI capacity building.
ican2026.com →
GAIN 2024 — Global AI Summit
As part of SDAIA’s capability-building agenda, I contributed to GAIN 2024 — the Global AI Summit in Riyadh, one of the world’s premier AI gatherings. I helped bring global technology leaders — Microsoft, Oracle, Pearson, Amazon, IBM, and others — into the Kingdom’s AI capability ecosystem, and arranged panel sessions with top international speakers across four universities in Riyadh, extending the summit’s impact into the academic talent pipeline.
Strategy, Partnerships, and Measurement
Capability building at national scale is a strategy problem before it is a technology problem. Within the Human Capability Building Department, I designed and implemented strategic initiatives spanning upskilling, cross-skilling, and reskilling — for students, the workforce, leadership, and multiple sectors of the economy. I led international partnerships that accelerate capability development through global collaboration, and I defined and monitored the Sector’s KPIs, ensuring every program is measured, accountable, and aligned with national strategic priorities. Underpinning all of it is a standards-first approach: competency frameworks, assessment standards, and occupational alignment that make every program’s outcomes verifiable.
Certificates & Recognition
Selected certificates and recognition received for national capability-building programs and platform delivery.
Two Sides of One Career
National capability building is the second chapter of a career spent delivering AI systems at national scale. The first — a decade of crowd management, scheduling, and computer-vision platforms for the world’s largest annual gathering — is documented in my Hajj Profile. Together they reflect a single conviction: Saudi Arabia’s most ambitious challenges are solved by building both the technology and the people who run it.
Explore the Hajj Profile →