The G20 is in the house

This will be a memorable year in Saudi Arabia because it is the year the Kingdom hosts the G20.

The B20, which is the global business community engagement forum as well as the voice of the private sector to the G20, had its inaugural inception event in Riyadh earlier this month.

Representatives from all of the 20 countries came to Riyadh to discuss global issues in six task forces: Digitization, energy, sustainability and climate, finance and Infrastructure, future of work and education, integrity and compliance and finally trade and investment. Each of these task forces focuses on specific topics that are relevant to businesses as well as policy makers.

The objective of these task forces is to develop policy proposals that have recommendations for the G20 leaders.

In addition, the Saudi B20 has added two themes that will be considered throughout the six task forces, which are “SMEs and Entrepreneurship” and “Sustainable Development Goals.”

To top this off, the Saudi B20 also added a Women in Business Action Council to focus on addressing the issue of gender diversity in business.

This is a much-needed addition that will serve as a Saudi signature topic that is closely aligned with our Saudi Vision 2030, pertaining to the empowerment of women that will hopefully continue throughout future B20 task forces.

As a Saudi female executive, I was delighted to be chosen as part of the B20 future work and education task force, where I met my counterparts from other member countries.

With the world enduring continuous change and a digital transformation, we will see rapid changes in our labor market, with some jobs being automated and lost to AI and other new jobs being created.

In my opinion, we must focus on how we educate our people on obtaining the new skills that the ever-changing labor market will need.

This is not to mention the issues of unemployment and increasing the labor force participation, as well as improving the quality of education.

Having said that, I am delighted to say that I met highly motivated counterparts who are eager to come together to work on these issues and bring change to our countries in this fourth industrial revolution.

Hopefully, together we will lead the upcoming fifth industrial revolution. I look forward to working on these important issues with my fellow task force members.

• Dr. Taghreed Al-Saraj is a best-selling Saudi author, an international public speaker and an entrepreneurship mentor.