DUBAI: The Group of Twenty (G20) presidency of Saudi Arabia has empowered civil societies by creating a support group that is making sure they have access to crucial resources throughout the summit, a G20 Saudi Secretariat member said.
Reem Al-Faryan said the new department, the first of its kind, was created early in Saudi Arabia’s G20 presidency to allow engagement groups — from civil societies to private sectors — to maximize their participation.
“The role of our team was to provide them with access to information and meetings,” she added.
Al-Faryan, who spoke at a briefing ahead of the Leaders’ Summit in Riyadh, said the Saudi G20 presidency has placed a high value on providing engagement groups access to G20 discussions.
“If you want to empower them, give them access to the discussion table,” she said.
The engagement groups had over 200 interactions with the G20, which included top officials participating in meetings and events hosted by the groups, according to Al-Faryan.
She also noted the active participation of the engagement groups through a high volume of policy recommendations and public statements.
Al-Faryan said Saudi Arabia’s commitment to these engagement groups reflected the Kingdom’s vision to empower vulnerable sectors of society, including women and youth.
“This is how our leadership would like to see the people of Saudi Arabia — empowered,” she emphasized.
Saudi G20 presidency empowered civil societies, Secretariat member says
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Saudi G20 presidency empowered civil societies, Secretariat member says
- Al-Faryan said the new department was created to allow engagement groups to maximize participation
- The engagement groups had over 200 interactions with the G20, she said
KAUST develops environmental disaster data skills
- Early detection and rapid response to spills can significantly reduce the risks of environmental damage
JEDDAH: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, and SARsatX, a Saudi company specializing in Earth observation technologies, have developed computer-generated data to train deep learning models to predict oil spills.
According to KAUST, validating the use of synthetic data is crucial for monitoring environmental disasters, as early detection and rapid response can significantly reduce the risks of environmental damage.
Matthew McCabe, dean of the Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division at KAUST, said one of the biggest challenges in environmental applications of artificial intelligence was the shortage of high-quality training data.
He explained that this challenge can be addressed by using deep learning to generate synthetic data from a very small sample of real data and then training predictive AI models on it.
This approach can significantly enhance efforts to protect the marine environment by enabling faster and more reliable monitoring of oil spills while reducing the logistical and environmental challenges associated with data collection.
