Digital Society

The digital transformation of the government is not only a cause but an outcoimne of the change in the society has been changing.  In its main focus on Saudi Arabia Digital Vision 2030, the government has initiated and encouraged a thriving growth pf the Saudi Society to become digitally visible . According to ITU Saudi Arabia has started showing a substantive shift towards enhancing a digital society since 2018, with substantial development in 2019. Socio-economic development is strongly driven by research that is carried out in the promise of such dynamic change. This has radically changed all aspects of our lives, including knowledge dissemination, social interaction and inclusion, economic and work environments and modalities, including political activity. The major advantage of digital transformation regarding the information Society in Saudi Arabia benefited most at the start of the development plan for digital transformation in the education sector. Soon, development spread towards economic development according to G20 digital ministers, and adopted the recommendation to utilize leveraging digitalization for a resilient, strong, sustainable and inclusive recovery.  For measuring the digital economy, the G20 Report for Digital Economy Task Force, during its presidency, Saudi Arabia is developing alternative (non-survey) sources of data, including private sector data sources, and data gathered from the Internet.

 

The development of Saudi Arabia as an information society has been observed to advance after 2019. OECD has conducted  research for measuring impact of digital economy in the society and not only on business. In fact, digital transformation of Saudi Arabia has been considered also in its national digital strategy.

Saudi Arabia has laid the foundation for a bright future through the Saudi Vision 2030, a strategic framework to decrease the country’s dependence on oil and to diversify the economy. An important part of the plan is to actively promote private and public partnerships and to develop services in sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, entertainment, recreation and tourism. Digital Society strongly thrives on developing information society with rich digital transformation. 

The Government is leading digital transformation in a focused and effective manner. On doing so, three main strategic actions are being adopted:

• Acceleration

• Accelerating and supporting the implementation of initiatives through digital transformation

• Aligning the efforts of government agencies

• Enablement

• Establishing partnerships between the public and private sectors

• Offer counselling on digital transformation

• Coordination

• Addressing challenges and obstacles facing digital transformation through the National Committee for Digital Transformation

• Developing digital transformation strategies

A remarkable manifestation of the progress of the digital society can be witnessed by examining the how the society is digitally involved in the welcoming and management of the Hajj pilgrims to Mecca. 

 

Digital Knowledge

The Government has already established the Digital Government Authority (DGA) and Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), to spearhead the digital transformation program. In a few years’ time, Saudi Arabia has introduced more than 30 cloud services, established 169 data centers, more than 175 datasets, successfully implemented 8 digital policies, aligned 130 government departments, registered more than 600,000 establishments with the platform, recording more than 510 million transactions with user base exceeding 22 million people.

Realizing the significance of resources for digital knowledge, DGA is considered not only a repository of technology reports, policy and action reports of projects and activities implemented or under implementation, but also a national repository of highly specialized knowledge that can be used as guidelines as well as state-of-the-art digital transformation practices. These are present in the DGA Digital Knowledge site. For example, the document “Definitions Guide of Digital Platforms, Products, and Services”: 09 August, 2022 (Document No.: DGA-1-2-2-211) sets out the terminology chosen for the digital channels, platforms, products and services, in an effort to standardize concepts and emphasize clarity of their uses. This guide, in addition to being considered a national reference for defining terms related to digital channels, platforms, products and services that have been classified according to an approved national classification, serves as a source for individuals, government agencies and the private sector to use Using a unified terminology in the field of digital government.

 

As digital transformation is progressing effectively, society is transforming as well. In addition to economy, social development has been becoming more effective and measurable. Students in educational institutions, patients at medical centers and hospitals. This growing digital society of Saudi Arabia, mainly at current stage in cities, is Improving citizens’ quality of life through advanced digital services, informing citizens about digital services and their benefits, and transitioning from digital consumption to digital production. Growth of the Saudi digital society is contributing very effectively to the enhancement of the digital nation concept: that of achieving excellence in providing government services, accelerating national digital projects for serving public and private sectors and activating digital policies and regulations. Knowledge has been growing in all directions: in size, in content, in sector and in type, becoming the main source of wealth for open data, big data and all kinds of information. This information constitutes an institutionalization of the knowledge in society. The wealth of data is an indispensable core of the knowledge society.  SDAIA has a successful platform for such knowledge. It hosts the National Data Bank (NDB) is a constellation of interconnected robust national data platforms that aim at accelerating the data literacy and instilling data as a common denominator for the digital economy in the Kingdom.

The platform has implemented an open data policy to facilitate access to information and data in light of digital acceleration. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is taking great systematic steps on the path of open data and free access, thus allowing it to contribute towards enhancing transparency in the implementation of government transactions, consolidating the principle of accountability within the government sector, and facilitating public evaluation and analysis of the content. Open data also helps to bridge the gap between the government sector and individuals.