WASHINGTON — On the sidelines of the current visit of Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, to the US, the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security and Programming (SFCSP) signed on Friday night a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Lockheed Martin, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.

Lockheed Martin is a world-class aviation, defense and information security company. Primarily, the company focuses on research, design, development and manufacturing sophisticated technologies and software systems.

The MoU aims at creating a partnership in cyber security and programming. It will focus on developing and increasing Saudi Arabia’s capabilities in cyber security and programming and combating intrusions and viruses. The company will provide its experience and knowledge in training Saudi talents, specialized in cyber security and programming.

The MoU was co-signed by the Federation’s Deputy Chairman Abdullah Sharaf Al-Ghamdi, on behalf of the Federation's Chairman of the Board of Directors Saud Bin Abdullah Al-Qahtani, who is an advisor at the Royal Court, and Alan Chinoda, CEO of Lockheed Martin.

In remarks following the signing ceremony, Al-Qahtani said the agreement with a leading international company such as Lockheed Martin, which is concerned with aerospace, defense, security — most important of which is cyber security — would be a valuable partnership. This will support the Kingdom's youths, who are specialized in cyber security and programming, and will show them the seriousness and how these systems and infrastructure can be targeted. And learn how they can be protected through specialized and useful systems, which will contribute to raising awareness, protection and realization.

In another development, the SFCSP Deputy Chairman of the Board Dr. Abdullah Sharaf Al-Ghamdi and members of the Federation’s team paid a visit Friday to the Cyber Academy and Cyber Operations Center at Raytheon headquarters in Washington.

During the visit that aims to activate the MoU signed by the Federation and Raytheon, the delegation got acquainted with the academy’s programs and services. They discussed the possibility of implementing these programs at the Federation’s headquarters in Saudi Arabia.

The delegation was briefed on the academy’s centers and systems. They agreed that a team from Raytheon would visit the Federation’s headquarters in Riyadh to discuss the possibility of providing these programs and benefiting from them at the Cyber Security, Programming and Artificial Intelligence Academy launched recently, in line with the decision by the Federation’s Chairman Prof. Saud Al-Qahtani. – SPA