RIYADH — “The Saudi youth unemployment is growing and the future for rebuilding, growing, creating a long-term innovation hub for a healthy growth economy is going to happen through classrooms in our schools,” remarked Anthony Salcito, Vice President of Worldwide Education at Microsoft.
Commenting on the Saudi National Transformation Plan 2020 and the Vision 2030, and how MS may contribute, he said in an interview that “the plan for transformation is something we see in multiple countries, but the vision is quite bold in Saudi (Arabia) for 2030. We’re engaged in digital transformation initiatives around the world and one thing that I think that’s got to be a foundation for this transformation, is building through education for the workplace of the 21st Century.”
He said the broader work that MS is doing locally to align to Vision 2030 is to make sure “we’re supporting the transformation of the schools, universities, students and educators in Saudi (Arabia). One of the first things we’ve started to do was to make sure we’ve got training and resources for both school leaders to embrace the transformation and for teachers to understand the new ways of teaching youths. So we’ve done workshops for schools leaders, as well as for teachers; not only on how to use technology however, also to think differently in this new world.”
Excerpts from the interview follow:
• Could you elaborate on how MS is developing the Saudi youth in terms of offering trainings, entrepreneurship, internship programs, partnering up with universities here, sending Saudis abroad to visit your HQs in US?
I think in this phase now, the typical first area for us is to work with the Ministry’s leadership and through the Ministry with school leaders in Saudi Arabia as well supporting the training and development of teachers. That sets the foundation for change. What we see is in many cases, the potential of youth has to be unleashed with tools and resources and right environment that enables the opportunities to succeed in this new world and prepare the skills they’ll need. When you prepare students with the right mindset, then they are more likely to exceed the expectations.
There is a lot of work that we’ve been doing for students. As it relates to internships and entrepreneurship, there’s certainly a lot of focus on entrepreneurships. We have a program called BizSpark which provides tools for new businesses, small startups to actually get technology tools to help their journey to get access to the tools that they need to start. And we work though universities to provide those tools to students so they can get started and create a business. The internships around Microsoft and potentially visiting our headquarters is something we do.
• How does MS contribute toward the knowledge transfer aspect, particularly when it’s part of the Saudi 2030 Vision?
Well, first thing that we’re doing globally is creating an education community of teachers, I’m gonna meet a group of Saudi teachers during this visit, who we call Microsoft Innovative Educators and we are trying to create a network of teachers who pushes innovation, who can share lesson plans, best practices, and support each other with innovation. So we want to create this basically vibrant community of teachers who are supporting each other learning from one another and growing together. And we do that through online tools, events, activities, and sharing by just connecting assets from educators.
• Could you shed some light on women empowerment?
It’s a critical thing not only about growing and transforming the kingdom, but also true for technology companies like Microsoft. It is a huge area of focus. I have a personal reflection here, I’ve been at MS for 23 years and I’ve only had female managers my whole career. So for me, sort of thinking about my own personal development and being guided and mentored by many great female leaders inside Microsoft, including my current manager Tony, in driving change and I’ve learned immensely from them. In technology we know after age 16, only 10% of the computer science students are women or young girls.
• How is Microsoft supporting Saudi economic diversification?
The point I made in my keynote at TVTC, which I think is true in this new digital transformation world, is that way in which the pivot of companies and industries and workplace have shifted from a world where people went to find work, and because of that, work was set around factories, large natural resources like “oil,” people came to the workplace. The workplace of today, and tomorrow, is one where the jobs find people that if you could build a foundation within education systems, schools and universities, you’re preparing students with the skills that they have to create jobs, to create industries, create a diversity, that reflects the natural resources of the Kingdom, the opportunity to the Kingdom, but bring a wealth of opportunities that will diversify the workplace.
