RIYADH — Abdullah Aleisa has been named the winner of Oxford Business Group’s photo competition, which was held in Saudi Arabia last year.

His picture will now appear on the cover of The Report: Saudi Arabia 2018, the global research and consultancy firm’s tenth-anniversary publication on the Kingdom’s economy and investment opportunities, which is due out in the coming weeks. Aleisa’s prize also includes a cash sum of SR10,000 ($2666).

Andrianna Dafnis, country director and member of the judging panel, described Aleisa’s photo as “a perfect match” for The Report: Saudi Arabia 2018. The picture, which was submitted via Instragram, features the Kingdom Tower against a backdrop of fireworks during the 2017 Saudi National Day celebrations.

Aleisa’s work was chosen from a total of 153 entries submitted by 28 photographers.

The competition was open to both professional and amateur photographers of Saudi nationality. Under the rules, entrants were required to be of Saudi nationality, while submissions needed to broadly reflect the theme chosen for the contest, which was Vision 2030, the Kingdom’s blueprint for economic reform.

Titled “Saudi Arabia 10th Anniversary Cover”, the contest was one of a series of initiatives organized by OBG to mark a decade of operations in the Kingdom.

The competition was judged by a panel comprising members of the OBG team, which in addition to Dafnis included: Andrew Jeffreys, CEO; Oliver Cornock, editor in chief; Jana Treeck, managing firector for the Middle East; Basak Pasali, director of communications; and Yonca Ergin, creative director.

Dafnis said the judging panel had been delighted at the level of interest that the contest had generated, especially across social media platforms, and thanked all the participants for their contributions.

“Given that one of our key objectives when launching this initiative was to showcase the existence and potential of Saudi Arabia’s creative sector, we were thrilled at both the number of photos received and their quality,” she said.

Ergin added that selecting a winner was far from easy, given the high standard of entries. “Nevertheless, Aleisa’s photo proved to be a perfect match for a number of technical reasons and also for its ability to frame the extraordinary and, to some extent, unexpected pace of transformation evident in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “We congratulate him on this remarkable achievement.”

The Report: Saudi Arabia 2018 will mark the culmination of one year of field research by a team of analysts from Oxford Business Group. It will assess trends and developments across the economy, including those in macroeconomics, infrastructure, banking and others. The Report: Saudi Arabia 2018 will be available in print and online. — SG