RIYADH — Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Foundation (Misk) efforts have empowered Saudi youth and nurtured talent and creative energies. Misk services have covered 490,000 beneficiaries and 170 start-up companies, as part of the Foundation's endeavor to create a vital system that enables young Saudi talents to shape the future of the Kingdom and the world.

Misk 2021 annual report, which was published by the Foundation under the title “Extension of Impact... Empowerment of Youth” to review efforts to empower future generation leaders, entrepreneurs, and scholars, and the achievements made in this regard, showed that the empowerment and support programs launched last year stood at 79, while the number of supported startups reached 170, in addition to creating 412 job opportunities.

The Foundation executes its programs based on four tracks; Leadership, Community, Skills, and Entrepreneurship, all of which fall into three focus areas; Education and entrepreneurship, culture and arts, technology and sciences, and all of these programs are implemented under the umbrella of “Misk”, which includes, in addition to the Foundation, the Misk Art Institute, Misk Science Museum, Manga Productions, Riyadh Schools, Misk Schools, and Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Non-Profit City.

In 2021, the Foundation was able to support the establishment of startup companies with a market value of SR917 million, achieving about 30 percent of its strategic goal of establishing Saudi startups worth 3 billion by 2030, while the number of graduates from entrepreneurship support programs last year amounted to 8,000 graduates, who benefited from several programs offered by the Foundation, such as "Misk Accelerator", "Misk Startup", "World Cup for Entrepreneurship", and others.

As for Misk community-oriented programs, the Foundation was able to transfer eight non-profit youth organizations from the inception stage to the pioneer stage, achieving 53 percent of its goal to support 15 organizations by 2030. More than 30,000 participants participated in the Misk for Society program, during which they underwent about 50,000 training hours.

The "Skills" programs, which included 22 programs and events, managed to graduate 75,000 individuals who were involved in programs such as "Discover Your Path", "The First Day", "Misk the Future", and others. As for leadership programs, 68 leaders have completed undergoing training hours that were related to the "Leadership" track, from which 421 graduates have graduated.

Concerning qualitative achievements, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, founder and chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mohammed Bin Salman Foundation "Misk", announced the launch of the "Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Non-Profit City" project, which will be the first non-profit city in the world and will contribute to achieving the Foundation’s targets in supporting innovations and entrepreneurship and rehabilitations future leaders.

The city is expected to be an inspiring model for the development of the non-profit sector globally, and an incubator for many youths and volunteer groups, as well as local and international non-profit institutions.

Moreover, the Foundation also launched its updated visual identity, to be a guiding compass in establishing a communication system that consolidates its identity and its efforts to build a vital system to empower Saudi youth to shape the future of the Kingdom.

The updated visual identity came to complete the path of transformation at the communicative level by stimulating the spirit of enthusiasm among the Saudi youth spectrum, to be looking forward to growth, achievement, and leadership in various fields, and in the same endeavor, the strategy aims to inspire a new generation of young Saudi talents and enable them to play an effective role in building a better future for the Kingdom. — SPA