NEWS
KSA
King Abdullah University of Science and
Technology, Saudi British Bank launch startup
accelerator program
consumers and corporates.” said
David Dew, Managing Director of
SABB.
“Partnering with KAUST to create
a compe tition to seed fund and
accelerate innovative ideas from
Saudi universities is an investment
in our country’s youth with many
benefits for the Kingdom. TAQADAM
represents one of SABB’s major
initiatives toward supporting the
Kingdom 2030 vision and our
aspirations to aid and support the
SME sector of the Saudi economy.”
The Saudi British Bank (SABB) and King
Abdullah University of Science and
Technology (KAUST) are launching the
KAUST-SABB University Entrepreneur
Accelerator “TAQADAM.” The program
aims to help early stage university
student and faculty entrepreneurs
at Saudi universities develop their
concepts into high-potential startups.
“We believe this will significantly
support the ongoing work at Saudi
universities for the commercialization
of inventions and ideas by students
and faculty, with a particular focus on
financial technology start-ups given
the rapid development of Financial
Technology around the world and its
potential applications for millions of
The intensive six-month program will
provide 20-30 startup teams with
grant funding as well as Saudi-based
and international mentor-led support
from the KAUST Entrepreneurship
Centre. The most promising startups
will be eligible for additional seed
funding from SABB and the KAUST
Innovation Fund.
Divine Connect introduces technology to assist
Hajj pilgrims in Makkah
For the first time in 1400 years, Muslim
pilgrims can receive the Hajj sermons
and announcements translated in realtime into seven (7) different languages
thanks to a device invented by a Floridabased American Tech Firm, Divine
Connect LLC. This technology will benefit
over 70% of non-Arabic speakers on
their annual pilgrimage to Makkah.
Hajj is the annual pilgrimage to the
holy city of Makkah that Muslims are
expected to make at least once in their
lifetime. The Friday sermons at Masjid
Al Haram in Makkah and Masjid Al
Nabawi in Madinah have been delivered
in the Arabic language only. Of the
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1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, Arab
Muslims constitute only 25% and it
was difficult for non-Arabic speakers
to understand the sermon and the
announcements. It will be a different
Hajj experience this time due to this
new technology.
Talking about the technology
Mohamed Sal Pazhoor, President &
CTO of Divine Connect said: “A team
of product designers and engineers
have worked tirelessly for the last 3
years on creating this technology
to support digital equipment that
transmits real-time translations of
the spoken Arabic into Urdu, English,
Indonesian, French, Turkish, Hausa, and
Persian languages, simultaneously.” He
further mentioned that they are already
working on adding more languages and
their goal is to provide this service in 35
different languages.
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