Just days ago, I shared an image of myself dressed in traditional Saudi attire while exploring a date farm in Eastern Saudi Arabia. The backlash was immediate, one venomous response from a former Montreal colleague, of all people, caught my eye.
His message, though in French, translated roughly to: “Pathetic. You’re just like those footballers selling their souls for petrodollars. What’s next, selling your daughter to some rich guy looking for his twelfth wife?”
This wasn’t a lone voice in the dark; since my move to the Kingdom to establish KPMG’s Center of Excellence in Innovation, such ignorance-fueled barbs have been a constant. Today, I choose to publicly dismantle these misconceptions, born of Western propaganda, and share why I couldn’t dream of a better place to live out my vocation: managing innovation!
Reducing Saudi Arabia to its oil wealth, high-earning footballers, or religious practices is to overlook its modern reality and rich intellectual and innovative legacy.
Talk of the Saudi desert often eclipses its snow-capped mountains, towering volcanoes, tropical islands, sprawling canyons, and lush savannahs. However, the desert comparison is one I’m fond of: to the untrained eye, it appears lifeless, but in truth, it’s fertile, merely thirsting for water. With a touch of hydration, it transforms into a verdant oasis, supporting agriculture far beyond mere subsistence.
The vast Oasis of Tayma, mentioned in biblical texts, has hosted mighty kings like Ramses II and Nabonidus, the famed Babylonian king who spent over a decade there. An ancient well has sustained this colossal oasis for millennia, a haven for merchants en route to Petra.
This land, far from barren, has always been an oasis of thought and ingenuity, demonstrated by the ancient Nabataeans and their mastery of desert agriculture.
Like its desert, Saudi Arabia is fertile ground, thirsting for innovation. Since 2016, this thirst has re-emerged, embodied by the ambitious Vision 2030. Seven years in, the land is dotted with world-class innovation hubs like “The Garage” in Riyadh, which I had the privilege to develop with the KPMG team.
Contrary to what some in the West are led to believe, this draw to innovation is not new among the Arabs. The people who gave us the tales of “One Thousand and One Nights” are no strangers to creativity! From the invention of algebra to astronomical advances and countless medical breakthroughs, the Arabs have propelled global scientific knowledge, pre- and post-Islamic periods alike.
The Deep Roots of Innovation
We’ve heard the stories of the Arab world’s expansion, its Golden Age from the 8th to the 14th century. But Saudi Arabia’s story neither begins with oil nor with Islamic kingdoms. It starts with civilizations like the Nabataeans, the Thamudians, and the Bedouins, whose pre-Islamic innovations in agriculture, social policy, art, and literature are antecedents of the curiosity and ambition driving the nation today, much as during the Arab conquests’ Golden Age.
Even the rapid embrace of Islam—a radical departure from pre-6th-century regional religions—speaks to a novelty openness ingrained in the DNA of a people first to connect the Far East and Europe in a reliable economic network.
This ancient heritage still fuels Saudi innovators. Vision 2030 isn’t a break from the past but an echo of an ancestral innovative spirit.
Winds of Change
Saudi Arabia’s swift modernization is often seen as a recent awakening. But while the people are ancient, the nation is young, founded in 1932. It’s taken time to lay the modern state’s foundations. Consider your country, barely 70 years post-establishment. What Saudi Arabia has achieved in such a short span is nothing short of miraculous—bolstered, of course, by abundant natural resources.
The Kingdom’s perceived renaissance is the fruit of a long sequence of actions by successive monarchs since the post-colonial period: sending Saudi students to international universities, English education from the ’60s, Bedouin sedentarization, infrastructure development (highways, railways, high-speed internet).
The soaring rise in startups, growing by 87% in five years, and massive investments in futuristic technologies aren’t novelties but the outcome of a meticulously crafted and executed plan. This surge isn’t a recent anomaly; it’s an assertion of Saudi Arabia’s historical identity.
In this society, where women are respected—far more than what a Western gaze discerns—to the extent that a married man must cover all household expenses, allowing his wife complete financial discretion, women have an even more significant role to play than before. Don’t be swayed by media narratives; women in Saudi Arabia have rights and are well-protected. As everywhere, some men behave despicably toward women, but it’s neither law, religion, nor institutions that encourage this. On the contrary.
The Kingdom has long recognized it cannot forgo women’s intellectual labor. With Vision 2030, women heard the call of energetic leadership to join the innovators’ ranks—and I’ve witnessed their robust response.
Redefining the Global Image
As Saudi Arabia continues to shatter stereotypes, it’s not a barren desert but a fertile garden for innovation and entrepreneurship. The country isn’t awakening from a deep slumber; it’s embracing its rich, complex history.
Modern successes in tech, including ambitious government initiatives and startup support programs, reflect its enduring cultural and intellectual tradition.
Climate change is a global challenge requiring collective action and support. Saudi Arabia has long lived with a climate akin to what many populations will face. Opting out of collaboration with the Kingdom due to unfounded biases and cultural ignorance is, at best, a significant loss, or worse, a peril for populations in ecological tension.
By defying perceptions, Saudi Arabia reaffirms that its present mirrors its past, where ideas aren’t imported but spring from a rich historical wellspring. In this kingdom, innovation isn’t a mirage on the horizon; it’s a well that has nourished this land for centuries and promises to propel it toward new pinnacles of achievement and discovery.
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