Uhuru Hosted 14-Day Joint Program with Saudi Arabia’s KACST to Foster Smart City Research and Development

Uhuru Corporation (“Uhuru”, headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Takashi Sonoda) hosted a 14-day training program from February 19 to March 1 welcoming engineers from the national labs of Saudi Arabia King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in a program titled Smart City Program with KACST Study Pre-Camp in JAPAN Tokyo – Wakayama.

This program aimed to foster connections between the Digital Economy ecosystem in Saudi Arabia and Japan by bringing together teams with the goal of contributing to Saudi Arabia’s smart city efforts, towards aligning with the Saudi government’s Vision 2030 initiatives through personnel exchanges and providing specialized workshops on cutting-edge technologies along with exposure to top Japanese companies. The program was held in Tokyo, a hub for leading-edge companies, and Wakayama Prefecture on the Kii Peninsula region, where Uhuru has an established track-record of smart city project development. The training segment included fieldwork aimed at solving regional issues, hands-on workshops, seminars, ideathons, and hackathons.

In Tokyo, participants visited several leading Japanese companies and engaged in hands-on workshops using CUBE01, Uhuru’s suite of digital services. In the second week, the field moved to the Kii area of Wakayama Prefecture. There, the group visited Shirahama Town, known as “Shiracon Valley” due to the recent influx of IT companies, Susami Town, which is promoting disaster prevention digital transformation (DX) using the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s “PLATEAU” 3D city model, and Hidakagawa Town, which is working on last-mile delivery to depopulated areas using drones.

After learning about the current status and characteristics of how local governments are attempting to tackle the social issues they face, ideathons and hackathons were conducted to address Wakayama’s challenges from a Saudi Arabian perspective. On the final day of the program, a lecture featuring key figures from government agencies and organizations promoting Japan’s smart cities was held, and the program concluded with a session reviewing the outcomes of the two weeks.

Uhuru and KACST signed a comprehensive business alliance in 2022 with the aim of technology and business development related to smart city and environmental technologies used in the realization of a sustainable society. This program was conducted as part of that initiative. Based on this program, both parties plan to conduct similar programs in the summer and winter of this year, promoting comprehensive technology and business development from the edge to the cloud.