LEAP is an annual tech event that was founded in 2022 by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Saudi Arabia) (MCIT), the

Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones Saudi or Saudi Arabian may refer to: * Saudi Arabia * Saudis, people from Saudi Arabia * Saudi culture, the culture of Saudi Arabia * House of Saud, the ruling family of Saudi Arabia See also *Saud (disambiguation) The House of Saud The H ...

(SAFCSP) and Tahaluf, an Informa company. The event was hosted in

Riyadh Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the Riyadh Governorate. Located on the eastern bank of Wadi Hanifa, the current form of the metropolis largely emerged in th ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

. The conference’s topics include Fintech, Edutech,

Smart Cities A smart city is an urban area that uses digital technology to collect data and operate services. Data is collected from citizens, devices, buildings, or cameras. Applications include traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities ...

Health technology Health technology is defined by the World Health Organization as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of liv ...

Fourth Industrial Revolution "Fourth Industrial Revolution", "4IR", or "Industry 4.0", is a neologism describing rapid technological advancement in the 21st century. It follows the Third Industrial Revolution (the "Information Age"). The term was popularised in 2016 by K ...

(4IR), Creative Economy, Future Energy, Gaming, Space, Retail and

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

(AI). DeepFest, the region's AI event is co-located with LEAP as it's LEAP's dedicated AI stream. DeepFest is powered by

Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence The Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) is a government agency in Saudi Arabia that was established by a royal decree on 30 August 2019. The authority has three other bodies linked to it. Two of which were also created by a royal decree on the sa ...

(SDAIA) and organized by Tahaluf.

History

LEAP was founded by Informa Tech, SAFCSP and MCIT, and the first event was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 1–3 February 2022. The event noticed over 100,000 visitors in the period of three days. About 700 tech companies, 330 investors, and 500 CEOs and tech experts participated in LEAP 2022. The event tallied to over $6.4 billion worth of initiatives and programs. The event also conducted its "Rocket Fuel Start-up Competition" where altogether a million USD was awarded to promising start-ups. The event also hosted the world's largest

Kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a symmetrical pattern when viewed fro ...

with a length of 40-meter. LEAP 2023, the second edition of the annual tech event took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 6-9 February, 2023. Over the four days, LEAP hosted more than 172,000 visitors, 900 exhibitors, 700 speakers who spoke on 11 stages from 50 countries, 500 start-ups, and 1026 investors with a combined AUM of 2 trillion. At LEAP 2023, six start-ups have won a share of a $1 million prize fund at Rocket Fuel, the start-up pitch competition. Some of the notable companies in attendance included

Hiroshi Ishiguro is a Japanese roboticist and engineer. He is the director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, part of the Department of Systems Innovation in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, Japan. A notable development of the ...

, Magic Keys, bHaptics, and Mirror. LEAP 2024, the third edition of the annual tech event took place in Malham, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 4 to 7 March 2024. Over the four days, LEAP hosted more than 215,000 visitors, 1,800 exhibitors, 1,100 speakers who spoke on 10 stages and 19 tracks, more than 600 start-ups, 1,600 investors with a combined AUM of $4.89 trillion, and between $11.9 billion and $13.4 billion announced as an investment. At LEAP 2024, six start ups won a share of a $1 million prize fund at the third Rocket Fuel, the start-up pitch competition. Some of the notable companies in attendance included AbuErdan, One Verse, Ubilite, NewTrace, Next Generation, Hyperlume and Lisan AI.

Speakers and partners

The speaking panel has included many top-level executives, government officials, sportspersons, and subject matter experts, including

Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud ( ''ʿAbd al ʿAzīz bin Salman Al Suʿūd''; born 1960) is a Saudi royal, one of the sons of King Salman and one of the grandsons of Saudi's founder King Abdulaziz, and a politician who has served as the Saudi A ...

Börje Ekholm Börje Ekholm (born 1963) is a Swedish-American business executive and CEO of Ericsson. Early life Börje Ekholm was born in 1963 in Borås, Sweden. He grew up in Edsbruk, where he was educated at the nearby Västerviks gymnasium. He graduat ...

Peggy Johnson Peggy Johnson (born ) is an American businesswoman who is the chief executive officer of Agility Robotics appointed in March 2024. Previous to this role she was the CEO of Magic Leap, succeeding Rony Abovitz in Sept 2020. Before joining Magic ...

, Stephane Houdet,

Eugene Kaspersky Yevgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky (; born 4 October 1965) is a Russian cybersecurity expert and the CEO of Kaspersky Lab, an IT security company with 4,000 employees. He co-founded Kaspersky Lab in 1997 and helped identify instances of government-s ...

Michel Salgado Michel may refer to: * Michel (name), a given name or surname of French origin (and list of people with the name) * Míchel (nickname), a nickname (a list of people with the nickname, mainly Spanish footballers) * Míchel (footballer, born 1963), ...

, Christian Klein,

Makaziwe Mandela Pumla Makaziwe "Maki" Mandela-Amuah (born 1 May 1954) is the daughter of Nelson Mandela and his first wife Evelyn Mase. Early life and education Makaziwe Mandela was born into a family of chieftains. Her father Nelson was a direct descendant o ...

, Maëlle Gavet, Susan Kilrain,

Sian Proctor Sian Hayley "Leo" Proctor (March 28, 1970) is an American commercial astronaut, geology professor, artist, author, and science communicator. She became the first female commercial spaceship pilot and the first artist selected to go to be an astr ...

Karren Brady Karren Rita Brady, Baroness Brady, (born 4 April 1969) is a British business executive and television personality. She is a former managing director of Birmingham City F.C. and current vice-chairman of West Ham United F.C., and an aide to Ala ...

, Steven Bartlett,

Bill McDermott William R. McDermott (born August 18, 1961) is an American businessman and CEO of ServiceNow. Before ServiceNow, he was the CEO of the technology company SAP SE. During his tenure as co-CEO and CEO, SAP's market value increased from $39 billion ...

Arvind Krishna Arvind Krishna (born November 23, 1962) is an American business executive, and the chairman and CEO of IBM. He has been CEO of IBM since April 2020 and chairman since January 2021. Arvind began his career at IBM in 1990, at its Thomas J. Watso ...

, Heather Mohanan,

Shou Zi Chew Shou Zi Chew (; born 1 January 1983) is a Singaporean business executive who has been the chief executive officer (CEO) of TikTok, an online video platform owned by Chinese company ByteDance, since 2021. Early life and education Chew was born ...

Eric Yuan Eric S Yuan (; born 20 February 1970) is a Chinese Americans, Chinese-American billionaire businessman, engineer, and the chief executive officer and founder of Zoom Communications, of which he owns 22%. Early life and education Yuan is the so ...

Anne Neuberger Anne Neuberger (born 1976) is an American national security official who served as the deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology in the Biden administration. Prior to that role, she served for over a decade at the NSA, as ...

, Mo Gawdat, Adam Selipsky, Sol Rashidi, Ciku Mugembi, Dr. Omar Hatamleh, Kwebbelkop, and Elizabeth Adams. LEAP's sponsors and partners include

venture capitalists Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States Joint-stock company#Closely held corporations and publicly traded corporations, corporations by ...

companies, government agencies, education institutes and start-ups, including

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

SAP SE Sap is a fluid transported in the xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a s ...

Citrix Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational cloud computing and virtualization technology company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologies. C ...

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Zoom Zoom may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film * ''Zoom'' (2006 film), starring Tim Allen * ''Zoom'' (2015 film), a Canada-Brazil film by Pedro Morelli * ''Zoom'' (2016 Kannada film), a Kannada film * ''Zoom'' (2016 Sinhala film), a Sr ...

Hitachi () is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1910 and headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. The company is active in various industries, including digital systems, power and renewable ener ...

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...

PWC PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a Multinational corporation, multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Fo ...

Aramco Saudi Aramco ( ') or Aramco (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company that is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. , it is the fourth- lar ...

, Tonomus,

Deloitte Deloitte is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...

IPERA, Google, Meta,

Mobily Mobily () is a Saudi Arabian telecommunications services company that offers fixed line, mobile telephony, and Internet services. The company was established in 2004, and, in the summer of that year, won the bid for Saudi Arabia's second GSM ...

, STC,

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

ServiceNow ServiceNow, Inc. is an American software company based in Santa Clara, California, that supplies a cloud computing platform for the creation and management of automated business workflows. It is used predominantly for the automation of informati ...

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

and

Cloudflare Cloudflare, Inc., is an American company that provides content delivery network services, cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, wide area network services, reverse proxies, Domain Name Service, ICANN-accredited domain registration, and other se ...

References

{{reflist, 2 Exhibitions in Saudi Arabia Business events Technology conventions Annual events Annual events in Saudi Arabia