Having covered this topic at various events in Saudi Arabia, I thought it would be useful to share a more in-depth commentary and analysis.

For anyone that’s looking to make sense of deep tech and how it features in both the present and future of Saudi Arabia, this series of articles should make matters clearer and hopefully energise you to get involved.

As it’s a huge subject, I’ve broken it down into bitesize pieces, as follows.

• Part 1. This first article kicks us off with some deep tech ecosystem scene-setting, its characteristics, management, and the major players. Lastly, why it’s strategic to Saudi Arabia,

• Part 2. A technical dive into what is and what isn’t deep tech, why application-level tech is so last week, and the inside track on the emerging technologies we’re watching.

• Part 3. An anatomy of deep tech entrepreneurship, the science of entrepreneurship creation and the leap out of academia.

• Part 4. Capacity building - he benefits and challenges of deep tech ideation, venture building and accelerating.

I hope you enjoy Part 1 and please do get involved. Deep tech is a participatory endeavour – the more the merrier!