Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Culture, has signed an agreement with Snap, a US-based tech company, to digitally develop the kingdom’s cultural sector.
The agreement was signed by Mr. Hamed bin Mohammed Fayez, Deputy Minister of Culture, and Mr. Ben Schwerin, SVP of Content and Partnerships at Snap at the Jax District in Ad-Diriyah, in the presence of Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan Al Saud, Minister of Culture and Snap CEO, Mr. Evan Spiegel.
The agreement comes as part of the Ministry’s efforts to build partnerships with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to benefit the nation’s cultural scene across its various verticals, including the maximum leverage of cutting-edge technologies in this critical domain which represents a core component of Vision 2030’s Quality of Life program.
The two sides will mainly collaborate to implement social service programs, adopting Augmented Reality (AR) solutions across the Ministry’s portfolio of events and initiatives, as well as upskilling local talent to master Snapchat’s unique offerings.
Snap has chosen the Jax cultural district in Diriyah to set up its Saudi base and a content creator studio. Jax district is the Kingdom’s trendiest creative hub boasting galleries, studios, and capabilities that incubate art and artists alike while inspiring the nation’s cultural movement.
The company will invest its digital technologies into local cultural programs and events besides supporting the cultural sector in line with the Ministry’s strategic plans to develop an interactive cultural experience on social media platforms and promote its creative content across 16 cultural sub-sectors.
Snapchat is a pioneering platform in the Kingdom with around 20 million active users. The visual messaging app offers the Saudi content creator community a unique stage to engage with its various features and innovative tools while helping the Ministry in penetrating a large user base to market its programs, initiatives, and promotional campaigns which, in turn, serves its wider mission and vision.
