RIM and SAGIA announceThe BlackBerry Entrepreneurship Academy at the 6th Global Competitiveness Forum

Research In Motion Limited, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, and the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) today expressed their commitment to form The BlackBerry Entrepreneurship Academy.

The BlackBerry Entrepreneurship Academy, which is to be funded by SAGIA and its sister institutions, Cadre and The Centennial Fund, aims to:
• Accelerate the growth of mobile app development in the KSA
• Support and foster the growth of local software developers and ‘digital entrepreneurs’ in the Saudi economy
• Help create localized mobile apps and content for end users on the BlackBerry platform

Through the academy, RIM will provide training workshops, a support team and consultation to help entrepreneurial Saudi developers with the commercial and technical aspects of developing mobile applications and content.

The press conference to announce the academy took place at the 6th Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF), and was attended by Dr. Abdulaziz al-Mutairi, CEO of The Centennial Fund; Mr. Fahd Hamidaddin, Chief of Marketing and Competitiveness Initiatives, SAGIA; Mr. Patrick Spence, Managing Director for Global Sales and Regional Marketing, RIM; and Mr. Sandeep Saihgal, Managing Director, Middle East, RIM.

Mr. Fahd Hamidaddin, Chief of Marketing and Competitiveness Initiatives, SAGIA commented, “This agreement demonstrates SAGIA’s commitment to support ‘digital entrepreneurship’ and the further development of the mobile application industry in the Kingdom. We see an increasing demand in this region for localized applications and mobile content and this is creating an opportunity for enterprising software developers. The programmes under the BlackBerry Entrepreneurship Academy will significantly increase the number of applications available in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East region and globally, and enable new skills and more job opportunities in the Kingdom.”

Regionally, RIM supports developers through its BlackBerry Alliance Programme (hpartners.blackberry.com), providing Alliance members with the necessary tools and know-how to visualize, build and market BlackBerry applications.

Sandeep Saihgal, Managing Director, Middle East, RIM: “We are very honoured to be working with SAGIA to launch the BlackBerry Entrepreneurship Academy in the Middle East. The Academy is intended to give Saudi developers access to RIM’s in-house team of developers, who will provide support to Saudi developers for getting their apps to market and into BlackBerry App World. Locally developed apps will benefit Saudi consumers by bringing locally relevant entertainment, productivity, community service and utility apps directly to their BlackBerry smartphone.

“BlackBerry smartphones and the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet are very popular in the Kingdom. In fact our business more than doubled in size last year in the Middle East, and 99 percent of BlackBerry customers in the Kingdom now use BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), which is among the highest in our global footprint.”

RIM has also provided 1,500 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets to delegates of the GCF this year. BlackBerry PlayBook was the first tablet certified for deployment within U.S. federal government agencies, having received FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) certification in July 2011.

BlackBerry PlayBook is a powerful, ultra-portable tablet that has a stunning 7-inch high resolution display, offers true multi-tasking capabilities and a high-fidelity web browsing experience. It also allows for secure pairing with BlackBerry smartphones via the BlackBerry Bridge app, which enables users to access their BlackBerry smartphone’s email, calendar, address book, memo pad, task list, BBM and browsing functionality using the larger display on the tablet.