KAUST – July 2020 – Microsoft

KING ABDULL AH UNIVER SIT Y OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

DIGITAL REPORT 2020

A living laboratory for innovation and advanced tech IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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A living laboratory for innovation and advanced tech WRITTEN BY

GEORGIA WILSON PRODUCED BY

MICHAEL BANYARD

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KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Jason Roos, CIO at KAUST and Mohamed Abdel-Aal, Head of Digital Experience and Innovation at KAUST Smart, discuss the university’s living laboratory approach and research innovations

J

ason Roos has been the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) for

just under three years. “Prior to coming to Saudi 04

Arabia, I was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vice President of a large cancer research centre in Southern California and the CTO and Vice President of Stanford University’s medical centre. A vast amount of my career has been within an academic medical setting.”

Reflecting on when he first started at KAUST, Roos explains that he was already familiar with the Middle East having lived in the UAE before.

“However, I had never lived in Saudi Arabia,” comments Roos, “it wasn’t until I was brought onsite to see KAUST that I was truly convinced of how incredible the place is. KAUST is very unique. We are currently in our tenth year of existence, with the ambition to build a world-renowned research and academic institute for Master’s, and doctoral degrees that is of the same caliber as MIT, the

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KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

“ We are a self-contained community – ‘a living laboratory’. It gives us the unique ability to develop and redefine smart cities and digital experiences”

California Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Therefore, over the last 10 years we have been working to build state-of-the-art facilities that will ultimately help to change the economic landscape of Saudi Arabia.”

In addition to the research and academic institute, KAUST is surrounded by what Roos calls “a mini Silicon Valley”, to drive a culture of innovation

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— Jason Roos, CIO, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

and technological advancement. “As CIO I am not only responsible for the institute, but also for the entire ‘smart city’, comprising thousands of homes, as well as restaurants, shopping centres, a police department and a small hospital. Within the ‘smart city’ we have research centres from multiple Fortune 500 companies including Dow, Aramco and SABIC. Essentially, we are a self-contained community - ‘a living laboratory’. That gives us the unique ability to develop and redefine smart cities and digital experiences for the people that live, work and study within KAUST.” To help advance technological innovation for digital smart cities, “Microsoft has been one of our closest and most valuable partners in

This is KAUST CLICK TO WATCH

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07 this journey. When Microsoft first

Microsoft solutions portfolio as well

heard of the launch of the KAUST

as how to build upon that foundation

Smart Program they provided enthu-

to create new and innovative experi-

siastic support by hosting members

ences has been a critical component

of the KAUST team for a visit to

of our success thus far and we look

Microsoft’s executive briefing center

forward to advancing this partnership

at their headquarters in Redmond,

even further over the next year.”

Washington. This visit kicked off

Currently, within the world of tech-

numerous discussions about lever-

nology, Roos highlights that, globally,

aging KAUST as a living laboratory

there is a strong buzz around utilising

for smart city experiences and

artificial intelligence, machine learning

subsequently led to several design

and high-performance computing in

thinking sessions with an exceptional

order to leverage autonomous func-

team from Microsoft. Looking at how

tions and high levels of intelligence to

we can better leverage our existing

enhance an organisation’s capabilities. w w w.ka ust . ed u . s a

KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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“At KAUST we want to utilise these

and Innovation at KAUST Smart, has

trends within our ‘living laboratory’ to

also seen an increased empowerment

drive innovation in computing, per-

of knowledge and decision making,

sonalised and precision medicine,

due to the way users interact with their

population health, traffic control and

mobile phones has evolved. “It adds to

mobility, to name a few. One area that

the situational awareness, which pro-

we are looking into at the moment is

vides a level of intelligence that we can

the application of autonomous vehi-

apply to automation,” adds Roos, “in

cles. Being an entire ecosystem city

the past you could automate, but you

we have the ability to control almost

couldn’t predict, which is where artifi-

every variable to thoroughly test these

cial intelligence and machine learning

vehicles to develop a usable service.”

has really provided a difference in

In addition to these trends Mohamed

automation to customise the individual

Abdel-Aal, Head of Digital Experience

experience. This is something we are

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Jason Roos Jason Roos has more than 25 years of experience leading and managing information systems and technology organizations across the defense, healthcare, higher education, and high tech industries, including international experience in Europe and the Middle East.

He is currently the Chief Information Officer for King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) located just north of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Prior to joining KAUST in July of 2017, Jason served as the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at City of Hope Cancer Research Center in Los Angeles after serving for several years as the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Stanford Health Care at the Stanford University Medical Center where he led the overall technology direction and operational delivery for all of Stanford Medicine’s Adult Hospitals and Clinics. His career highlights include working as an executive for the leading cyber security firm Symantec, where he led the application development and production support teams supporting Symantec’s global e-commerce platform and experience as the Senior Director for Technology with the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi Hospital located in the United Arab Emirates. Jason began his career serving in various leadership roles for over ten years at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas. His military experience includes serving as an Electronic Warfare Signals Intelligence Analyst in the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Corps, and later as a Medical Service Corps Officer specializing in healthcare technology and biomedical systems management.

His formal education includes completing a healthcare administration postgraduate fellowship at Texas Children’s Hospital, a MBA from Texas A&M University, a BA from the University of Houston, and a diploma from the Defense Language Institute’s school of Arabic in Monterey, California. w w w.ka ust . ed u . s a

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KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

“ If you don’t allow people to take risks – and occasionally fail – then you won’t encourage people to get out there and try to push those boundaries to create new innovations”

looking to leverage to create an intelligent and unique experience.”

In order to achieve this Roos explains that there are multiple components to KAUST’s digital transformation strategy. “Although there is your traditional IT portfolio for basic applications to deliver your core business functions, in order to go beyond that and innovate, you need to look at the overall experience being provided to redefine and reimagine

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— Jason Roos, CIO, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

the basic portfolio. At KAUST we are looking to create a culture where people are allowed to experiment, to take risks and push boundaries to see what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t allow people to take risks - and occasionally fail - then you won’t encourage people to get out there and try to push those boundaries to create new innovations.”

Currently at KAUST, Roos and Abdel-Aal are working on a number of innovation projects including autonomous vehicles, drone delivery, cashless pay and facial recognition.

“Coming back to autonomous vehicles, we are assessing and experimenting with this technology for two different

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shuttles on a joint agreement that

phone? Can users book the shuttles

we’ve built with multiple companies,”

in advance? Can they interact with the

comments Abdel-Aal who explains

experience using a smart and interac-

the complexity involved when innovat-

tive bus stop? The third dimension is

ing in this area. “The assessment of

the actual research of the vehicles,

autonomous shuttles includes multiple

such as battery materials and artificial

dimensions, one being the operational

intelligence sensor technology. Finally

aspect. Can we run these shuttles?

the fourth dimension is optimised

Can we charge them? Can we maintain

operational cost.”

them? Will they withstand the heat? A

Further detailing the current innova-

second dimension is digital integration

tions at KAUST, Roos explains the

to develop a smart experience which

university’s development of its comput-

poses questions such as, will users

ing and storage capabilities. “When

be able to look up the route on their

KAUST was first established, our w w w.ka ust . ed u . s a

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KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

supercomputer “Shaheen” was an IBM

environment is managed by our

Blue Gene system which put KAUST

Core Laboratories, ensuring that

on the map for high-performance

our researchers and scientists have

computing to support our mission

access to high-end compute capa-

and research areas. KAUST’s second

bilities, which are commonly used for

generation supercomputer – a Cray XC

high-resolution modeling, simulations,

40, which has been in place since 2015

cloud and GPUs.”

- now supports the high-end research that we do. KAUST’s supercomputing

Other innovations the university is working on include drone technology

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Mohamed Abdel-Aal Mohamed Abdel-Aal is the Manager of Research and Computing Infrastructure at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST). KAUST is an international, graduate-level research institution on the shores of the Red Sea in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. In its eighth year of operations, KAUST is an ascending star of academic excellence with a mission to advance science and technology through bold and collaborative research. Mohamed oversees the University’s IT infrastructure, HPC cluster resources, cloud systems, data center facilities, and storage solutions. He also oversees strategic plans and initiatives to continuously improve computational capabilities and resources while introducing innovative solutions to the University’s faculty, researchers, and students. Mohamed holds an MBA degree and a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. w w w.ka ust . ed u . s a

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KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

and cashless pay. “Currently at KAUST we are exploring the potential of using drones beyond basic surveillance. In fact, our team is working with our facilities and community life group to look at how we could leverage drones for delivery to our smart houses. To achieve this would require KAUST to replicate the layout of the city into a digital twin in order to create drone corridors to manage the flight patterns of the drones. In terms of cashless payment, we are 16

currently piloting various forms of cashless experiences, including digital gateways and facial recognition

“ We have worked very closely with some of our partners and they have been valuable from the very beginning”

to create a unique experience for the users. We are also looking to develop cashless stores—building an environment where someone could walk into a store, grab what they need and, via something like facial recognition, biometrics or barcoding, the person is charged for what they have bought

— Jason Roos, CIO, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

once they leave the store,” adds Roos.

Reflecting on the university, Roos believes its biggest strengths are its world-class facilities for high-level tech research and innovation, and

2009

Year founded

5,000 Number of employees

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its diversity in bringing the best from

partners and they have been valu-

around the world into one place. “I

able from the very beginning to drive

believe that KAUST, being only 10

innovation and develop technologies

years old and being world-renowned

and solutions. For KAUST, our part-

is a tremendous success. To achieve

nerships are critical for our success,”

this level of recognition after just

concludes Roos.

one decade is truly remarkable,” adds Roos, who highlights that this achievement has been a collaborative effort between the entire KUAST city, as well as its partnerships it has made over the years. “We have worked very closely with some of our w w w.ka ust . ed u . s a

KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY THUWAL 23955 SAUDI AR ABIA www.kaust.edu.sa/en

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