More than 6,000 participants to descend on Riyadh for FII 2022

RIYADH: Over 6,000 CEOs, policymakers, investors, entrepreneurs, and young leaders from across the world are expected to attend the 6th edition of Future Investment Initiative Institute's forum, set to be held in Riyadh from Oct. 25-27 under the title 'Investing in Humanity'.

Speaking at a press conference in Riyadh ahead of the forum, Richard Attias, CEO of the FII Institute said the last edition of the event brought over 1,700 speakers to the Kingdom, and this year's forum will be much bigger.

"The beauty of the sixth edition of this initiative is that all previous speakers will be back again this year. There will also be new participants from countries that did not participate previously," said Attias.

This year's forum will focus on four major pillars: education, artificial intelligence and robotics, health, and sustainability. Attias further noted that conducting the FII event in Saudi Arabia shows the Kingdom is becoming an international hub for business deals and related discussions.

In September, Attias told that, there was a difference between how leaders in the Middle East and those in the West see the future.

"You (the Middle East) have leaders who have a vision. I don't know if it's a longer term vision, but they have a vision," he said, adding that in the West "the vision is not clearly expressed and people are a little bit lost."

This is why you saw movements like the yellow jacket in France. A lot of demonstrations in Spain, a lot of demonstrations in America," Attias said.

According to the FII Priority report, which surveyed over 130,000 people, Saudis led the way in feeling positive about their country and the state of the world – coming third to China and India.

Some 61 percent of the Saudi participants who took part in the survey felt their country would be better in the future, second only to 80 percent of those in China.