GOSI: Young Saudi Talents Develop Innovative Solutions at the Conclusion of the “Life After Retirement” Hackathon
The General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) concluded its “Life After Retirement" Innovation Hackathon, held from 7 to 9 September at GOSI's headquarters in Riyadh, with the participation of 42 university students and recent graduates. The hackathon aimed to harness participants' creative ideas and apply them to developing innovative solutions that contribute to enhancing quality of life after retirement, reflecting GOSI's commitment to engaging young Saudi men and women in serving their community and creating sustainable value in social insurance.
On the closing day, participating teams completed the development of 14 innovative solutions under the retirement track, one of four specialized tracks within GOSI's Innovation Hackathons Program. The tracks cover health, financial stability, quality of life and community, and freelance work and the sharing economy. The teams then presented their solutions to a specialized judging panel, which evaluated the entries based on several criteria, including the originality of the idea and its ability to offer non-traditional solutions, feasibility and impact on retirees' lives, sustainability, as well as the clarity and completeness of the idea.
At the conclusion of the hackathon, GOSI's Assistant Governor for Strategy and Transformation, Marwan bin Aidah Al-Ghamdi, honored the top three winning teams in recognition of the innovative solutions they developed to address the challenges of post-retirement life and their use of modern and emerging technologies to develop applicable models.
The Assistant Governor for Strategy and Transformation emphasized that the hackathon reflects GOSI's commitment to providing opportunities for young Saudi talents to apply their capabilities and ideas in developing solutions that address real-world challenges, are applicable, and capable of creating a sustainable impact. He noted that the strong turnout and the solutions presented by participants demonstrate the potential of Saudi talent to adopt modern and emerging technologies and develop high-quality solutions that contribute to enhancing quality of life after retirement.
He added that, through such initiatives, GOSI seeks to strengthen partnerships with organizations that support innovation and create an environment that helps develop and incubate promising ideas, supporting their progression from prototypes into applicable, value-adding solutions.
This initiative forms part of GOSI's efforts to strengthen its innovation ecosystem through the “Innovation Incubator" initiative, adopted under its 2030 Strategy. The initiative aims to incubate and support innovation initiatives across specialized tracks covering retirement, savings, health, and career development. It also includes organizing a number of specialized innovation hackathons, enabling the participation of diverse segments of society alongside the public, private, and non-profit sectors to develop solutions that address the needs and challenges of each group.
Over the course of three days, participants went through a development journey comprising three development stages and six workshops, during which they benefited from the support of 11 mentors and seven experts. This contributed to refining ideas and developing and validating prototypes, while leveraging modern and emerging technologies, advanced analytics tools, and artificial intelligence throughout the solution development process.
The hackathon saw notable participation, with 42 participants taking part in the hackathon journey and developing innovative solutions, reflecting growing interest in innovation and in contributing to the development of solutions that enhance quality of life after retirement.
Throughout the hackathon, participants received support from four strategic partners of GOSI: the Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority (“Monsha'at"), the Saudi Innovation Club, IBM, and KPMG. The partners provided technical support and guidance, workshops, and technical assistance, in addition to supporting opportunities to incubate and develop promising ideas and strengthen their sustainability and impact.
The “Life After Retirement" Innovation Hackathon, as one of the specialized tracks within GOSI's innovation hackathons ecosystem, builds on GOSI's ongoing efforts to support innovation, empower Saudi talent, adopt modern and emerging technologies, and build partnerships that contribute to creating sustainable value in social insurance, helping develop future solutions that enhance quality of life after retirement.
The hackathon results are available on the “Tafaul" platform.
