The 2026 edition will be delivered in exclusive partnership with the Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC), reflecting a shared commitment to strengthening the region’s venture ecosystem through the development of a long-term, execution-ready talent pipeline for high-growth technology companies.

The Fellowship builds on the momentum of last year’s inaugural cohort, which attracted hundreds of applicants from 14 countries and delivered a high-impact summer experience in Riyadh. Fellows came from leading global and regional educational institutions such as UC Berkeley, Purdue University, King’s College London, KFUPM, and many others.

The cohort participated in 10 curated sessions with leading founders, operators, and investors, and a number of them secured extended or full-time opportunities.

The fellowship program is highly selective and competitive, with single-digit acceptance rates. It brings together Fellows acrossengineering, product, and business disciplines.

Embedded within high-growth technology companies and technology investment firms, and supported by structured, in-person programming.

More than 40% of Fellows secured extended or follow-on roles by the end of the program, demonstrating the uniqueness of the fellow and the Fellowship’s effectiveness in developing equipping them with the best skillset to be top performers in their careers.

Designed to meet a pressing ecosystem need, the Fellowship addresses the shortage of talented operators, limited early exposure to real company-building, and the need to retain top talent within the region.

It creates a structured pathway connecting ambitious early talent with venture-backed, high-growth technology companies across the Outliers and SVC networks, embedding future operators inside high-performance and innovation-driven cultures and strengthening the talent base required for companies to scale.

The partnership marks the first time a regional fund of funds has formally backed a dedicated regional talent pipeline for high-growth technology companies.

The Outliers Fellowship offers Fellows:

• A summer internship with leading technology companies across the Outliers and SVC network such as Lean, Strataphy, Stream, Lendo, Penny, Soum, Ejari and Stitch among others
• Tailored one-on-one mentorship sessions
• Curated, high-impact weekly in-person programming designed to accelerate the Fellows’ careers and learning
• A lifelong community of Fellows and like-minded ambitious builders

Dr. Nabeel Koshak, CEO and board member of SVC,

“This partnership reflects SVC’s national role in advancing the venture capital ecosystem in Saudi Arabia through a holistic approach that goes beyond investment. Building human capital, strengthening institutional capabilities, and fostering knowledge and awareness are essential to the long-term competitiveness of our ecosystem. This Fellowship represents a practical model for developing talent that can operate at global standards and support the Kingdom’s economic transformation.”

Sarah AlSaleh, general partner at Outliers, shared,

“The strength of any tech ecosystem is ultimately shaped by the people who choose to build within it. The Outliers Fellowship is designed to give emerging talent early, meaningful exposure to real operating environments and ambitious companies. Partnering with SVC allows us to build this pipeline with long-term intent and to help shape a generation of operators who will define the region’s next chapter.” 

By convening top students from around the world in Riyadh each summer, the program positions the city as a central hub for company building and operator development.

In doing so, it also aligns with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 by cultivating talent, accelerating job creation, and fostering innovation.

How to Apply:

Applications for the 2026 Fellowship open on January 26 and close on February 27.

Visit the link here.

From ransomware and phishing to business email compromise, the threat landscape continues to evolve rapidly, posing serious risks to individuals, businesses, and governments alike.

In this exclusive interview with Techeconomy, Craig Jones, the immediate former director of Cybercrime at INTERPOL, shares deep insights into Africa’s cybersecurity challenges, lessons from global operations, and the progress being made in strengthening digital resilience across the continent.

Having led global cybercrime operations and coordinated capacity-building initiatives across Africa, Jones sheds light on the continent’s growing sophistication in fighting back, the collaboration gaps that remain, and what the world must learn from Africa’s experience. He is currently a director at CyPol.

TE: INTERPOL’s latest Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report highlights over $3 billion in losses since 2019. Based on your experience leading global cybercrime operations, what do you consider the most significant enablers of the surge in cyberattacks across Africa? 

Craig Jones: I think the biggest enablers would be the technology and the criminal groups. We’ve seen a massive surge in criminal groups in Africa, where they’ve shifted from their old traditional model of sending out emails.

They’re becoming increasingly sophisticated in their skill set. They’re forming groups, forming businesses, and working transnationally. We’ve seen other citizens from other countries coming into Africa to work with those African groups as well.

TE: Nigeria is Africa’s largest digital economy and remains one of the hardest hit by cybercrime. What unique challenges make countries with big digital footprints vulnerable?

Craig Jones: I think you just said it, countries with a big digital footprint. Therefore, when you have an extensive digital footprint, you need to undertake considerable cybersecurity and protection measures within. In Nigeria, we’ve seen significant growth in the digital economy space.

Quite often, it’s just mobile phones. These systems are highly susceptible to cyberattacks from cybercriminals.

They launch and put malware on the phones. We see SIM swapping between people who share those phones. And that’s the backbone of the African region. It is about moving and transferring money.

TE: In your time at Interpol, did you notice any patterns of cyber criminal operations specifically targeting Nigeria’s financial systems and business sector?

Craig Jones: I don’t think it was uncommon for Nigeria’s financial businesses. It is not peculiar to Nigeria; it’s seen across South East Asia, Europe, Latin America, and South America.

However, as I mentioned earlier, the attack surface has expanded, resulting in an increased number of vulnerabilities. When you have more vulnerabilities, there are more opportunities for criminals to exploit. So, you then have to turn that around and look at your countries.

TE: How do you build out your digital capabilities? How do you ensure you have a competent workforce that can work in different departments to protect those businesses? The report warns of increasing threats like ransomware, phishing, and business email compromise. Which of these threats worries you the most in the African context?

Craig Jones: Look, crime worries me. Those are all types of crimes that are impacting businesses and communities. It’s the harm that it can cause in a healthcare setting, such as shutting down hospitals during a ransomware attack because they can’t access their systems, which can result in harm to people. You look at the impact when a business has to close down.

Quite often, people forget that the business will also serve other companies. Now, those businesses are all interconnected and reliant on each other; the impact is massive. We recently witnessed this in the United Kingdom with the shutdown of Jaguar-Rover.

TE: How are cyber criminal groups in Africa adapting their tactics compared to other regions you’ve worked in?

Craig Jones:  I think what we see in Africa now is that these groups are adapting and aligning with each other. Criminals in various countries are forming their own criminal networks.  And some of those criminals are actually travelling into Africa to commit their crimes as well.

TE: You previously coordinated cybercrime operations globally for Interpol. How well prepared are African law enforcement agencies to detect, investigate, and prosecute cybercrime?

Craig Jones: In 2019, I attended our working group meeting on cybercrime in Nairobi, and what struck me then was the enthusiasm, but the lack of investment. I went back to the UK and said, ‘Invest in Africa.’ In Rwanda, we had 40 heads of cybercrime, and 50 people were trained on how to prevent cybercrime. We gave them operational, actionable intelligence.

They went and disrupted the cybercriminals. That singular action we took has grown from 114 arrests to 1200 arrests in the most recent operations. We can see growth in terms of capabilities, and Nigeria is a leader in this space. I would like to commend Mr. Uche, who has been actively involved in efforts to tackle cybercrimes.

He started with a shipping container with three people. He now has a purpose-built three-storey building in Abuja.

TE: What role should capacity building and threat intelligence sharing play in improving Africa’s cyber resilience?

Craig Jones: I think they both go hand in hand in addressing the issue of cybercrime. We often discuss capacity building, which involves that type of training, but it’s also about having the technology to connect law enforcement. Interpol’s tools and channels are to be used between Interpol’s 196 member countries, and as I said earlier, that framework is really, really strong. The capability needs to be built out in collaboration with law enforcement and police officers on the ground, but they also require the tools to connect effectively. Once again, significant progress has been made in Africa over the last three to four years.

TE: How can organisations like the Shadow Server Foundation support governments and businesses in Africa to strengthen cybersecurity defences?

Craig Jones: Shadow Server Foundation are, fairly, unique in what they do. What they do is provide information directly to countries about their vulnerabilities, and they offer that information for free. However, Shadow Server is not free to run. So, it is funded, like many things, through donations, project funding, and similar means. However, they often collaborate with the National Cyber Security Centre, so by providing that information to them, the National CERT can help modify and reduce vulnerabilities in the systems and networks that Shadow Server has identified.

TE: The Global Cybersecurity Forum in Riyadh puts Africa’s cybersecurity in the spotlight. What would you like global leaders, businesses, and governments to take away from the discussion about the urgency of Africa’s cyber threat landscape?

Craig Jones: I think this urgency has been there for many years. We’re slowly addressing it, and this is a challenge we have in cybersecurity. It is an urgent matter. It is constantly evolving, and we see the impact it has on our communities. As part of this forum, we have the global thought leaders, but now they’re turning their ideas into tangible actions. It’s an investment.

The money needs to be invested in these countries to help them improve their cybersecurity. However, you also need to make it sustainable. So quite often, money is poured into countries, and then people disappear after two or three years. We need to build this.

We need to make it sustainable. We need to make it sustainable for many years to come. I think that’s a good place to start. I think so.

Key Points

• US$1.1 billion Ignite plan will make Saudi Arabia a center of digital content creation and production
• Saudi Arabia launches WiFi 6E, ranks first worldwide in WiFi spectrum availability
• Trend Micro announces local data lake and opens its Riyadh HQ

The latest round of announcements was made on day two of LEAP22, the global technology platform taking place in Riyadh.

The new program and investments are all part of Saudi Arabia’s plans to accelerate its digital ecosystem and leverage its position in the MENA region to become a leading international digital economy.

IGNITE

The Digital Content Council announced Ignite, a new program that will transform the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into a leading digital entertainment and media production hub.

The program aims to create a comprehensive ecosystem which will attract digital content companies and grow the local media and content creation sector.

Ignite aims to triple Saudi Arabia’s digital content market size in gaming, audio, video and advertising.

The program is backed by a US$1.1 billion investment and will include incentives including financial support for local, regional and international companies and start-ups; infrastructure development; talent development programs and improved policy and regulations to enable the sector to grow rapidly.

Training courses will be available in three sectors, gaming, films and digital ads, to upskill more than 4,400 participants in the next three years.

The training programs will ensure that Saudi Arabia is developing the skillsets required by the industry and giving Saudi youth skills that will improve their employment opportunities.

The program will supplement the film fund which will be allocated for the infrastructure, development, production and distribution of locally produced movies, and another fund which will focus on gaming to develop games and build the required infrastructure such as game studios.

To further attract local and international partners to Ignite, Saudi Arabia will also enhance intellectual property protection measures.

International and local partners will be able to benefit from an investor’s ‘one stop shop’ that will streamline the process for investment into the Saudi digital content economy.

CITC WiFi 6E Launch and LEO Satellite Technology

The Kingdom announced the launch of WiFi 6E, supported by the largest amount of spectrum available for WiFi of any country worldwide.

The combination of state-of-the-art technology and record amount of spectrum will allow Saudi Arabia to benefit from the fastest achievable WiFi speeds globally (2.4 Gbps).

Enabling this advanced connectivity is expected to quadruple WiFi’s overall contribution to Saudi Arabia’s GDP rising from US$4.7 billion in 2021 to more than US$18 billion by 2030.

The Kingdom’s WiFi upgrade is to be accompanied by other connectivity-boosting initiatives, including the first regional trial of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technology to extend reliable coverage to remote areas of the Kingdom.

CITC will also hold a frequency auction during the first half of this year, a development which is likely to place Saudi first globally for spectrum available to fifth-generation (5G) networks and mobile communications.

The contribution of 5G technology to GDP is expected to increase from US$1.4 billion in 2021 to more than US$15 billion by 2030.

Trend Micro Announces Local Data Lake and Opens Its RIYADH HQ

Trend Micro announced the opening of its regional Middle East & Africa (MEA) headquarters in Riyadh, a security data lake, and other investments in Saudi Arabia totaling over US$50 million.

The investments aim to amplify Trend Micro’s continued commitment to protect public and private organizations in the Kingdom and across the entire region.

Trend Micro announced a cybersecurity Software as a Service (SaaS) data lake for cloud security, endpoint security, network security as well as extended detection and response solutions which will all be provided locally from inside the Kingdom.

This demonstrates Trend Micro’s leadership in the cybersecurity industry, and its commitment to serve the country and the entire region as the first global cybersecurity company to launch its MEA HQ and a local cloud data lake inside Saudi Arabia.

A security data lake is a centralized repository aimed at maintaining and managing all log or other data sources relevant to an organization’s security posture. It provides a single place for security data to be housed, parsed, searched and utilized.

The company also announced the establishment of a center of excellence for cybersecurity expert advisory resources in the Kingdom and will develop services and initiatives to help businesses improve their cybersecurity, as well as create programs that will help raise awareness of cybersecurity and online safety issues for families.

The new Riyadh HQ office is equipped with world-class facilities including an executive briefing center, a learning and innovation center, meeting rooms and community gathering spaces as well as many other facilities for the benefit of the entire cybersecurity ecosystem.

The first edition of LEAP is set to become the world’s largest debut technology platform, putting a spotlight on the global innovation ecosystem, connecting pioneers and disruptors with business and government leaders, entrepreneurs and investors to experience and learn about the technologies of the future.