Andrew Rippon is the Smart City Director at the Royal Commission for AlUla in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. His role is to drive integrated strategies and technologies in support of AlUla’s ambitious cultural tourism, sustainability and economic diversification agenda.

Previously Andrew consulted the European Commission as Governance and Design Authority on the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure and for three years he was principal Consultant on Smart Cities in Dubai. There he wrote important sections of the Smart City strategies of the governments of Dubai and Saudi Arabia, including the Smart City Technology Blueprints in both countries and the Smart District Guidelines in Dubai.

Andrew’s background has always been in digital transformation initiatives since starting work on internet projects in the early 1990s. Later working with internet services for telecoms Vodafone Global, STC, Zain and Etisalat, including collaborating on the early Smart City strategy at the latter in 2014.