Saudi's $500 bln NEOM project forms international advisory board

Saudi Arabia's megacity project NEOM has formed an Advisory Board, consisting of 17 members, according to the Kingdom’s state news agency.

The new board is made up of international experts from various sectors, responsible for providing ideas, insights and advice on the project.

The Advisory Board will include "a team of the world's leading minds and experts combining the best and brightest global experts to develop the future," the official Twitter account of the project said earlier.

The members of the advisory board are as follows: 

1) Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator and the co-chair of OpenAI

2) Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz

3) Tim Brown, CEO and president of IDEO

4) Timothy Collins, vice chairman and CEO of Ripplewood Advisors

5) Alexandra Cousteau, a senior advisor to Oceana

6) Dan Doctoroff, founder and CEO of Sidewalk Labs

7) Norman Robert Foster, founder and CEO of Foster + Partners

8) Travis Kalanick, CEO of City Storage Systems

9) Neelie Kroes, a retired Dutch politician and vice-president of the European Commission

10) Andrew N. Liveris, former CEO and chairman of Dow Chemical Company

11) Marc Raibert, a former Carnegie Mellon University professor and a founder of Boston Dynamics

12) Carlo Ratti, a professor of Urban Technologies and Planning, and director of SENSEable City Lab

13) John Rossant, founder and chairman of the New Cities Foundation

14) Masayoshi Son, a Japanese business magnate and chief executive officer of Japanese holding conglomerate SoftBank

15) Rob Speyer, Tishman Speyer president and chief executive officer

16) Peter Voser, chairman of ABB.

Other board members will be announced when appointed.

In October 2017, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman announced the launch of NEOM, a $500 billion megacity to be built on a total area of 26,500 square meters in northwest Saudi Arabia. The first phase is expected to be completed by 2025.