King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) won the Best Security Team award at the Fire and Security Excellence Awards Ceremony for the last year 2021, which was recently held in the British capital, London. KAUST University, led by the Vice President for Governmental Affairs and Security Suleiman Al-Thunayan, implemented a strategic approach to reduce the risks of the spread of COVID-19. ‏The International Exhibition and Conference on Fire and Global Security had met with Al-Thunayan and published, on its website in English, details of the reasons why KAUST University won the award. “Due to the large number of contenders for this award in the security industry, we were so pleased with receiving the award and this has made us feel proud that we had been granted this prestigious award which proves the superiority of government affairs and security administration at KAUST and its excellence in the security field.” Al-Thunayan commented. ‏We have overcome all challenges ‏ The Vice President of KAUST Government Affairs and Security stated: "After the outbreak of the new Coronavirus, Covid-19, and the ensuing lockdowns, we implemented a specific approach that focused in its operations on 3 clear and obvious problems: the risks of transmission of the virus from outside to inside “KAUST”, the risks of disease outbreaks inside King Abdullah University, and the risks of mutual infection when providing security services to the community”. ‏Speaking to the website of the International Fire and Security Conference and Exhibition, Al-Thunayan confirmed that, "As part of KAUST"s plan to confront the risks related to COVID-19, the Security Department at KAUST implemented many measures, including hosting a sufficient number of leaders and security personnel in King Abdullah University to manage security operations, and ensure that they are not infected outside, also approve entry to a list of vendors and suppliers of retailers who are regularly monitored and checked by their companies for symptoms of Covid-19, as well as approve and prevent construction workers from entering to work on isolated construction projects access or interaction with the community. ‏“Due to the large number of members of the KAUST community, with more than 7,000 residents and thousands more contractors and workers entering daily, it has been difficult for the security department to ensure compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, as another challenge has been to provide security services without making security personnel and community members vulnerable to infection with the COVID-19 virus, which could lead to the widespread of the disease in the community. With all these challenges, we have proven that there is nothing that can prevent us from succeeding in our mission as one of the factors that proved so important to managing our COVID-19 security team is their choice to digitize a large part of their services.", Al-Thunayan added. ‏ Our services are all digital ‏KAUST Vice President of Governmental Affairs explains, “We have digitized nearly 80% of KAUST services and adopted the latest technologies, including robots, drones, facial recognition systems and many more, and our community, visitors, and customers appreciate and raise the great development of our services and performance.” ‏Digital security services, as explained by Al-Thunayan, include the use of facial recognition technology to verify the identities of people at the gate, then creating an “electronic check-in and check-out” where security personnel scan QR codes, verify identity, and security approval and allow entry to workers, vendors and suppliers, and also (automating) reporting of non-emergency accidents, monitoring traffic violations within KAUST and applying traffic rules through the online security portal, as well as (digitizing) the KAUST ID to allow users to view identity without any physical contacts and communications. Thus, all our services were provided security through a security platform on the Internet. ‏Al-Thunayan concluded by saying: “We have a strong vision and strategy that we constantly review and audit to ensure we keep pace with our progress and provide the latest security systems and technologies based on our needs and periodic risk assessments. We also strongly believe that improving processes and investing in technology is important, however planning for success, commitment to maintaining gains, training of employees on new changes, regular audits and customer surveys are all very important to us.” — SG