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Motivating young entrepreneurs

Wednesday, Jun 02, 2010

Gulf News

Promising competition coming to its end soon

Dubai When Hala Fadl graduated from Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) and returned to her native Lebanon, she faced an unexpected obstacle: difficulty in starting her own business.

She, however, was not planning at that time to become a motivating instrument for others later.

"I was still working in the field of finance, and I realised how difficult it is to start your own business," Fadl recalled of her thoughts after graduation.

"There is that view that good and comfortable jobs are in the public sector or in banks," she told Gulf News.

"The second argument is that the world of business is a very restricted one. Few families have good relations, while the rest have no access to people who have power. Therefore, it is very difficult to have a big customer," she added.

But 37-year-old Fadl herself, 15 years later, became active in motivating many young Arabs to create their own projects and start their own businesses.

Societies

Arab countries are being described as young societies due to the fact that people under the age of 25 constitute nearly half of the 380 million people.

In her capacity as chairperson for the MIT Enterprise Forum for the Pan Arab Region, Hala led the efforts to organise the first MIT Arab Business Plan Competition two years ago.

The competition has been an annual event for three years now, with the support of Saudi Arabia's Abdul Latif Jameel Company .

The company has committed to support the MIT Arab Business Plan Competition as a key partner during the next five years to ensure the initiative's sustainability and progress, Fadl said.

"The Arab region needs to be an anchor for successful entrepreneurs and the MIT Enterprise Forum is determined to find and help them," Fadl said.

The MIT Enterprise Forum of the pan-Arab region is one of 24 MIT chapters around the world. The winner will be announced on June 4 in Cairo.

Nine finalist teams from several Arab countries were shortlisted from a record 1,582 applications from 13 Arab countries. The nine rising entrepreneurial teams are competing for a start-up seed money amounting to $60,000 as well as receiving mentoring support from successful business leaders and consultants.

"Given the current global economic climate, the Arab world has never been more in need of entrepreneurial talent to lift its competitiveness and financial prospects," Fadi Jameel, chairman of Abdul Latif Jameel Foundation, was quoted as saying.

"Innovation is the main criteria. All the ideas were innovative," said Fadl, who is also European Equity Fund Manager at Comgest, a group that was created in 1986 and manages $13 billion. It operates in Paris, Hong Kong and Dublin.

While internet services and information technology constitute the biggest chunk of the projects presented, environment-related ideas such as biofuels and new methods in agriculture constitute 20 to 25 per cent of the projects. Also, ideas related to health care, such as new devices for patients, constitute around 25 per cent.

"There are many youth in the Arab world who have good ideas," said Mohammad Hawas, 27-year-old Egyptian who has made it to the semi-final. "The problem is financial ability," added Hawas, who has been living in Dubai for nearly five years.

Hawas' project, in partnership with 42-year-old IT specialist Zaher Mohammad Saeed from Pakistan, presents a search engine which quickly connects specific advertisements to its target audience on different websites .

Search engine

Explains Hawas: "Our search engine differs from others as it limits the results.

"For example, when a browser types the word "stocks", other search engines will throw up all companies, stock markets and even articles on the subject.

" But our search engine will come up with only advertisement companies related to stocks," he explained.

There are nearly 100,000 advertisement companies worldwide, Hawas said.

Nurturing small and medium size enterprises, creating new companies, and promoting the culture of entrepreneurship are all factors that would have a long-term impact on young people in the Arab region and will secure growth for future generations, Fadl said.

By Jumana Al Tamimi

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