Sharjah: Sheraa’s new initiative aimed at building new digital content and publishing industry ventures, Startup Sharjah, took place from October 31st to November 2nd, 2019 at the Sheraa Hub.

In keeping with Sharjah’s goal to further grow the publishing and digital content sector, Sheraa introduced Startup Sharjah, a 3-day intensive bootcamp to build your startup, from conception to prototype. The bootcamp gave idea owners access to workshops and mentors geared towards validating their idea and building a minimum viable product. The participants also conducted customer interviews at the Sharjah International Book Fair, receiving key insights into the publishing industry problems that they were trying to solve.

Commenting on the occasion, Najla Al Midfa, CEO of Sheraa, said, “In celebration of Sharjah being named UNESCO World Book Capital for 2019, Sheraa launched the Startup Sharjah program, which supports the creation and growth of innovative startups in the digital content and publishing space. Winners will receive up to $100K in cash prizes, a fast track into our Seed program, and business coaching hours aimed to help achieve their growth milestones.”

The event brings together aspiring entrepreneurs with backgrounds in business, design, coding and marketing to rally around great ideas within the digital and publishing sector, racing to bring them to life in 72 hours. Teams go through a crash course of business model creation, programming, designing and market validation. The three days then culminate in a pitch session in front of ecosystem leaders, with the most promising ideas winning an entry into Sheraa’s programs. Cash prizes of AED 100K, AED 50K and AED 25K will be awarded to the first, second and third place winners respectively.

In the finale of the first Startup Sharjah edition, the three winners announced were

First Place - Pay-Per-Hype

A pay as you go marketplace that helps founders directly connect with journalists to write about their startups

Second Place - Legacy

Personalised content that promotes culture and preserves your personal history

Third Place - Bookends

A book exchange app that encourages reading and assist consumers to sell their books and buy books from others.

-Ends-

About Sheraa (Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center):

Launched in January 2016, Sheraa (Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center) is a platform that supports entrepreneurs. From strategically transforming ideas into reality, to effectively nurturing established businesses, to promoting networking opportunities with investors and stakeholders - it cultivates change-makers and builds a thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Sheraa – ‘Sail’ in Arabic - runs four different programs that are tailored to every stage of the entrepreneurial journey: Idea Lab, Pre-seed, Seed, and Series A.

Idea Lab breaks down an entrepreneur’s business model and ensures proof of concept. Pre-seed consists of customized deep-dive sessions and interactive workshops on topics such as project management, rapid prototype testing, financials, pitch rehearsals, as well as personal and team strength training. The Seed program addresses a startups key milestone in the journey of growth, focusing on marketing channels and enhanced customer experience. Lastly, Series A is an in-depth program, helping advanced startups refine their strategy, internal processes, and external customer experience to ready them for the next stage of growth.

Sheraa, a non-profit government organization, is headquartered at the American University of Sharjah and hosts a thriving community of ambitious entrepreneurs. The second Sheraa hub, launched in September 2018, is located at the University of Sharjah.

Since its’ inception, Sheraa has successfully built a community of over 7,000 entrepreneurs and ecosystem players. Validated 300+ ideas through the Idea Lab and graduated over 70 start-ups from the programs. In

addition, Sheraa start-ups have generated over $19 million in revenue and raised over $14 million in investment.

For more information, please visit - https://sheraa.ae/ 

For media enquiries (not for publishing):

Momina Chaudhry
Spread Communications
momina@spreadcomms.com
00971 50 349 8610

© Press Release 2019

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