The Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC) has launched the first session of its monthly “Speaker Series” with guest speaker Elmar Mock, the co-inventor of the original Swatch watch.

In line with QBIC’s mission of developing Qatar’s next QR100mn companies, the Speaker Series is one of a number of programmes and activities that encourage and support aspiring entrepreneurs to overcome external obstacles and focus on their start-up ideas. 

The Speaker Series sessions are held periodically and were designed to appeal to a broad spectrum of aspiring entrepreneurs, Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) owners, and anyone interested in business.

Selected speakers are chosen on the basis of their personal achievements as entrepreneurs, especially those who achieved success after leaving their full-time jobs to pursue their business ideas. 

Qatar Development Bank CEO and QBIC chairman Abdulaziz bin Nasser al-Khalifa said, “Elmar Mock’s talk puts in perspective a lot of what we try to teach participants partaking in QBIC’s programmes; the key to a successful startup idea is practical innovation.”

QBIC CEO Aysha al-Mudahka said, “We believe our speakers will be a source of inspiration as they have overcome many of the same challenges facing our aspiring entrepreneurs today. We are also selecting speakers on their ability to share practiced strategies and knowledge to help our entrepreneurs achieve tangible results.”

Mock’s topic, “The Innovation Factory,” centred on how to successfully manage innovation using practical examples such as the Swatch story. He also discussed the hidden consequences of innovation and the contradiction between innovation and renovation.

Mock is a serial innovator and is well-known as the inventor of the original Swatch watch. Following Swatch, he designed Tissot’s Rock watch and then left the company to establish his own engineering and technical consultation company in Switzerland. 

Since starting his own company in 1986, Mock has completed more than 600 projects for numerous companies, created several spin-offs, and generated more than 150 patents in various fields.