A mobile application called ‘Basket,’ designed to help prevent food waste, has won the national business competition, ‘Quick Startup 2015,’ hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) and sponsored by QNB’s SME
department.
Launched in 2014, Quick Startup challenges university students to conceive and develop a business idea within 72 hours for presentation to a judging
panel of industry experts.
“We came up with the idea for Basket a while ago and have always wanted to take it to the next level,” said Sabih Bin Wasi, a computer science student at CMU-Q.
This year’s competition saw 38 budding entrepreneurs participate, a third of whom were returning participants, bringing fresh ideas that address market gaps while maintaining unique selling points in areas such as the construction, nutrition and the health sectors.
“It’s an impossible task to start a business in three days; however we provided students with a framework for the important steps needed to get started, focusing on business plan development, customer discovery and investor pitching,” said Dave Mawhinney, co-director of the CMU-Q Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and executive director of the Donald H Jones Center for
Entrepreneurship.
‘Safe.T,’ a programme that encourages employers to make use of workers’ commuting times to provide safety training, came in second place, while ‘PetApp,’ a mobile application that provides comprehensive information about services for pet owners, came in third.
“Through Quick Startup, we try to help students get a sense of the process, opportunities and challenges involved in starting a business,” said Thomas Emerson, distinguished career professor of entrepreneurship at CMU-Q, who co-organised the event with his colleague George White.
QNB awarded the winning team four Apple MacBook laptops. Hamad al-Jamali, QNB’s acting head of SME’s said: “As the largest bank in Qatar, and being a truly national bank, we take great interest in supporting the budding talents and intellects our country has to offer.”