Tech entrepreneurs, or ‘techpreneurs’, from all over the world have joined a weeklong startup boot-camp to help transform advanced innovative technologies into ‘Made in Qatar’ technology products.

The boot-camp is the first phase of Qatar Foundation Research and Development (QF R&D)’s Research-to-Startup (RTS) programme. It is designed to facilitate the creation, acceleration and scaling of startups that leverage technologies developed by the research institutes of Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU).

The boot-camp involves a condensed schedule of workshops and activities between seasoned techpreneurs and researchers in an attempt to boost the tech-innovation sector in Qatar.

With the support of professional coaches and mentors, the programme aims to establish teams to create fundable, scalable business plans for potential spun-out tech-startups.

QF supports a broad range of national and global R&D challenges, which contribute to Qatar becoming a competitive and diversified economy, according to Dr Hamad al-Ibrahim, executive vice-president of QF R&D and chairman of the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) Board.

“For this to happen, research needs to translate into products and platforms that can impact the way we live and do business,” he said. “Our Research-to-Startup programme is designed to leverage the technologies generated by QF researchers to provide tech-entrepreneurs with ideas to trigger and fuel the creation of technology startups at QSTP, which is QF R&D’s arm supporting the establishment of a local and regional innovation ecosystem.

“We are excited to work closely with Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) of HBKU on this initiative, and look to expand this effort in the years to come to technologies developed by all research institutes across the country.”

HBKU president Dr Ahmad M Hasnah said, “Knowledge-based economies have their roots in research, and the ultimate goal of research is to get commercialised and act as a launch pad for product development companies.

“Therefore, we are delighted with this seamless work between QSTP and QCRI. We are hopeful the HBKU research will ultimately enrich people’s lives locally and internationally.”

On the technologies being discussed during the week, Dr Hasnah elaborated: “We are familiarising the entrepreneurs with six advanced technologies that have market potential and have received acknowledgement worldwide.

“For example, we have the QATS platform, an advanced Arabic speech processing technology, including speech-to-text and dialect detection using speech signal. Another one is Rayyan, which is an end-to-end collaborative platform (web and mobile) to expedite the creation of systematic reviews using text-mining, machine-learning, database, and multi-facet navigation/filtering; in addition to many others.”

The RTS programme’s call for applications was announced last January. From hundreds of applications, QSTP selected 20 techpreneurs from Qatar, the region, the US and Europe. By providing the right environment and tools to collaborate with researchers on potential business opportunities, formulated teams are expected to establish startups with a defined tech-product.

QF centres participating in the RTS programme include QSTP, QCRI and QF Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Office.

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