Qatar Research, Development and Innovation (QRDI) Council will hold the third edition of its Corporate Innovation Leaders Programme from February 26 until March 1.
The programme was launched in 2022 as one of the council’s initiatives that support the QRDI 2030 strategy of enhancing the country’s innovation ecosystem.
The third Corporate Innovation Leaders Programme is a four-day workshop, led by QRDI Council in partnership with the leading Silicon Valley accelerator, Alchemist. The initiative aims to support and empower Large Local Enterprises (LLEs) in Qatar that are seeking innovation to drive business growth, competitiveness and productivity.
The programme brings together leaders from enterprises in critical sectors across Qatar to find out how to be champions of innovation and create effective partnerships with innovative businesses. It is also an important element of QRDI Council’s strategy to develop Qatar’s innovation ecosystem through capacity building, and connecting key national entities with innovators to further their operational and strategic goals.
Omar Ali al-Ansari, secretary-general of QRDI Council, said: "Qatar's legacy from the World Cup is innovation. It's the base of every aspect of the experience that we have all witnessed wherever we were around the world during the extraordinary 2022 World Cup. Now, we're focusing at QRDI Council on boosting the country’s innovation capabilities and developing its competitiveness over the long-run to build a knowledge-based economy, characterised by innovation, which is the main objective of the QRDI Strategy 2030."
The programme is part of an ongoing partnership between QRDI Council and The Alchemist Accelerator that aims to support and empower startups, invest in real local talents and develop the existing infrastructure in Qatar, in order to support the development of a strong RDI ecosystem, and create more local and international RDI opportunities.
Participants of the QRDI Council’s Corporate Innovation Leaders Programme will enjoy a host of benefits, including access to Alchemist’s invite-only network of global corporate innovators, startup founders and venture capitalists. Moreover, the LLEs participating in this programme can also join QRDI Council’s other programme, Qatar Open Innovation (QOI), as Opportunity Owners, to access a wide pool of innovators and solution providers (who could be MNCs, SMEs or startups), to co-develop solutions following best practices in open innovation worldwide.
QRDI Council has successfully worked with many LLEs in Qatar, including Ooredoo, Barzan Holdings, Kahramaa, Milaha, Al Jazeera. Es'hailSat, Alijarah, Sidra, Baladna, Qatar Airways, Hamad International Airport, Meeza, GWC, Qapco and Hamad Medical Corporation. This list will keep expanding to support and empower all entities in Qatar to be players in an ecosystem characterised by innovation.
