This year’s theme, “Driving Climate Action through Green Entrepreneurship,” captures the spirit of a generation determined to do more. It speaks to global priorities and to Qatar’s own roadmap for the future. The Qatar National Vision 2030 rests on four interconnected pillars, human, social, economic, and environmental development, and green entrepreneurship sits precisely at their intersection. When young people innovate with purpose, they strengthen human potential, build community cohesion, diversify the economy, and protect the environment that sustains us all.
Qatar’s young generation is among the most climate-aware in the Middle East. According to a 2024 PwC survey, 98 per cent of Qatari youth are familiar with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the highest awareness rate in the region. Around the world, nearly 60 per cent of people aged 16–25 report feeling extremely worried about climate change, and three out of four say the future feels uncertain. In Qatar, that anxiety is being transformed into fuel for innovation.
As EAA youth advocate and child-psychiatry MD Mohamed Falfoul put it,
“It isn’t enough to identify eco-anxiety, we must transform this energy into tangible, intergenerational action.”
That spirit defined Empower 2025, where climate concern became a catalyst for creativity and action. Workshops and panel discussions helped participants explore how entrepreneurial thinking can power climate solutions, from clean-tech start-ups to green social enterprises.
At the Sustainability Expo, young Qatari entrepreneurs demonstrated that innovation rooted in culture can serve both nation and planet. Nasser Almoslamani, CEO and co-founder of Naseh, a legal-tech start-up, presented a model of sustainability through accessibility. By digitising legal services, Naseh reduces paperwork, travel, and inefficiency, demonstrating that sustainability also involves more intelligent systems and inclusive design.
In another expo booth led by Muneera Al Shriem, there was a young change-maker Maryam bint Faisal, an SDG Ambassador showcasing an interactive game that teaches recycling. Inspired by her younger sister’s boredom with traditional messages, she combined basic science skills with creativity to make recycling fun and engaging. Her mother and grandmother proudly shared:
“We support her in every step of her journey. When parents believe in their children, they can become the changemakers our world needs.”
This is what sustainability truly means, intergenerational cooperation that nurtures talent and belief.
Climate action in Qatar is increasingly collaborative. EcoAwareness QA, a youth-led initiative by Mohammed Elfatih, Mohammed Mishaal Al-Khuzaei, and Fisal Jassim Al-Emadi of Hassan bin Thabit Secondary School, began as a friendship project and grew into a national campaign. “If it wasn’t for how we supported each other,” they said, “EcoAwareness wouldn’t have reached the tens of thousands of students it engages today.”
Their experience shows that green entrepreneurship thrives when it’s peer-led and networked, not isolated. The climate challenge is too vast for lone efforts; progress depends on collective energy, something Empower has cultivated for fifteen years.
For the organisers themselves, Empower is a space of growth. Youth organiser Sara Al Boainin said the workshops helped participants sharpen critical thinking and apply their learning to Qatar’s expanding green economy.
“These sessions gave us the tools to understand climate action in practical terms,” she said. “We learned to connect ideas, analyse challenges, and create solutions.”
For EAA youth advocates, Noora Al Thani and Maryam bint Elmahdi from Qatar University, this years Sustainability Expo committee members, the experience was “overwhelming but enriching.” They coordinated ten booths over two days, turning a showcase into a shared exercise in teamwork and leadership.
The message from Empower 2025 is clear: the path forward is not youth versus experience, or business versus environment, it’s youth in business, environment in enterprise, and community in collaboration.
To every young person in Qatar: your ideas matter. Move from worry to action, connect your vision to your community, and lead with purpose.
To policymakers, educators, and business leaders: listen to youth. Provide them with networks, mentorship, and belief.
To society at large: celebrate those who build, who collaborate, who persist.
When youth entrepreneurship is green by design, when climate action is a foundation and not an afterthought, the result is more than a conference, it’s a movement rooted in shared purpose and sustained by hope.