Targeting young entrepreneurs and secondary school students and supporting high-impact ideas and projects, the Social Development Centre “Nama”, part of Qatar Foundation for Social Work, has launched the competition for the third edition of the Social Entrepreneurship Award.
Naif Zamil al-Shahrani, communications manager at Nama, and Mohammed al-Kadi from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced this at a press conference yesterday at Nama's headquarters.
Shahrani said that the award targets young people and individuals with innovative social entrepreneurship ideas and projects. ”The award is open to young people and innovators as well as social entrepreneurs through two main categories: Best Social Entrepreneurship Idea and Best Established Social Enterprise project. It also includes a competition for secondary school students encouraging them to develop their creativity, initiative and social responsibility,” he explained.
According to the official, the Best Social Entrepreneurship Idea will win QR100,000 and the Best Established Social Enterprise Project will be awarded QR200,000, while the secondary schools competition offers a total of QR60,000 in prizes.
Those interested in participating in the third edition of the award can apply through Nama’s official website and follow the latest updates on Nama’s social media accounts.
According to al-Kadi, the competition for secondary school students aims to instil a culture of innovation and social responsibility.
Nama launched the first edition of the award in 2024, which culminated in the Autism Parents Platform being crowned Best Existing Project and the Central Canteen Project Best Project Idea.
Entries are evaluated based on a set of criteria, foremost among them the clarity of the societal problem or challenge, the extent to which the proposed solution addresses community needs, the anticipated scale of impact, the feasibility, sustainability, and scalability of the idea or project and the ability to achieve measurable results and impact.
Ghanem Salah al-Ali, executive director of Nama, said: “The Social Entrepreneurship Award is one of the tools through which we work to empower individuals and those with ideas and projects to develop practical solutions based on community needs. What we witnessed during the previous two editions confirms the presence of promising talent and ideas capable of creating genuine value for society.”
“This year’s third edition is distinguished by the addition of an intensive training programme for the shortlisted applicants. The programme aims to help them refine and systematically develop their ideas, beginning with a deeper understanding of the societal problem and progressing toward building solutions that are more feasible, sustainable, and capable of measuring their impact. Through this track, we aspire for the award to serve as a platform for learning and development, alongside competition and recognition, helping participants move from an idea to an impactful project,” added al-Ali.
As part of co-operation with several of the award’s partners, a set of societal challenges has been identified, studied, and examined in greater depth to better understand their dimensions and needs, thereby raising awareness of these issues and bringing greater attention to them.