A cross-sector group of leaders in the early to middle stages of their career took part in Navigator, a four-day leadership programme sponsored by Shell and run in partnership with Silatech, Social Development Centre (SDC) and Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC).
The programme was designed and delivered by Common Purpose, an international leadership development organisation, and brought together 26 leaders from a variety of sectors and specialisations to tackle the challenge - “How can we make a step-change in the survival rate of Qatari start-ups?”.
Hosted at Qatar Shell Research and Technology Centre (Qatar Science & Technology Park) and QBIC, the group was guided through an innovation process involving inputs from experts and organisations from across Qatar’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. Together, they developed prototype ideas that would address the central challenge.
The ideas included En-Space: an idea for an agreement between employers and employees to allow time during the week for staff entrepreneurs to do work relating to their enterprise; One-Stop Shop: an idea to align the different entities supporting entrepreneurship and startups and to connect SMEs and startups to all their stakeholders in one location; The Study: an idea to produce a study of the current situation in the Qatari entrepreneurial market needs in order to identify the gaps hindering its process and missed opportunities; and Start-up Point: a mobile application designed to help entrepreneurs with their business registration process and provide alerts on regulatory dues. It will have integration with all related ministries and departments involved in a new company formation in Qatar and, at a later stage, can be used to connect an entrepreneur with financial and legal experts, when required.
Rob Sherwin, general manager and deputy country chairman, Qatar Shell, and chair of Navigator Advisory Group, said: “We are proud to contribute actively, together with our partners, to the Common Purpose Navigator programme.”
Participants of the Navigator programme were drawn from organisations such as QNB, Ooredoo, Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, Qatar Petroleum, Vodafone, Qatar University, Doha Film Institute, United Development Company, Qatar Tourism Authority, Commercial Bank, the British embassy in Qatar as well as Shell and SDC.
Eman al-Marzouqi, civil engineer at Qatar Shell and a participant, said: “The programme was very beneficial to me.”