Injaz Qatar, a non-profit organisation and a member of Junior Achievement (JA) Worldwide, will host the Mubadara Awards Ceremony at Hamad Bin Khalifa University Student Center on April 30, recognising some of Qatar’s most outstanding young entrepreneurs.
JA’s globally recognised Company Programme is Injaz Qatar’s most interactive and popular education exercise during which student enterprises are established. It has evolved to be a prominent event in the Injaz Qatar calendar of activities.
A total of 22 student teams were provided with the unique opportunity to establish and run a real business over a period of five months with the guidance of professionals from leading businesses across Qatar.
As many as 18 student teams, comprising 12 from independent and private secondary schools and six from universities, made it to the final stage. During the programme, students go through the entire life cycle of a startup venture as they develop a business idea, form a team, raise capital of up to QR11,000, devise business plans, and produce and sell a product or a service. Towards the end of the five months of activity, students present their entrepreneurial ideas before a judging panel of business leaders from the local market.
In the upcoming Mubadara 2018 Awards Ceremony, the innovative products and services developed by the student companies will be exhibited and the winners of this year’s competition will be announced giving them the opportunity to represent Qatar at the 2018 regional finals.
Students will vie for one of four awards: The Best Company of the Year award sponsored by ExxonMobil, the Best Social Impact Award sponsored by Ooredoo, the Most Innovative Product/Service award sponsored by Hamad Bin Khalifa University, and the Best Marketing Plan award sponsored by Frame.
The team winning Best Company of the Year Award (University level) will be given ongoing support by Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC) and seed funding of QR35,000 from Boeing to start their real business. Elaborating on the upcoming event, Emad al-Khaja, CEO of Injaz Qatar, observed that each year, the depth of talent amongst the participants continues to amaze the organisers.
“Qatar’s youth have an incredible level of talent and business intuition. Through events such as the Mubadara competition, Injaz Qatar provides these young men and women with an opportunity to showcase these capabilities. To be able to build up a tangible business setup from an idea, is in itself an achievement for each one of them. This will automatically give them the confidence, and the skills, to actively contribute towards Qatar’s economic and social development when they enter the workforce in a few years.”
The Awards Ceremony will host more than 350 guests, including Injaz Qatar’s board members and representatives from the private and public sector including the education sector in Qatar.
Boeing Middle East, North Africa and Turkey president Bernard Dunn stated that the company is extremely proud of the Company Programme and Start-Up, which allows students to experience the full life cycle of a company but also provides them with viable ideas with the resources they need to develop their ideas into businesses.
“It is a great platform for students to develop critical business skills regardless of the career path they chose,” the Boeing official added.
This year’s Mubadara Award Ceremony has ExxonMobil as platinum sponsor, Ooredoo as gold sponsor and Hamad Bin Khalifa University as silver sponsor. Boeing is the strategic partner for the Start-Up programme, QBIC is the incubation partner who will host the winner and Frame the media partner.
