Nama to launch 14 new training courses to boost entrepreneurship

Plans are under way for the launch of 14 new training courses next month aimed at further developing and promoting Qatar’s entrepreneurship culture, an official of Social Development Centre – Nama has said.
Nama offers “roughly around 60 to 80” different types of training on a monthly basis for aspiring and existing Qatari entrepreneurs and startups, in co-operation with the United Nations, and graduating as many as 1,000 participants, according to Nama entrepreneurship manager Saoud Essa al-Mohannadi.
This September, al-Mohannadi said Nama is planning to launch in-depth entrepreneurship courses focusing on the fields of psychology, finance and social media, among many others.
The courses also specifically focus on the different stages of entrepreneurship, while funding will be in the form of seed funds, he pointed out.
“Our aim is to help entrepreneurs and small business owners, and to assist them on how to jumpstart their ideas in an easy way without any restrictions. This would help encourage them to pursue their passion,” al-Mohannadi told Gulf Times.
Asked about the project’s time-frame, he said Nama had spent around seven months planning and working on the initiative to offer something innovative and unique to the market.
“The project’s design will be something new to the market and nobody has launched an initiative such as this because we already did very good benchmarking, and we did our homework well in designing the programme,” he explained.
On Qatar’s culture of entrepreneurship, al-Mohannadi said Qatari entrepreneurs are more passionate about establishing their own businesses, especially after the economic blockade imposed on the country in June last year.
According to al-Mohanndi, the economic blockade imposed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt “served as a motivation” for young Qatari entrepreneurs to step up and take part in the economic development of the country by establishing innovative businesses.
“Since Nama was established, the centre does not launch any training programmes from June to August. But last year, we had launched some projects during the summer season and the number of participants had actually doubled.
“We are happy that all our programmes are targeting entrepreneurs, and we see that a lot of them are driven and passionate to help in the economic development of Qatar. As a non-profit organisation, this mindset that we’re witnessing among entrepreneurs is a huge success for us. We are proud to be part of this achievement,” the official stressed.
“Not only does Nama have a wide range of programmes that assist entrepreneurs, but we also help them secure deals for their businesses. We have a lot of success stories of entrepreneurs training with us and then becoming successful business ventures afterwards,” he added.