Ashraf Abo Arafe
Five start-ups from KAUST won the Saudi World Cup qualifiers at the Prince Mohammed Bin Salman School of Business and Entrepreneurship recently.
The five winners, each of whom earned $ 50,000, graduated from the KAUST Entrepreneurship Program.
The five winners included Red Sea Farms, an emerging company using saltwater technology for desert agriculture, an Arabic audio book, Fahim to connect teachers with students in the Kingdom, a flood management nebulizer, air quality and traffic control, and a telemedicine.
KAUST’s Vice President of Innovation, Technology and Governance at the World Cup for Entrepreneurship, Dr. Kevin Cullen, said that seeing many of the technologies on stage at the World Cup for Entrepreneurship was impressive and is evidence of the momentum that entrepreneurship has gained in the Kingdom over the last year. A strong appetite for the sector, whether by entrepreneurs or companies to support innovation.
For its part, the KAUST Center for Entrepreneurship presented a workshop entitled “Launching Your Next Art Project” during the final of the tournament. More than 20 participants developed ideas to start using techniques such as 3D printing and virtual reality.
KAUST will host the five winners on campus during a week-long training camp in preparation for the World Cup for Entrepreneurship, to be held at the annual meeting of the MISK Forum in Riyadh in November.
The success of the Saudi start-up companies for the World Cup for Entrepreneurship is testimony to the University’s history of leading the business sector in the Kingdom. In the past decade, KAUST has set up a training and investment fund for entrepreneurship that has resulted in a network of 206 start-ups Which receives financial and advisory support from KAUST and also benefits from laboratories and prototype work.
