ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum 2016

The 2nd ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum 2017

Sunday 29th October 2017, 8 am to 2 pm
Shaikh Abdulaziz Hall, Sakhair Campus, University of Bahrain

Register

About the Forum

The aim of this event is to encourage potential entrepreneurs to start new ICT ventures in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This event will discuss success stories of entrepreneurs to help audiences learn from their experiences. This half-day event will provide a venue where decision makers, venture capitalist and other stakeholders meet to foster a more entrepreneurial spirit and culture in Bahrain, showing young graduates and upcoming entrepreneurs the opportunities and rewards of starting a new company. Some of the topics include:

  • Success stories of local, regional and international entrepreneurs in ICT
  • Learning from failures
  • Entrepreneurial culture
  • Funding startups
  • Protection of Intellectual Property (Technology)
  • Entrepreneurship exposure (social media, access to decision makers, etc.)
  • Establishing an entrepreneurship ecosystems in the ICT

Schedule

  • 8:00 - 8:30 Registration
  • 8:30 - 9:00 Opening Ceremony
  • 9:05 - 9:25 Mona Kanaan Chair - ABANA, Managing Partner K6 Investments
  • 9:30 - 9:50 Abdulla Al-Mutawa Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Carriage
  • 9:55 - 10:15 Maxim Frolov Managing Director of the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Kaspersky Lab
  • 10:20 - 10:30 John Kilmartin Executive Director -ICT, Bahrain Economic Development Board
  • 10:35 - 10:50 Coffee Break
  • 10:50 - 11:10 Muhammad Chbib Chief Executive Officer, Tajawal
  • 11:15 - 11:35 Raed Hijer Workstation Sales Engineer, Dell EMC Middle East and Africa
  • 11:40 - 12:20 Panel Discussion: Startups Eco-Systems

    Moderator:

    Areije Al-Shakar Vice President of Bahrain Development Bank (BDB)

    Panelists:

    Yasin Aboudaoud Chief Development Officer, Brinc IoT Accelerator
    Craig Smith Chief Executive Officer, Dhahran Technology Valley Development Company
    Ali Mohsin Chief Executive Officer, WNNA app
    Pakiza Abdulrahman Manager of the ICT/ Startups sector, Business Development Department, Bahrain Economic Development Board
  • 12:25 - 12:45 Shams Hasan Infrastructure Solutions Manager - Middle East, Turkey, Africa (META), Dell EMC
  • 12:50 - 13:20 Panel Discussion: Social Media Influencers

    Moderator:

    Dr. Faisal Isa Hammad

    Panelists:

    Mohammed Al-Sulaiti Co-founder, Tarteeb
    Imran Al-Aradi Social Media Influencer
  • 13:25 - 13:40 Raffle and Concluding Remarks

Forum Speakers

Mona Kanaan
Mona Aboelnaga Kanaan has been a successful serial entrepreneur and investor for over 25 years. She has a proven track record of building successful businesses by decisively defining and implementing long-term strategic plans, recruiting and motivating winning teams, establishing focused goals, and sourcing, executing and managing transformative strategic transactions and investments.
Mona Kanaan   

Chair - ABANA, Managing Partner K6 Investments

Maxim Frolov
As Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META Region), Maxim is responsible for developing the business throughout the region. He started working in this role in 2016 and has over 18 years of experience in the IT sector spanning sales, marketing, and primarily distribution roles. Maxim joined Kaspersky Lab in 2014, as Deputy Head of Operations for Emerging Markets.
Maxim Frolov   

Managing Director of META Region, Kaspersky Lab

Abdulla Al-Mutawa
Abdullah Al Mutawa is the CEO and Co-founder of Carriage. He studied Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech and worked at Schlumberger for a few years after graduating. Shortly after that he opened up his own restaurant in Kuwait City called the Stack, which led him to founding Carriage. Carriage was the first service of its kind in Kuwait, which combined online food ordering and delivery at the same time.
Abdulla Al-Mutawa  

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Carriage

John Kilmartin
John Kilmartin joined Bahrain Economic Development Board as Executive Director of the ICT Division in 2016. EDB’s ICT division promotes Bahrain as a regional hub to global technology companies and work on the Startup Bahrain initiative in conjunction with Bahrain’s startup community to encourage more startup activity in the kingdom.
John Kilmartin  

Executive Director of ICT
Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB)

Muhammad Chbib
An internationally experienced manager, Muhammad Chbib served several successful startup organisations in Europe and the MENA since the late 1990’s and joined McKinsey & Company in 2004, where he worked on large-scale transformation projects with Fortune 500 companies in Europe and the Middle East. In 2011, he moved to Dubai to take the entrepreneurial plunge with Sukar.com which he exited successfully to souq.com in 2012.
Muhammad Chbib  

Chief Executive Officer
Tajawal

Speaker
Shams Hasan is the Infrastructure Solutions Manager for Dell EMC, covering Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META). He is responsible for business and technology thought-leadership, product knowledge, and marketing programs around Infrastructure and Enterprise Solutions. In this role Shams works closely with CxOs on their Digital, IT, Workforce, and Security transformation agenda aligned to the business.
Shams Hasan  

Infrastructure Solutions Manager -
Middle East, Turkey, Africa (META), Dell EMC

Areije Al Shakar
Areije Al Shakar is Vice President, Deputy Head of Development Services at Bahrain Development Bank (BDB). After over 6 years at BDB, her role and involvement at the bank includes training, coaching, business guidance and advisory, and business development. Areije works closely with entrepreneurs on a daily basis, coaching and advising them on various areas of the business cycle beginning with start-up through to growth, expansion, and even turnaround management.
Areije Al Shakar  

Vice President
Bahrain Development Bank

Craig Smith
Craig Smith is Chief Executive Officer of Dhahran Techno Valley Company overseeing all aspects of the Dhahran Techno Valley Science Park, from entrepreneurship development to joint ventures between multinational companies, Saudi government and academia. Under Craig’s leadership, the Dhahran Techno Valley has emerged as the world’s leading Research Center for the Oil & Gas and Energy Sector.
Craig Smith  

Chief Executive Officer
Dhahran Techno Valley Company

Yasin Aboudaoud
Yasin Aboudaoud is a Hong Kong born entrepreneur who has been in the global trading business for over 12 years. While co founding Ecico Group he has been able to implement projects and distribution to major companies from the Middle East, Europe and South America.
Yasin Aboudaoud  

Chief Development Officer
Brinc IoT Accelerator

Speaker
CEO & Co-founder of WNNA a Microsoft Alumni, Technologist, Digital Marketing Expert & Serial Entrepreneur with 17 years of experience in starting online businesses. Established and participated in running multiple tech startups across different industries: Enterprise (SAAS), Consumer, e-Commerce & Artificial Intelligence.
Ali Mohsen  

CEO and Co-Founder
WNNA

Pakiza Abdulrahman
Pakiza joined the EDB team in 2017 in the capacity of Manager for the ICT/Startups sector, Business Development department; looking after Startups in Bahrain and collaborating with community stakeholders to establish Bahrain as a startup hub for the region . Prior to joining EDB, She worked at Zain, Bahrain in the capacity of Manager of Corporate Sustainability and Social Responsibility.
Pakiza Abdulrahman  

Manager of the ICT/Startups Sector, Bahrain EDB

Dr. Faisal Hammad
Dr Faisal Hammad is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems in the University of Bahrain. Dr Hammad earned his PhD from the University of Nottingham in the UK, and his MSc from the George Washington University in the USA. Dr Hammad won the best poster award in the Research Showcase in the UK for his work on improving older adults’ usage of technology.
Dr. Faisal Hammad  

Assistant Professor, Department of Information Systems
University of Bahrain

Raed Hijer
Raed Hijer is a seasoned veteran with over 20 years of experience in the IT industry. He has held many roles as Workstation Sales Engineer, Senior Technical Consultant and System Lead Engineer among others. During his tenure, he acquired an in depth experience with modern workloads and technologies such as Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Remote and Virtualized GPU Accelerated VDI, HPC and others.
Raed Hijer   

Workstation Sales Engineer, Middle East and Africa
Dell EMC

Mohammed Al-Sulaiti
Mohamed Al-Sulaiti is a Bahraini entrepreneur, who managed to establish a successful business at a young age Though the official establishment of Tarteeb was in 2011, Mohmmed Al-Sulaiti started gaining his experience years before that. He graduated in 2009 with a bachelor degree in Banking & Finance and spend the following in participation in a foreign exchange program, in which he spent time studying and working between UK and China.
Mohammed Al-Sulaiti  

Executive Operations Officer, Tarteeb Organization

Imran Al-Aradi
Imran Al Aradi is a full time entertainer based in the Kingdom of Bahrain, with over 18 years experience, Al Aradi has performed and MC’ed for the biggest corporate names around the GCC. He started his comedy career in 2008 when he performed with the Axis of Evil comedy tour in Bahrain, which marked the beginning of when Imran pursued comedy from his passion to his profession.
Imran Al-Aradi  

Comedian /Social Media Influencer
Tarteeb Organization


Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition 2017

Register for this Competition
Deadline Thursday 21 Dec 2017



Competition Overview

The Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition aims to develop the entrepreneurship capacity of UOB’s Students by providing them with the opportunity to convert their ideas into commercial ventures. The competition will enable participants to submit their business plans, which will be reviewed by a panel of judges and shortlisted for top prizes to support them in their journey to becoming entrepreneurs.

What are the areas of the business idea?

The students should present a novel idea that can be turned into a real business in any discipline including IT, Business, Engineering, etc. that can offer a viable solution to a problem or fulfill a need in any discipline. The idea needs to have the ability to become a financially sustainable business enterprise, that can play a role in enriching the economy of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Why participate?

This competition is an excellent opportunity to gain the following benefits:
  • Chance to win cash prize ($5300 for the 1st place, $2600 for the 2nd place, and $1300 for the 3rd place).
  • Feedback on your business idea from an experienced panel of judges.
  • Media exposure for your business idea.
  • Introduction to a network of entrepreneurs and investors.

What are the rules ?

  • The idea can be presented by an individual student or by a group of students.
  • The student(s) should be from University of Bahrain.
  • The student(s) should present the idea according to the given template in PPT format.
  • The top 10 projects will be shortlisted.

How the business plans will be assessed ?

Business plans will be assessed by an independent selection Jury. Our criteria aim to reflect the assessment criteria of potential investors. The assessment criteria for grading are:
  1. Personal Qualities and Entrepreneurial Background – (Personal motivation, entrepreneurial qualities and commitment to start the business, demonstrated knowledge of the product and experience in the sector)
  2. Strategic relevance of the business idea - (Feasibility, market analysis, the potential for the idea)
  3. Profitability and (financial) sustainability –(Efficiency, revenues, innovativeness, existing buyers and business partners)
  4. Social impact – (Contribution to local job creation and local knowledge and skills)

How to register?

  • We are now looking for students with innovative ideas by simply registering online through http://bp.uob.edu.bh.
  • The deadline for registration will be

Sponsors

Bahrain Economic Development Board Kaspersky Labs

Partners

Manama Week Dell EMC Hilal Computers

Venue and Contacts

  • Venue
    Shaikh Abdulaziz Hall
    Sakhair Campus, University of Bahrain
  • Phone
    +973-17437001
    +973-17437002
  • Email
    uobis@uob.edu.bh