The long awaited day is finally here! We are excited to share the winners of SkillUp Compete, an initiative by The Entrepreneurial Nation through its SkillUp Academy program and in partnership with MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab, with you.
10 teams of university students and fresh graduates from all across the UAE entered this competition with the hopes and dreams of implementing their business ideas or improving their businesses. During the 2-month journey, the finalists went through a 2-day intensive Bootcamp where they gained training in Customer Discovery, StoryTelling, Digital Marketing to Accelerate their Growth Journey, and Lean Methodology and Business Model Generation.
On January 10, the finalists pitched to our esteemed panel of pages which consisted of: HE. Dr. Ahmed Belhoul AlFalasi, Minister of State for Entrepreneurship & SMEs at UAE’s Ministry of Economy, Mona Ataya, Founder of Mumzworld, Mohamed Hamdy, General Partner at Leyland Ventures, and Najla Al Midfa, CEO of Sharja Entrepreneurship Center.
The pool of candidates showed a high level of enthusiasm and passion for their businesses during their pitches. 50,000 AED in equity free cash prizes along with business setup and registration support, office space, fast-tracking to UAE’s industry-leading accelerator program, mentorship, media exposure and recognition among many other benefits were at stake. Winning spots were only limited to 4 and everyone wanted to be one of the inaugural winning teams for the first edition of the competition.
The journey for the finalists concluded with a virtual demo day on January 16, 2022 where they found out that, due to the high caliber of candidates, the judges have decided to award 4 teams instead of 3!
Without further ado, here are the four winners of the first edition of SkillUp Compete:
- CellTiró
- 5mm
- Decenode
- Human Capital Management System (HCMS)
With this, MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab, through its partnership with The Entrepreneurial Nation, wraps up yet another successful competition empowering students and recent graduates by enhancing the startup ecosystem in the UAE and actively enabling the Arab entrepreneurship and digital technology ecosystem.
We wish the winners the best of luck in their journeys and can’t wait to be sharing with you some of their great news in 2022!
