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Qatar- Young techpreneurs to pitch ideas at AIA closing ceremony – MENAFN.COM


(MENAFN – The Peninsula) Top ten teams of the third Arab Innovation Academy (AIA) will present their business ideas during the closing ceremony to impress investors at Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP), tomorrow. 

Some 190 students were accepted to participate in AIA 2020. The participants were grouped into 30 teams, and they underwent a unique accelerated mode of experiential learning to help them turn an idea into a startup in only 10 days.

The 30 teams participated in a ‘Startup Expo’ on Thursday. Among them 10 teams and a ‘wild card’ will qualify for the finals.

 During ‘Startup Expo’, the participants had the opportunity to showcase their projects. The Peninsula spoke to a cross section of teams about their work and experience with AIA. 

Mohammad Haweeleh, a student at Jordanian Institute of Science and Technology, and his team mates have developed a prototype for a device to help people with hearing disability to cross the road. ‘Around half million people in the world have hearing disability. They try to cross the road and have no idea what is happening around as they can only see but not hear vehicles honking from behind. Our solution to this problem is to build a device with artificial intelligence that can be kept in the pocket. It will listen to certain signals and send notifications and get the attention of the person while crossing the road, said Haweeleh. He described the experience with AIA as ‘amazing days of learning.

 AIA cultivates a mindset of innovation among young people to challenge the world’s biggest problems problems that affect one billion lives every day.

Basit Abass is from Ghana and studying at University College of Qatar. His team with an aim to protect the environment has developed a concept to make paper from lime stones. ‘We are hopeful that our idea will be welcomed by companies, he said.

 According to Abbas the learning experience with AIA was ‘fantastic as it has helped him to think out of the box.

 AIA 2020 gathered more than 40 mentors and coaches, with some coming from the US, the UK, European Union, and Singapore, in addition to the regional and local mentors.

Gregoire Quemener, a marketing student, has come to AIA from France and his team ‘Sub Earth’ has developed  prototype of a plug in for glasses that displays real-time subtitles of what people talk.

 ‘I choose to apply for to AIA because the program module impressed me. Over the days the experience was very good, it was great to learn from different mentors, said Quemener.

 AIA is the largest entrepreneurship boot-camp of its kind in the region. It is a collaboration between QSTP and the European Innovation Academy (EIA) and the hands-on entrepreneurship programme will introduce participants to an accelerated mode of experiential learning, including how to develop and launch a tech startup in a real marketplace with customer feedback.
 

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