Terrific Two!
Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival has a huge challenge ahead of them.
Read on to find out.
The last time we were at an Entrepreneurship Festival in Sharjah, it was SharjahEF in 2017.
It was a first on many counts
It was a first for LiveWire!
It was the debut edition of the festival
It was the first of its kind in Sharjah, UAE
It was our first time attending a startup festival
It exceeded expectations we didn’t know we had
Full disclosure: This isn’t a sponsored post. Our Co-Founder acquired VIP passes to attend the event. Our free lunch, ended there. We covered the event as part of media and paid for lunch, literally.
The theme for 2018 was ‘Dare to be Different’. The daring was reinforced in more ways than one as part of the event’s three tracks – ‘Dare to be Different’, ‘Dare to Innovate’ and ‘Dare to Go Global’. If you were at the event, you would have known that the sun was out in all its UAE glory daring the air conditioning too while the Wi-Fi connection was accurately named ‘Dare to Connect.’
The 2 day festival was hosted at the Sharjah Golf and Shooting Club, where it started. We couldn’t be happier about the ample parking space.
To encourage participation a ‘Youth Category’ was included. It allowed all in the age group of 18 – 25 years to register online and attend for free.
Going a step ahead, Sharjah Youth Council launched the ‘Future Entrepreneurs Lab’ at the Festival. Forward thinking on point, it addressed a significant issue in the region.
How does one decide if they are, as Gary Vaynerchuk put it, ‘Natural Entrepreneurs’?
Attending workshops, seminars or graduating from University can only do so much for a present or potential entrepreneur. How does one take the call to immerse themselves in the environment that entrepreneurs live and breathe in, 24x7, 365 days a year?
The key-note speakers, Mohamed AlAbbar, Gary Vaynerchuk, Vishen Lakhiani, Leila Janah, panel discussions including, ‘Entrepreneurship in Conflict Zones’, and Claude Silver conducting workshops, answered this in detail.
SharjahEF is the brainchild of the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center (Sheraa). They have taken the best from Year 1 and improved upon them.
Najla Al-Midfa, CEO of Sheraa, had opened the 2017 conference with the famous words,
‘Go out and tell the world - Sharjah is open for business’.
Fellow and future entrepreneurs, one year on, Sharjah is transforming into the founders hub.
The organisers, conscious of the space that was available, made use of every inch. With a number of efficient buffer areas, you could attend a part of the Festival without having to listen to the animate discussion from an on-going panel or workshop.
SharjahEF had an assortment of tickets this year. In addition to the free tickets for the youth (a significant number of them), startups could apply for a place at the Startup Village. A total of 70 startups had the chance to showcase (with a host of other benefits) in ‘Startup Package’ category for AED 500. These were sold out in no time.
With contribution from SMEs to Non-Oil GDP at 49%, the importance of cultivating the entrepreneurial spirit is undeniable. A number of government organizations had booths at the event informing attendees of on-going programs as well as on-site sign up for internship opportunities.
Sheraa showcased four of its SEED Programme graduates, with Mama’s Box walking away with a neat US $10,000 as seed money. That’s not all.
At the 100k Pitch Competition, BluePhin bagged the big prize AED 100,000 of from among the top 5 startups in the region.
SEFFY Awards, another SharjahEF feature, instituted to recognise achievements in the UAE's startup ecosystem, were awarded in three key categories.
Entrepreneur of the Year: Rami Shaar and Jad Halaoui, co-founders of Washmen,
Tech Rising Star: Digitteam, and
Sheraa Rising Star: Airspace Blockchain
Entrepreneur Middle East was a key eco-system partner for this year’s event. Their staff was on ground running. They ensured we were able to conduct interviews with nearly all the speakers we wanted to. If we couldn’t, it was either because of a cancellation or a request for no interaction with the media.
The festival was spread across an impressive space and one was never too far away from the food, the music (curated by The Green Room, another UAE startup success story) or all the startup action. It was easy to go up to and interact with people – from Mentors to Investors, which has been unique to this conference.
SharjahEF has managed to build and maintain a community atmosphere at the event.
What then is the huge challenge that we mentioned in the beginning?
It waits to be seen how this is preserved with successive editions.
As the festival came to a close, on our way out we got to speak with Najla Al Ansari, Manager of SharjahEF.
‘Congratulations! The event was a huge success. It’s over now,’ we said,
‘It isn’t’, she replied.
‘We have done our part. It’s on you now, to take the momentum and keep going.’
We couldn’t have said it any better.
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