80 teams entered AUC’s product innovation competition The Hit, but only 5 made it to the final stage.  The 5 teams confirmed they will continue their project regardless of the competition result. Here are their details: 

Tweeshirt: Won EGP 50,000 ($8,000) grand prize, and retail space on Souq.com.
Muhammad Bassyouny, Ali El Azhary, Kamal El Soueni
“Wear What You Think”. Select tweet(s), t-shirt colour and size, and tweeshirt will print the tweets onto the shirt and deliver it to your door.  In the future they plan to add mugs and other stuff to the product line.
New for Egypt, expect more of these custom printing start-ups to pop up, as this is an easy to copy idea.

Farila: Won Judges’ Prize of Souq.com incubation.
Farida Abd El-Nabi and Fadila Abd-Elaal
A lady’s shoe with a retractable heel. Catering for ladies who like the high heel look but also want a comfortable shoe, without carrying around an extra pair of “flats.” I’ll be interested to see if they can get around the structural problems, because the angles of the front and back of high-heeled shoe are different from angles of a flat show.  But what do I know about ladies shoes!

Cardisdale: Won the most votes during the final ceremony, but those votes only counted for 20% of the total votes
Habiba Bakir, Lobna Mohsen, Ola El Adly, Yasmeen Khamis
Part cardigan, part “isdal” (prayer dress). This customizable garment allows women to wear a casual top that transforms into a full-body covering garment at prayer time, saving women the hassle of carrying an extra garment. I have reservations about this, simply because women who pray normally leave home wearing clothes that are suitable for praying anyway. But again, what do I know about woman's clothing, perhaps there’s a big market I’m not aware of.

Stone Bag:
Ahmed, Saleh
80% of marble production is waste.  This waste can be used to make bags, hence Stone Bag.  A clever and environmentally friendly idea. The key to success here will be how much the bag costs to produce, as the average unenvironmentally friendly consumer (the majority locally) won’t be tempted to buy if the bags cost a lot more than the alternatives.

BobArt:
Yara Galal, Mostafa Sedky, Lamis Galal
The “Bob” is “Pop” bronounced ze Arabic way. A series of customised lamp-shades with stencils of pop art images, from Western and Eastern culture, carved out of the lamp sides.  Demand is rising for modern furniture like this, but the idea is easy to copy so the team have to create a strong brand and price themselves at the top end, or flood the market at the low end.