The MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) of the Pan Arab Region announced the winners of the 10th MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Startup Competition in a final award ceremony held at Bahrain’s International Circuit on the 27th of April.

Egyptian teams were big winners in the competition in all three tracks, startups, social entrepreneurship and ideas, followed by teams from Lebanon, Jordan and UAE.

The ceremony welcomed public figures, investors, media personnel and business entrepreneurs from across the globe.  

This year’s competition was organized in partnership with Community Jameel, Zain Group and Tamkeen, an organization tasked with developing Bahrain's private sector.

Prior to the final award ceremony, the 74 semi-finalists from 11 Arab countries underwent a round of training and presented their work over a three-day period to a jury that brought together key inventors and business people from the Arab world.  

Blink App (Egypt) won first place in the ideas track, taking home $15,000, followed by SpicaTech Academy (Lebanon) as the 1st runner up and Nano Green Hub (Egypt) as the 2nd runner up.  

The winner in the social entrepreneurship track was Kiliim (Egypt) with a prize worth $50,000, the 1st runner up was Mind Rockets (Jordan) and 2nd runner up was Carpolo (Lebanon).

Money Fellows (Egypt) won first place in the startups track taking home $50,000, followed by Trukker (UAE) and Riego (Lebanon).   

Aside from the monetary rewards, the winners will also benefit from advanced training sessions, personal mentorship and guidance, as well as receiving a great deal of media coverage and excellent networking opportunities.

During the ceremony, Hala Fadel, chair of the board of MITEF Pan Arab said, “It is time to invest more in the infrastructure that helps young people to hone and develop their entrepreneurial ideas,stressing the importance of utilizing technological innovation towards the modernization and development of tools that enable entrepreneurs to create technological solutions”.

“We are so proud to gather the best entrepreneurs from the Arab region, for them to learn from each other and from the global ecosystem. We insist on technology and innovation as one of the main drivers going forward for entrepreneurship in the Arab region,” said Dr. Nasser Qaedi, planning and business development executive director at Tamkeen. 

Feature Image via MITEF