Cairo – Ashraf AboArafe
UK-funded StartEgypt programme has just completed a discovery mission for the country’s future entrepreneurs, touring nine Egyptian cities as part of its road shows and its female founders’ workshop. Start Egypt experts from Flat6Labs partnered with Techne Drifts and Entreprenelle and headed to Alexandria, Port Said, Assuit, Sohag, Suez, Mansoura, Tanta, Luxor, and Aswan.
In November 2017, the British Embassy in Cairo partnered with IFC and Flat6labs, offering a GBP 2 million, around EGP 47 million, grant to inspire and support thousands of Egyptian entrepreneurs through a number of entrepreneurial support services, awareness activities and a unique incubation program.
The StartEgypt road shows and workshops focused on building the resilience and know-how of future entrepreneurs to help them start their own business, attract investments, and face potential challenges. During its tour, Start Egypt offered incubation opportunities to the best new social enterprise ideas.
The programme also offered financial prizes at its latest competition in Alexandria, which took place at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
· First prize, worth EGP 7,000 , went to GreenAlex: a start-up aimed at collecting and recycling used cooking oil, plastics and paper.
· Second prize, worth EGP 5,000 , went to Materials Solved: a start-up developing software engineering, data analysis, computer graphics, and art to transform very complex scientific ideas to animations and illustrations.
· Third prize, worth EGP 3,000 , went to La Verte: a start-up providing an online platform providing fresh and healthy food catering service.
Ambassador John Casson said: “The future of the Egyptian economy is not just traditional companies and it is not just Cairo. Egyptian talent is found all over Egypt and that’s why we decided to go looking for them. StartEgypt is looking for the next big thing in the world of Entrepreneurship. Planning to provide future Egyptian entrepreneurs with advice, exposure and finance, StartEgypt is turning those who have brilliant social enterprise ideas to the champions of the inclusive economy of Egypt.”
IFC Country Manager for Egypt, Libya and Yemen Walid Labadi said: “Supporting innovation and entrepreneurship across Egypt is vital to boost economic development and improve lives. Start Egypt, the outcome of our partnership with Flat6Labs, is raising awareness about this across the country and is helping entrepreneurs overcome the financial obstacles and realize their potential.”
Flat6Labs’ Programme Director of Start Egypt Hassan Mansi said: “Throughout my StartEgypt road show journey, I found that young Egyptians have became fully aware of their local communities’ problems and are working on developing ideas and start-ups to solve them. That was very inspiring and it pointed that the economic growth of this country’s near future will come from this specific sector, start-ups and SMEs.”
Over 1,200 applicants have applied to join the incubation programme of Start Egypt. For more information, please visit http://www.startegypt.com/
About Entreprenelle:
A female-led organization designed to help female founders take their first steps towards actualizing their business idea or start-up.
About Techne Drifts:
Techne is a platform for a group of initiatives that support tech and tech-enabled start-up ecosystems around the Mediterranean region.
