SMEs

Meta has teamed up for the second year with leading regional creative agency, TBWA\RAAD, to launch #LoveLocal consumer campaign on Facebook and Instagram during the holiday season. Aiming to amplify the voice of local small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in MENA region and inspire people to rethink the significance of their individual action, #LoveLocal brings together local influencers, content creators, and communities to support SMBs across the region.

Leading UAE-based founders praised the nation’s startup ecosystem, and the ease of access and support it provides to dreamers with big ideas of change during a panel session ‘Charting a new course: Entrepreneurs as Changemakers’ on the opening day (Monday) of the 5th edition of Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival (SEF 2021), organised by the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center (Sheraa).

“Aqdar Bootcamp” an initiative launched by GADHA Foundation has recently enabled 10 innovative projects established by young Emirati talents to enter the business market, during the latest edition of “Aqdar World Summit” which concluded recently.

As the UAE prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary this December, the upcoming Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival (SEF 2021) is set to take a closer look at the factors influencing the country’s start-up sector growth over the next 50 years. The event will see H.E. Dr. Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, UAE Minister of State for Entrepreneurship and SMEs lead a keynote discussion titled ’50 Years of the UAE: The Progress of a Nation’, which will be moderated by the co-founder of Careem, Magnus Olsson, on November 22, the first day of SEF 2021. The two will also discuss the ever-increasing role and impact of the start-up sector on the growth of the UAE, and the importance of creating the entrepreneurs of tomorrow through adapting the education system of today.

As part of the 18th edition, held under the theme ‘The Future Starts Now’, Abu Dhabi Festival announced the graduation of the first cohort of the Young Philanthropists Programme, which was launched in partnership with the University of Cambridge’s new Centre for Strategic Philanthropy. The programme empowers emerging philanthropists from the GCC and MENA region to solve social and environmental issues through strategic philanthropy.

Ranked seventh of the Top 10 MENA startup ecosystems by ‘Performance’, the emirate of Sharjah has been recognized by the 2021 Global Startup Ecosystem Report (GSER) as a high-growth entrepreneurial ecosystem. This achievement marks a milestone in the emirate’s vision of becoming a world-class startup hub.