How to make a tycoon: Injaz UAE, Tejar Dubai, Boeing join forces

In line with Dubai’s vision to promote a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation, Injaz UAE, a member of Junior Achievement Worldwide (JAW), Tejar Dubai, a Dubai Chamber initiative, and Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, have joined forces to launch the Start-Up Bridge Program.

Designed to be a bridge for potential entrepreneurs, the program provides youth with the support they need to take their creative ideas and turn them into viable business options.

With support primarily focussed on inspiring youth to consider creating a business as a career option, Injaz UAE identified a critical gap in the current entrepreneurial ecosystem. The transition from a student idea inspired by organisations like Injaz UAE to becoming a real potential entrepreneur is a rocky road and one that few have focussed on.

As a result, the not-for-profit organization and Boeing have come together  to create a program that addresses this need and launched the ‘Start Up Bridge’ Program for the first time in the UAE in partnership with Tejar Dubai.

Hisham Al Shirawi, second vice-chairman, Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: “Entrepreneurship is the backbone of Dubai’s economic framework. Dubai has always supported small and medium enterprises with its business-friendly environment and state-of-the-art infrastructure, offering a favourable atmosphere for budding enterprises to thrive. Through its Tejar Dubai initiative, Dubai Chamber aims to train entrepreneurial talents and transform innovative business ideas into ventures that are economically feasible and capable of withstanding the tests of the marketplace. Mentoring young people at each stage is critical if we are to see young start-ups succeed in the long term. To do this, we must create a pipeline whereby the private sector and government organisations provide sustained support. The Start-Up Bridge is designed to do exactly that through our collaboration with Boeing and Injaz UAE.”

The Start-Up Bridge program offers carefully selected entrepreneurial youth, each with up to four members, seed funding and professional training through specialised mentorship for 4-6 months. The program will be helping viable ideas from young minds come to fruition and ultimately contribute toward economic development of the UAE.

Upon completion of the Start-Up Bridge training program, Tejar Dubai will identify five projects to deploy each year offering further support and guidance through incubation as well as investment opportunities.

“Educating and inspiring young people across the region is a critical focus for Boeing in the Middle East. Governments are looking to diversification and economic sustainability, and our partnership with Injaz across the region will help develop the future entrepreneurs that bring to life this long-term strategy. The collaboration between ourselves, Injaz UAE and Tejar Dubai gives young Emirati entrepreneurs the perfect partner and catalyst to help turn their ideas into a reality,” added Bernard Dunn, president of Boeing Middle East, North Africa and Turkey.

In 2015, Injaz UAE and Tejar Dubai launched a partnership to enhance entrepreneurship education and develop youth’s entrepreneurial skills through five Junior Achievement entrepreneurial training programs and activities. These programs instill in youth (under 24 years of age) key business skills and nurture entrepreneurial minds at an early age.

The capstone program under this partnership is the JA Company Program, whereby university student teams turn their classrooms into entrepreneurial projects as they organise and operate actual enterprising companies to learn about real life business processes and functions. It ends with an annual competition, and this year with the Boeing sponsored Start-Up Bridge program, the top entrepreneurial candidates who completed the program in past years, will be selected to take their ideas to the next level.

The program will achieve this by providing youth with access to an extensive structured pre-incubation program that includes on-site training, mentoring with business experts, as well as networking opportunities with local and international business leaders.

Commenting on the launch, Sulaf Saleh Al Zu’bi, CEO of Injaz UAE said: “With the UAE developing in to a thriving hot-bed for young start-ups, there is a need to ensure the long-term economic success of early companies. However, whilst there are a number of school and university level programs that encourage entrepreneurship and, later down the line funding opportunities, there are limited programs that effectively ‘bridge’ the gap between conception and reality. The Start-Up Bridge Program seeks to close the ‘circle’ and ensure that young people are provided with the right support during each stage of the business development process.”
 

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