The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) held the second MIT Business Plan Competition in the Arab World and the first prize was jointly shared by a team of entrepreneurs from the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The award, which is designed to encourage entrepreneurs in the region to start their own companies and, ultimately, create a platform for viable businesses in the Middle East, was given away at a ceremony held at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai recently.
While the UAE-based team won for their project that offers short-term loans for medical procedures that are not covered under insurance, the Saudi Arabian team was awarded for their project involving the development of a web-mail application to rank all emails in order of their perceived importance.
Apart from the $50,000 (Dh183,525) prize money which the two teams will share among themselves, the winners will also be invited to participate in the MIT Global Startup Workshop Forum, organised by the MIT Enterprise Forum Inc, in Massachusetts, US.
The MIT Enterprise Forum, located on the MIT campus in Cambridge, was founded by the MIT Alumni Association in 1978 as a non-profit and volunteer-driven organisation, which builds connections to technology entrepreneurs and to communities in which they reside, as well as produces a series of educational programmes about entrepreneurship through its network of 24 worldwide chapters.
The second prize of $10,000 was bagged by a team from Egypt, which cultivated fertiliser from rice straw and the third prize of $5,000 was bagged by a Jordanian team for developing a website that helps bloggers raise capital to improve website performance.
For this year's competition, 1,650 applications were received and 5,000 people from 17 Arab countries were involved. The equivalent of the MIT Arab Business Plan Competition in the US, called the MIT $100K Competition, has created a number of leading firms and thousands of jobs and the organisers of the contest in the region hope it will have the same impact here.
Talking to Emirates Business, Hala Fadel, Chair of the MIT Arab Business Plan Award, who was instrumental in bringing this competition to the region, said: "This competition, which has been held in the US for the last 20 years, has been very instrumental in boosting the economy in Boston and has facilitated the birth of more than 120 companies with an aggregate exit value of $2.5 billion captured and a market cap of more than $10bn. These companies have generated more than 2,500 jobs and received $700m in Venture Capital funding.
"Many of these companies have been extremely successful. Recent IPOs have included Akamai, net.Genesis and C-Bridge Internet Solutions. Success stories include Zipcar, Actuality Systems, Frictionless Commerce, SensAble Technologies, Stylus Innovation, Virtmed and Virtual Ink.
"We hope this kind of success will be replicated in this region, too. During challenging economic times it is critical that we create a platform for this new generation of talented, high-energy, hard working group of men and women."
Talking about how the competition came to the region, Fadel said: "When I was studying in MIT, 10 years ago, I participated in the MIT $100K Competition and won. It exposed me to a whole lot of people related to the business world, which changed the way I saw the business world. Then I moved to Lebanon five years ago and wanted to replicate the same experience here. I wanted to ignite the spirit of entrepreneurship in the region and create a can-do attitude here. MIT?supported my idea and the competition was set up three years ago."
Going into what the competition entails and what the judges look for in the winning team, Fadel said: "All projects have to be presented by a team of at least three people. This is because a business is not a one-man show. It needs different skills to run and for an entrepreneur to go far, he has to have people with the right skills on board. Then out of the three, at least two of them should be Arab nationals, because the idea is to boost entrepreneurship in the region. Next the business concept must be implemented in a country within the Arab World.
"When deciding the winner there are three things the judges keep in mind – The team should be passionate about what they are doing; the business idea should have an impact on the region. It should be a value-adding innovative industry that can not only be set up here but one that will bring talented people to the region. Next, it should be an idea which can be accepted globally and spread from here to the rest of the region and eventually the world."
Giving an insight into his first prize winning healthcare venture, the entrepreneur from the UAE, Dr Michael Matly, CEO and Co-founder of Hayati Healthcare, said: "Hayati, which means 'life' in Arabic, is a healthcare venture that provides loans for elective and non-elective medical procedures, which are not covered by medical insurance firms. We launched this venture here in March 2009. While good healthcare is available here it is quite expensive and some of the procedures are not paid for by the insurance companies. In the UAE alone, more than 70 per cent of the healthcare expense is being paid by the people themselves. We offer loans for elective and non-elective procedures such as dental and orthodontics, Lasik eye surgery, plastic and cosmetic surgery, cosmetic dermatology, hair transplants, fertility treatments, obesity treatments, cardiovascular surgeries and maternity among many others.
"We work directly with patients to provide loans they need and a suitable doctor/clinic within our network of physicians and healthcare providers. Patients can now avail of procedures and healthcare that they previously could not afford through a simple online application and approval process, affordable rates and terms, and compassionate customer service.
"We have gone to great lengths to ensure that the application process for patients is simple, accessible and confidential. We were able to achieve this by investing in a pioneering web-portal, which is a first-of-its-kind in this region, ensuring a highly efficient and user-friendly customer experience. Patients can go to our website and apply online for their patient financing needs, search through our network of healthcare providers and learn more about the services we offer at Hayati.
"We provide patients with loans at an interest rate of 1 to 1.2 per cent per month, which can be paid over a period of one year or four years, depending on the terms of the loan. We can provide them loans up from a minimum amount of Dh14,000 to a maximum of Dh250,000.
"Since we launched we have provided loans for mainly dental procedures, cosmetic surgery, non-elective gastric bypasses, hair transplant and orthodontic procedures."
Talking about the plans for the future, Matly said: "We hope we will become a complimentary service provider to the UAE's medical tourism industry. However, the UAE is just the beginning, we plan to expand this service to other parts of the region too and India. too. Soon we plan to have such a vast network that if a person from Lebanon wants to take a loan they have opted to get done in a hospital in the UAE, then, all they have to do is visit our office in their country and get a loan approved."
Talking about how the idea for this service came up he said: "After finishing my medical studies I went to Harvard Business School and did research on healthcare financing, which is a big business in the US, but not here. While in the US, I met Jim Donavan who is the pioneer of business there. He became my mentor and his business model and ideas inspired me to do something similar in this region.
"I met my business partner Tariq S El-Titi while I was in the second year of business school, and after mulling over the idea for this busisness since 2006, we finally started working on it in 2007 and opened it up here in 2009, after tailoring it according to the needs of the region."
Matly and his business partner Tariq El-Titi are working with the Dubai Government to revamp the healthcare system.
The benefits of Hayati are not limited to just the patients but also to healthcare clinics and banks who are embracing Hayati as it also provides them with enhanced value. The clinics can expand their patient volumes, service offerings and receive full payments up-front, whereas banks will be able to diversify their capital into new segments such as healthcare.
"I think it is very important for people, especially entrepreneurs, who belong to the region and who have been educated in the West to come back to the region and start businesses here that will take the region's economy forward," said the Lebanese-American doctor who grew up in the US and returned to work in the UAE.
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