Al Khashti with Zain and AU officials during the forum’s opening ceremony

 

Zain showcases efforts to foster thriving local entrepreneurship ecosystem

Company supported Australian University’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum

 

Kuwait, 21 April 2024

Zain announced its support to the Australian University’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum, entitled “Lead Your Future”. The event offered a unique space for the university’s students to present their creative ideas and innovative business projects, empowering them to enter the local entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Zain joined the forum’s opening ceremony, attended by President of the Australian University Professor Isam Zabalawi, Zain Kuwait Chief Corporate Affairs and Relations Officer Waleed Al Khashti, Manager of the Australian University’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center Dr. Bashayer Al Khalifah, along with university officials and Zain Kuwait’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship team.

Zain’s support to this forum springs from its strong belief in the crucial role such platforms play in empowering young aspiring minds, guiding them towards shaping their own future. By encouraging young people to pursue their business aspirations, they become confident to enter the thriving local entrepreneurship ecosystem and bring their ideas to life, eventually leading to profitable, sustainable startups.

 

Al Khashti showcased Zain’s contributions to support innovation and entrepreneurship

 

During the forum, Zain showcased its journey to support entrepreneurship, which began 14 years ago with its award-winning Zain Great Idea startup accelerator program. Since then, the program helped accelerate hundreds of startups, many of them now own thriving businesses, not just in the Kuwaiti market, but across the region. In the past 24 months alone, startups that joined ZGI raised over $17.6 million of investments.

Last year, ZGI was recognized with the E-Business Award from the prestigious Entrepreneur Middle East magazine. Zain’s program was awarded ‘Ecosystem Enabler of the Year’ to acknowledge the company’s ever-growing endeavors in accelerating the regional tech startups ecosystem and empowering entrepreneurs in Kuwait and the region.

Zain also strongly believes that innovation is at the heart of any startup’s success, and without nurturing it, businesses cannot truly grow. For this, the company launched its Innovation Nation initiative, which encompasses all of Zain’s innovation and entrepreneurship programs, with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) areas.

The initiative targets young people and entrepreneurs and aims to foster a digitally capable generation with the skillsets required by modern markets. Through Zain’s many fruitful collaborations with local, regional, and international partners, Innovation Nation presented tens of programs to upskill youth and prepare them for STEM careers and entrepreneurship paths. So far, almost 6000 young people benefited from this initiative.

Under this initiative, Zain signed partnerships with the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) and Sabah Al Ahmad Center for Giftedness and Creativity (SACGC) – a KFAS center, to elevate the digital literacy of the youth, empower creativity and innovation, and enhance the local startup ecosystem. The partnerships also aim to accelerate capacity building, upskill national talents in the private sector, grow research & development in innovation, enable social enterprises, and empower local entrepreneurs.

In addition, Zain and SACGC became the official Kuwait Country Partners of Beban, the regional entrepreneur reality TV show, joining forces to include and enable Kuwaiti entrepreneurs’ participation in the third season of the show, which aired in January 2024.