Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation Receives 143 Applications for its ‘Sawaed’ Programme 

Business Concepts from 17 Arab Countries Compete for the Grants 

Dubai-UAE: 10 February, 2010 – The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation announced today that it has stopped accepting applications for the 2009/2010 cycle of its ‘Sawaed’ programme, which seeks to support and develop the capabilities of talented entrepreneurs across the Arab World through awarding non-refundable grants to projects that make a positive contribution to the region's growth. The Foundation has received a total of 143 project concepts from 17 Arab countries seeking eligibility for the grants offered. 

The new cycle of Sawaed 2009/2010 was announced in October 2009, where the Foundation revealed that the challenge fund would retain its Online Arabic Content Challenge, inviting ideas that leverage information and communication technology (ICT). The scope of ‘Sawaed’ was broadened to also include a new category on Child Development and Education opening the contest to start-ups and early stage companies that place education and child development at the core of their operations. 

The programme attracted the largest number of applications from Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Palestine, and evoked extensive interest from countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania.  

Sultan Lootah, Executive Director - Entrepreneurship Development at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation said: “As one of our pilot initiatives, Sawaed seeks to promote business excellence, empower young Arabs to innovate, and facilitate job creation in the region. We are delighted with the response received by the programme, which validates the willingness of the private sector to rise to the challenge of developing unique ways for creating and sharing knowledge in the Arab World.” 

“It is a well known fact that investing in child development has a positive impact on the social and economic development of a nation. The Arab World faces a major challenge in providing high quality early education. It is a segment that needs to be addressed if we are to develop an effective human capital capable of contributing productively to the development of the region. The inclusion of a new category for Sawaed 2009/2010 comes out of our commitment to tackling problems at the grassroots level.”  

Launched by the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation in June 2008 as a ‘challenge fund’, Sawaed encourages businesses to compete for funding in response to specific regional development goals. Each year, the programme aims to promote a regional challenge and invite businesses to submit competitive project concepts dedicated to addressing the challenge. Sawaed 2008 / 2009 received 131 submissions from 16 countries. The Sawaed programme offers grants ranging from AED 100,000 to AED 1 million.  

Finalists qualifying for the second round of the Sawaed challenge fund will be notified by March 9th, and requested to provide detailed information of their submitted project concepts before April 22nd. Winners will be announced on May 30th.