Foundation Joins Hands with Young Arab Leaders (YAL) to Promote and Mentor Innovative Business Ideas    

Dubai-UAE: June 16, 2008 – The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation today announced the launch of ‘Sawaed’, a first of its kind programme that will challenge the private sector to develop innovative business concepts for driving the development of the Arab world.

Operating as a ‘challenge fund’, ‘Sawaed’ will encourage businesses to compete for funding in response to a specific regional development goal. Each year, the programme will promote a regional challenge and invite businesses to submit competitive project concepts dedicated to addressing the challenge.

During the launch event, which brought together over 100 business leaders, entrepreneurs and media from across the Arab world, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Sultan Lootah, Vice President- Entrepreneurship and Employment, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, and Assem O. Kabesh, CEO, Young Arab Leaders (YAL). 

According to the signed MoU, YAL, an independent, not-for-profit organization with a strong membership base across the Arab region, will leverage the experience of 30 active members who will serve as mentors and support eligible businesses across the region throughout the process of applying to the fund.

As the first initiative under the Foundation’s Entrepreneurship and Employment sector, ‘Sawaed’ seeks to promote business excellence, empower young Arabs to innovate, while facilitating job creation in the region. The  programme will award non-refundable grants of between AED100,000 to AED1 million to projects implemented by private sector entities that aim to increase the amount of high quality Arabic online content, develop and improve access to education, knowledge, and information on ICT platforms to promote Arab capabilities.

Sultan Lootah, Vice President - Entrepreneurship and Employment, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, said: “In the first phase, the Sawaed Programme will challenge the private sector to develop unique ways of creating and sharing knowledge in the Arab world through ICT. Knowledge creation and dissemination are key pillars for economic and social development in any society and should be in the Arab world as well.

“Arabic online content remains relatively low compared to other languages. In its endeavour to change this situation, the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation will join hands with the private sector and be a key partner and seek to boost the development of informative and useful online Arabic content.”

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Assem O. Kabesh, CEO, YAL, said, “YAL is proud to partner with the esteemed Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation for this unique initiative, Sawaed that reflects and echoes our YAL vision and objectives. We are pleased that our members will be a part of this programme and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of them, present here. We are aware of the responsibilities each of one of them has and appreciate the fact that they took time out of their busy schedules to be present here.

“We are certain that the ‘Sawaed’ programme will have a remarkable impact on the knowledge landscape and enable youth in the Arab World. Programmes like this will go a long way in influencing policies and overcoming development challenges in our region,” he added.

Application for Sawaed programme will open on Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation website (www.mbrfoundation.ae) starting September 1^st, 2008. Interested applicants can download and fill electronic forms of “Concept Note Proposals” and submit them online before October 12^th, 2008. Winners will be announced towards the end of March 2009.