PICTI holds Business Plan Contest 2006/2007 award ceremony

The Palestine Information and Communications Technology Incubator - PICTI was successful in launching the first business plan contest in Palestine. The design of the Contest was posted on PICTI's Web site and included the Contest information pack. Furthermore, the evaluation criteria and prizes were promoted in the local news papers, on PICTI's Web site, and over technology special interest groups email lists. Further promotion activities included conducting several workshops at PICTI premises, at AnNajah and Bethlehem Universities to campaign for this Contest as well as going over the elements of a business plan and financial model.

26 business plans were submitted to the PICTI by the deadline date of 28th of February, 2007.
These business plans were evaluated independently. The judging was conducted by an independent panel of professionals and local experts in the fields of business, telecommunication, marketing, management and internet business models.

There were seven winning teams. Three teams are named finalists in the 2006/07 Business Plan Competition.Furthermore, one member of each team making it to the fourth, fifth and seventh positions respectively have also won a trip to visit the COMIT Exhibition in Qatar.

The winning teams were announced on Thursday, April 26, 2007 at an awards ceremony that was held at PICTI premises in Al-Bireh. This event was attended by distinguished guests from the public, donor community and private sectors.

In his opening statement Mr. Jamil Daher, PICTI Chairman advised that "The early design of the Contest was intended to encourage innovative thinking and entrepreneurship amongst Palestinian students and professionals leading to introduction of ideas that can be used in the business and industries. It was an innovative way to recognize Palestinian entrepreneurs who have mature concepts for unique and innovative ICT products assessed to have strong market potential and in time to incubate these ideas into profitable businesses. This contest was part of awareness program on incubation at PICTI and its mission to commercialize ideas and establish new SME in the IT sector."

Mr. Jamil Daher, added that "start-up and early stage companies play a pivotal role in the future well-being of the ICT sector in Palestine, and this business plan competition provides an excellent way for existing and emerging entrepreneurs to participate."

Mr. Laith Kassis, PICTI's General Manager "The culture and taboo of failure has to be ironed out. Learning from mistakes, the entrepreneur that had failed twice will have a better chance to succeed the third time. PICTI is in the business to nurture and mentor these entrepreneurs as well. The real value of creating a business plan contest is not in having the finished product in hand; rather, the value for entrepreneurs lies in the process of researching and thinking about a business in a systematic way. The act of planning helps an entrepreneur to research and look at the idea critically. Business plan may take time now, but it avoids costly mistakes later."

During the event, Mr. Kassis introduced the attendees to the life cycle of financing new information technology start-up companies and highlighted the challenge to cover the equity gap related to proof of concept and seed stages.

Mr. Kassis also presented the concepts of the winners. The winners presented trendy and niche technology inventions. Two promising prototypes included a device that transforms sound waves to electrical charges that has been developed by a junior female physics student from Birzeit University. Another software prototype is head recognition security system that was developed by a female student graduated from Jordanian tertiary system. PICTI's preliminary research indicated that these inventions are still under research and development stages in the Western world as well.

The business plan contest also introduced new innovations. The business plan participants that can be descrived as ambitious entrepreneurs have introduced new ideas that would create a desired future economic change either to products, business processes or services when it is realized either by increasing customer or producer value. The participants' innovation was intended to make someone better off and to solve a problem in the market place as identified by these entrepreneurs.

For example, new innovations were presented to effect economic change throughout the business chain in the Palestinian stock market by means of harnessing mobile technologies. Another idea is to disseminate education material based on Open Source Technologies on flash memory cards. Another business opportunity was presented by an existing entrepreneur to develop a real estate management system to the ever growing real estate industry in the Gulf region. The entrepreneur has some prospective clients even lined up for the envisioned product. Other areas of interest demonstrated by entrepreneurs involved an early prototype of GIS software that can work well with all levels of governments as a planning tool for infrastructure. The best business plan presented and the first award went to innovation involving mobile technology platforms that would make the interface experience much user friendly and convenient to end users that promises higher usage of video, voice and multimedia services.

Other innovative ideas participated in the contest that did not win a prize, but should not go unnoticed; include multimedia products about the history of Jerusalem and vocational training coaching.

Eng. Hasan Omar "Winners and non-winners alike will be asked to sign up for the pre-incubation program at PICTI for further business plan consultations and for the purpose of preparing investment briefs."

The Business Plan Contest Awards launched by PICTI for 2006/07 were sponsored by the infoDev program for incubation in developing countries. PICTI management will be soliciting new sponsors for future rounds for this contest.