Technology Business Plan Competition Award ceremony organized by PICTI

The ceremony was under the patronage of Dr. Sabri Saidam, President Mahmoud Abbas advisor for Telecom, IT and Technical Education.

The ceremony was attended by PICTI members of the board of directors and the information technology association of companies as well as the executive staff of PITA and PICTI in honouring the competition participants.

The competition was sponsored by Intel with a dedicated cash awards that were distributed over 18 winning projects in West Bank and Gaza, with Mr. Bassem Hadaydeh won the top prize for his 'e-Drive' business plan. The competition was also launched in cooperation with the Centers of Excellence at four Palestinian universities including Birzeit, An Najah, Polytechnic and Islamic University.

At his welcoming note, Dr. Sabri Saidam hoped that there will be prospects for these business plans to be transformed to reality to better serve the citizen and community thus raising national economy. Moreover, Dr. Sabri thanked Intel for its sponsorship, all partners and co-organizers for organizing the competition.

Dr. Sabri Said that "It's up to the youth and entrepreneurs to build the future," trusting the Palestinian youth energy and capabilities, Dr. Sabri pointed that "There is no life with despair and us Palestinians are not a frustrated community, but rather we are a more productive community."

In an interview with Ms. Rula Habash, Intel Corporate Affairs Manager for Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon, has declared in an earlier statement that the goal of Intel's sponsorship for this competition is to raise technology entrepreneurship and innovation culture in Palestine, specifically among universities and student community in general as means of creating high growth businesses that may tend to start small.

The Business Plan Contest is part of Intel Higher Education Program that brings cutting-edge technology expertise to universities, encourages students to pursue technical degrees, and helps move technology out of university labs and into local communities.

Ms. Habash talked how Intel is working within the US Palestinian Partnership (UPP) to ensure speedy ICT development in Palestine through education. She added that the Competition compliments the 'Theory to Practice' technology entrepreneurship seminar that took place in Ramallah on July 7th and 8th of 2008 and presented by two Professors from the Lester Center at the University of Berkeley.

Mr. Ihab Jabari has pointed out that this competition comes as part of the general strategy of PITA to develop entrepreneurship in Palestine. Hence, encouraging youth to take the lead & jumping through the hoops in Palestine. Mr. Maher Hamdan have shared his experiences as the Executive of the Paltrade with the audience the exporting services to the region, including software development and technology outsourcing, is a great opportunity for the national economy.

Mr. Laith Kassis at PICTI commended Intel for their role in supporting the competition. He added that. PICTI's focused mission is to support technology entrepreneurship in the ICT sector, whereby "The Technology Business Plan Competition project is an educational tool to specifically raise technology entrepreneurship awareness, increase competitiveness amongst university students and community in general, in addition to taking the first steps in commercializing innovative ideas to be running as start-up companies in the near future."

Mr. Kassis highlighted the important participation by the Gaza community to bring its innovations forward to the competition despite the difficult situation that they are facing.

During the event, Eng. Hasan Omar gave an overview of PICTI and its success stories. He also featured presentation about the Intel sponsored competition.

Mr. Omar pointed that 78 projects were received from which 15 student business plans were awarded cash prizes from An-Najah University, Birzeit University, Polytechnic Palestine University and the Islamic University in Gaza and 3 business plan were awarded to entrepreneurs from the community Mr. Omar hopes to link the winning projects with seed financing sources to be incubated through different initiatives at PICTI as start-up companies.

It is also worth mentioning that the Business Incubator in Gaza has organized an award ceremony in Gaza in parallel to the event in Ramallah in order to announce the winners and award the cash prizes to the winners.