Khalifa Fund announces qualification of 14 ideas as part of Ibtikari Initiative for mobile phone applications

"The Fund received 126 business ideas specialized in designing the smart mobile phones applications in tourism sector for about 82 Emiratis participated in the initiative. Groups have been formed to develop and manage the idea and to create the business plan, those groups were benefited from the training workshops organized by Khalifa Fund," said Al Darmaki.

"The Fund will provide all sort of supports needed to the success of any technical project which comply with the Fund's financial conditions, and we are wish the success to all. The Fund aims to instill the values of entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity for the different society segments and to encourage them to adopt those concepts in a continuous behavior when they are establishing new business", added Al Darmaki.

"During the past years the Fund was able to achieve lots of important achievements in spreading the spirit of entrepreneurship and to encourage the different society segments to innovate through the different programs were organized or sponsored by the Fund since it's launching in 2007. The Fund will continue its efforts to spread the culture of entrepreneurship by offering and supporting events and activities that supported the innovation among the Emiratis," added Al Darmaki.

"The Fund is very keen to contribute in enabling the Emirati, increase his efficiency, encourage his abilities and discover his talents which will support the growth of UAE. The information technology sector is one of the promising investments fields despite the hard competitions from the foreign big companies," said Al Darmaki.

On the other hand, Mrs. Fatema Mohamed Al Muhairi the Manager in Entrepreneurship Development Department in Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development said "The owners of the qualified ideas are 35 Emiratis who joined 5 days workshop, which includes training in the preparation of visibility studies in addition to practical training in the marketing and technical sides".

"The ideas were filtered by voting system into 22 unique ideas which were referred to an evaluation committee which includes experts from Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and Technology Development Committee where 11 ideas were selected," added Mrs. Al Muhairi.

"The Committee revised the ideas which were not selected by voting and they re-evaluate them and combine the similar ideas, which end up having 14 ideas", explained Mrs. Al Muhairi.

Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development launched Ibtikari initiative back in mid of January 2013 aiming to encourage the youths for innovation and creativity in the information technology field and to design the smart phones applications.

Khalifa Fund contacted the Emiratis males and females in more than 34 government & semi-government entities as well as the students of 4 national universities to participate in this initiative which received a positive feedback and more than 200 Emiratis registered.