CAIRO: Injaz wrapped up its fourth annual young entrepreneurs competition, with the three winning teams receiving support for their innovative ventures. The top three teams of the “Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Competition” were Inplast, Hamza and Kolena Egaby. Inplast, first place winner, will move on to the regional level competition. In total, 400 students from universities around Egypt representing 16 teams met to showcase their entrepreneurial ventures to a panel of executives from the private sector. Sherif Kamel, founding dean of the School of Business at the American University of Cairo and professor of information management systems, told Daily News Egypt that “the competition focuses on two key aspects to success: innovation and entrepreneurship.” The teams that demonstrated the best ideas were the ones that had complementary components, with members that had backgrounds in management, finance and technical areas, he explained. He also said that some teams had a more economic focus while others aimed to have a social impact. Hamza, which took the Young Innovators of the Year Award, is a company that sells a system of straps that are hooked under an object, allowing users to slips their arms through loops to support and move heavy objects such as furniture. The company claims that 66 percent of an object's weight is reduced due to its unique design. The device will sell for LE 50, of which LE 38 represents costs, and the remaining LE 12 is left over in profit, Mohammed Ali, Hamza sales and public relations team member, explained. “We will use the profits for new packaging to better market our product and to increase production,” he said. Ali also mentioned that his company strives to engage in corporate social responsibility by hiring poorer community members to take part in the production side of the business. Through the competition, Ali said he learned how to work as part of a team, but more concretely, how to develop a business plan, as well as sales and public relations skills. “Next, we will begin to sell our product in stores in the Cairo area,” he said. Kolena Egaby — which means “we are all positive” in English — took home the Young Social Entrepreneurs of the Year Award. The company offers a training program, consisting of games and activities, and interactive literature to teach children how to think positively. Our goal, Amir Magdi, CEO of Kolen Egaby, told Daily News Egypt, is to “create a paradigm shift” in children's thinking and approach to life. Two companies that took part last year and now run successful operations were present to provide inspiration to this year's teams. One of them was Adam El-Sherif, co-founder of Zerzura, an ecotourism company which seeks to build a bond between tourists and Bedouins through education. Also present was last year's winner, Customized & Promote, which sells bags with multi-functionality — a bag, a pillow and a tray to put on one's knees when using a laptop to protect the user from the heat generated — represented by its CEO Abd El-Hamid Ahmed. “We didn't win last year, but we learned from our mistakes thanks to the competition and we continued on,” El-Sherif affirmed. Now Zerzura has managed to line up a contract to merge with Leotours, a local Egyptian tourism company, but will continue to operate in the same way despite merging with a larger company. Merging, El-Sherif said, will “allow us to continue on our path, but will give us the financial and legal support that we need to grow.” When asked what he learned most from the competition, El-Sherif quickly responded, “you don't need to work for the government.” Naguib Sawiris, CEO of Orascom Telecom, who spoke at the event, gave words of encouragement to the young entrepreneurs and dissuaded any career in the public sector. “Don't work for the government, because those that do are afraid of being fired and are unsure of the skills that they posses,” he said. The winning team will represent Egypt at the Injaz Al-Arab Regional Company Competition, which will be held in Morocco in October of this year and will coincide with the World Economic Forum. The top three teams will now be allowed to “incubate their businesses within partner companies” that have offered to serve as mentors to help students register and launch their ventures until they are fully independent, Injaz explained. The competition was sponsored the Ministry of Higher Education and endorsed by private sector organizations such as Mobinil and ExxonMobil as well as the other organizations such as the United Nations Development Program.
