The meeting of Badir technical incubators was held in Asharqia Chamber
Badir's program considers deploying in 9 cities and embraces 600 startups by 2020
On Monday, November 12, 2018, Asharqia Chamber held a meeting with Badir program officials with the presence of a number of businesswomen in the region.
The Business Development Advisor of Badir Technology Incubators and Accelerators,
Sally bin Saad Al-Mahfouz stressed that the biggest challenge facing entrepreneurs is not the capital, but the support team, who believe in the idea and perseverance in implementing it.
She pointed out that Badir program does not provide financing directly to entrepreneurs but connects innovators with investors.
She revealed that the program aims to spread in 9 cities and embrace 600 emerging companies by 2030.
She explained that the incubation is for a year and it can be extended, while the business accelerator is for three consecutive months that includes an intensive range of workshops and training to prepare entrepreneurs to enter the market.
She announced the holding of a training camp called "Women in Technology" in cooperation between Badir Program and the Executive Council for Businesswomen in early 2019.
During the meeting, Al-Mahfouz said since its launch in 2007 by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Badir program for incubators and technology accelerators has been one of the most important national and creative environments in the field of supporting technology-based entrepreneurship.
It is a comprehensive national program that seeks to activate and develop technical business incubators to accelerate and grow the emerging technical work in the Kingdom, which launched projects that have achieved great successes such as the implementation of "Morni" app, in which about $ 5 million was invested by investors, as well as the application of "Foodex," which supports the food sector with modern technology and won the first place in the Forbes Middle East Award in 2017.
Al Mahfouz noted that the program's services include helping the entrepreneur to access sources of finance, providing consultancy and services in the field of public relations and developing market research and promotion skills, as well as providing accounting, legal and training services and the provision of office space for the conduct of business at the headquarters of the program.
She pointed out that the program is open to all Saudi technical entrepreneurs, who have innovative technical work in the early stages, or preliminary models, or evidence of the idea of the product.
As for the steps to embrace the project, Al-Mahfouz said that it starts when the entrepreneur introduces his/her projects through the program's incubation portal. The project is then examined and matched to the initial acceptance criteria, such as the existence of a ready-made primary product and the project being technical for transmission to the Evaluation Committee, which in turn determines by its own criteria the extent of its acceptance of the project and its entry into the market.
She pointed out that the failure to accept the project by the Evaluation Committee does not mean rejection of the project, but rather the transition to the pre-incubation stage, through which work with the project owner to develop his/her project by helping to think more consciously about all the important elements of success required to establish a viable company.
Therefore, the owner of the company is able to create a special business model and able to develop the product to be more distinctive as soon as possible.
Al-Mahfouz said that program support for entrepreneurs does not stop at market entry limits but is still in the process of expansion and growth of the project by helping to expand areas and provide innovative services.
The entrepreneurs are supported at this stage by financial consultations to establish and develop the financial model and follow-up the financing of the project when needed and work studies to determine the market value of the project, as well as linking the owners of the project with the list of investors in the program and follow-up the ongoing project to contribute to the provision of remedies for the problems that may appear.
At the end of the meeting, the Executive President of the Businesswomen's Council of Asharqia Chamber, Maram Al-Jishi, presented a commemorative shield to the Business Development Advisor of Badir Technology Incubator, Sally Bin Saad Al-Mahfouz.
