Dubai SME, the agency of Dubai Economy mandated to develop the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, and WOMENA have jointly launched the ‘Future Founders and Future Funders Programme’. With the help of Dr. Wasseem Abaza, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, the program was designed to draw on venture capital (VC) as an enabler of entrepreneurship among Emirati women. The program targets university level Emirati women who are at the start of their careers, to develop a strong pipeline of investors and entrepreneurs. The ‘Future Founders and Future Funders Programme’ was launched and hosted by Zayed University’s Entrepreneurship Club in the College of Business and targeted women who were considering a career in finance or were interested in starting their own business. There was a four-week course at Zayed University that ran two tracks namely: ‘Future Founders’ focused on enabling students to create a robust and innovative business, and the other one was ‘Future Funders’ that introduced finance students to venture investing, and enabled them to gain the skills needed to invest in startups or work with a VC firm.

The conclusion of the program was a pitch and evaluation competition opened by Dubai SME VP Mr. Saeed Matar Al Marri, who emphasized Dubai SME’s support for this new generation of female entrepreneurs and investors. The Future Founder students were each given five minutes to pitch their idea to judges and Future Funder students, with two minutes for Q&A. After the pitches, the Future Funder students provided feedback and an evaluation of the pitching companies to the entrepreneurs as well as the judges.

Based on the presentations, the judges deliberated and chose the top two companies from the Future Founders program to win the first and second prizes. Dr. Riyadh AlMuhaideb, Vice-President of Zayed University gave a few inspiring words before announcing the winners. First place went to Alia Al Ali for her company 3zeema, which provides a digital event organizing platform. Second place went to Amna AlGaith for her company Zeppelin where she created a new method for 24-hour delivery. The top three Future Funder students, Zahra Sajwani, Jowaher AlJaziri and Shamma AlMutaiwee, were selected based on assessments completed throughout the course, as well as their final entrepreneur assessment presentation.

 Dr. Paul Williams, Dean of the College of Business, said: “An entrepreneurial mindset is at the core of our educational mission. Not only do our students develop skills and competencies in entrepreneurship from their academic studies, some of them put it into practice and become successful business owners. In addition, our faculty are actively conducting applied research into entrepreneurship, which is helping the UAE community to implement innovative and creative solutions to real-world small business problems.” Elissa Freiha, founder of WOMENA, added: “WOMENA is dedicated to empowering women in the Middle East, from investing in female entrepreneurs, to helping the investors themselves. We also understand the importance of sparking excitement and curiosity from a much earlier stage in their professional development. In Zayed University students, we see the future of entrepreneurship, and this future is female! We look forward to continuing to work with these young women as they become successful investors and entrepreneurs.”