Dubai Startup Weekend

In a Beautiful  Awards Ceremony attended by many of UAE’s major investors and leading Business Brains, His Highness Sheikh Mansoor Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum presented the awards  to the winners,  participants and volunteers who participated in the three day event that ended on Saturday the 22nd of October 2011 evening.

Dubai Startup Weekend

His sincere ambition to follow his Father’s path to raise the awareness to the importance of entrepreneurship amongst the upcoming young generations in the UAE has been witnessed in his  keen interest in hearing and attending the participants 3 day event to watch the work progress and show his support .

Gifts were as follows:

1st place winner won cash prize money 25,000 AED from His Highness

Concept’s name: Golazo         

2nd place winner won 15,000 AED from His Highness

Concept’s name: Giftastic

3rd place winner won 10,000 AED from His Highness

Concept’s Name: Hassle Free

All the 3 winners won an extra  2,000 Dollars worth of training each

While two more teams where selected by the Judge Panel whom their ideas were quite interesting and innovative but did not get a chance score one of the 3 first places

The most innovative idea by Khalifa Fund worth 5,000 Dollars Mind Talk

The most innovative idea by Khalifa Fund worth 5,000 Dollars Rabbit Whole

Innovation 360 institute awarded to Akalat worth 2,500 Dollars Mentorship/Training

Luckily all the 21 Ideas will be incubated for free by SME for a year , receiving a free of rent office space and funds to cover their setup costs and extras and 2,500 Dollars worth of training and Mentorship from  Innovation 360 Institute.

Editors Note:

Startup Weekend is a global and non profit organization founded in 2007 by Andrew Hyde and is based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Startup weekend is funded by the Kaufmann Foundation and their main target is to organize 54-hour weekend events globally. During these events groups of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more pitch ideas for new startup companies, form teams around those ideas, and work to develop a working prototype, demo, and/or presentation by Sunday evening. Startup Weekend has organized (as of December 2010) 207 events spanning 120 cities and 35 countries like:

Lebanon,  Oman, Spain, Portugal, Russia, UK, Italy, Chile, Brazil, US, Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, and more

Startup Weekend – Trailer from Eighteen Eighty on Vimeo.

A special thanks to Prashant K. Gulati (PK) for introducing us to the event.