(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The Peninsula
The winners of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC)'s Challenge 22 innovation award were announced during an awards ceremony held in Doha, where 10 winners were selected and each received $15,000.
Each winning participant will now have the opportunity to receive a grant of up to $100,000 to transform their idea into reality in the experimental demonstration phase.
The announcement came two days after the 27 teams presented their final proposals to a specialized panel of arbitrators, including a group of experts, researchers, thinkers, executives and entrepreneurs from various Arab countries.
With ten winning projects selected out of a total of 937 who presented their proposals and innovations in four key areas, sustainability, health and safety, the Internet of Things and Tourism Experience.
Out of the commitment of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy Qatar's vision for the FIFA World Cup 2022 as a tour for all peoples of the region, the challenge 22 committee kept the proposals of all participating teams from the siege countries, leaving the door open to them to come to Doha.
The event has already attended by several teams from the siege countries, stressing the importance of the tournament to all the peoples of the region.
The winners were honored by Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser Al Ali, Minister of Municipality and Environment HE Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi and SC Secretary General Hassan Al Thawadi.
The event was also attended by Founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media Randi Zuckerberg, as a guest of honor.
The winners on the night were, under the category of Sustainability, is the Moistchar team from Qatar who had improved Soil Moisture with Biochars Recycled From Organic Waste, Bonocle, a team also from Qatar, who won in the field of tourism experience, with a technique that allows visually impaired and blind people to coexist in classrooms and workplaces with full access to digital content.
Fulound team from Lebanon had won under the field of the Internet of Things, with a platform for compiling sound recordings of audio files or podcasts from the Internet and making them available to users according to their preferences.
Friendture team from Jordan also had won a prize in the field of tourism experience, by an application that allows travelers and expatriates to discover what is happening in the city where they are based on their interests and locations.
The Photovoltaic Tile (PVTopia), a team from Egypt had won a prize in the filed of Sustainability, by a tile manufacturing technology that contributes to the storage and provision of sustainable energy for installations. Snapgoal team from Jordan also won a prize in the filed of Sustainability, by a designing a smartphone application delivering regional football fans with real-time clips from goals scored by their favourite teams.
ELPALM , is a team from Morocco, who won a prize in the filed of Sustainability. The idea of this proposal is to manufacture wind turbines, solar shading and generate electricity in an environmentally friendly way, combining shading from sunlight, lighting or wireless charging, a team from Egypt had also won a prize in the filed of the Internet of Things called , Synaplexus , the idea of this proposal is based on a Real-time Video Analytics Via Multiple Local Cameras and Machine Learning.
Palm-Engineered Composite , a team from Tunisia , they also got a prize under the filed of Sustainability , they made palm fiber that can be used to produce stadium benches and effective solar shading , while the Jordanian Eila team won a prize under the filed of the Internet of Things , they submit a chat application that allows companies to sell their products via Facebook Chat.
Secretary-General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) Hassan Al Thawadi stressed that Challenge 22 'represents an annual stand-in with myself, bringing me back to the moment when hosting the World Cup in Qatar and the Arab World was a dream for a small group of ambitious young people. That group was aware of the risk of this the idea, and the magnitude of the challenges and obstacles that were any of them enough to eliminate the dream.
SC Secretary General said that the region is facing difficult conditions and great challenges in the way of its future which makes it imperative to take advantage of every opportunity to move the country and societies forward.
He pointed out that the World Cup is one of the biggest opportunities in our region today, and its investment in the required way can not be achieved except in partnership with the peoples of the region.
Al Thawadi stressed that the committee will seek in the third edition of the challenge to develop it and move from the stage of brainstorming to the stage of supporting projects to turn them into a product and place it in the market.
The 937 proposals received by Challenge 22 were distributed among the ten Arab countries visited by Challenge 22 in its second edition.
The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy received 116 proposals from Qatar, 33 from the Sultanate of Oman, 24 from Kuwait, 52 from Tunisia, 87 from Morocco, 79 from Jordan, 236 from Egypt, 232 from Saudi Arabia, 49 from the UAE and 29 from Bahrain.
Challenge 22's second edition was launched in cooperation with SC's strategic partners: Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), Wamda, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Enterprise Forum Pan-Arab, Facebook, ASTROLABS, Qatar Science and Technology Park, Qatar Business Incubation Center, Qatar Development Bank, Qatar Airways, and FbStart, along with more than 32 regional partners.
All winning teams will have the opportunity to work with experienced mentors to help them develop their ideas into a prototype. The winning teams will also have the opportunity to attend an integrated sponsorship program through Challenge 22 business incubators, as well as financial grants to support the development of the idea and transform it into a commercially viable enterprise.
During the ceremony, a discussion session was held on several topics related to entrepreneurship, incubation of small and medium enterprises and the importance of emerging projects in the development of the country's economy.
The seminar was moderated by Dirk Lehmann, a coach and consultant in entrepreneurship with participation of Founder and CEO of SENSETA Dr. Khalid Al Ali, CEO of Qatar Business Incubator Aysha Al Mudahka and Managing Partner at Faith Capital Abdulaziz Al Loughani.
For her part, Director of Communications at the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) Fatma Al Nuaimi said that Challenge 22 applicants have the potential to change the world.
'We began Challenge 22 to both support and celebrate the incredible potential of our region's young people. Having had the opportunity to review some of the almost 1,000 submissions, I have been constantly amazed by the talent and drive of today's youth, she added.
In turn, the Founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media Randi Zuckerberg said 'I am delighted to be with you at this ceremony, in which we are happy to use technology to promote innovation and human creativity. Today, we are in front of millions of creative ideas that will contribute in one way or another to facing the problems and challenges of the world under the current circumstances. I see this competition as the beginning of an era of innovation and creativity.
Challenge 22, one of the most prominent initiatives launched by the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) in 2015, aims to promote a culture of innovation, entrepreneurship and economic diversification, build a knowledge-based society and create a platform for discovering the creativity of young people in the Arab world.
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