Participants gain business skills at Sultanate’s first Tech Camp

Energy Sunday 07/July/2019 20:56 PM
By: Times News Service
Participants gain business skills at Sultanate’s first Tech Camp

Muscat: For the very first time in Oman, Tech Camp has brought professional trainers all the way from the United States to empower 50 Omanis with the ideas and technical skills to start and run a business.
The 2-day programme saw participants learn about creating, setting up and running a business and they were then given the opportunity to pitch their ideas as a competition. They were judged by a panel consisting of Hassan Al Lawati, Director General of Society Development Division, Dr. Baby Samuel, Knowledge Oman Director and Zuwena Al Rashdi, founder and CEO of Dar Al Harafia.
“We are delighted to have successfully completed the very first Tech Camp event in Oman. We look forward to introducing more projects that will benefit society” said Khalfan Al Mahrazy, President of Knowledge Oman.
Selected
Three teams were selected as winners from the seven participating in the final pitch competition for the best business idea.
The first place winner was a project called Intelligent Autistic Learning Platform. They developed a product to help children with Autism to learn using sensory tools and augmented reality and won $25,000.
Second place, winning $10,000, went to Event Creation Tool, a platform that connects businesses with the vendors such as venues and caterers they need to put on events. The purpose is to benefit businesses and increase profits for service providers.
Third was Fanoos, an innovative Arabic toy subscription service, which aims to engage kids aged 8-12 with creative hands- on activities by giving them missions to complete using the tools and raw materials provided. Their prize was $5,000 worth of services from the competition sponsor, International Strategic Management (ISM), an entrepreneurship development and coaching firm based in Michigan, United States.
The prizes were presented by the US Ambassador to the Sultanate, Marc J Sievers.
Tech Camp was organised by the US State Department in partnership with the leading knowledge sharing platform in the Sultanate, Knowledge Oman, and the support of the Information Technology Authority and Sultan Qaboos University.