Warba Bank launches Rowad Innovation Program
First of its kind of program opens its doors to university students
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 30: Shaheen Hamad Al Ghanem, Warba Bank’s CEO, stressed the Bank’s endeavors to support students and youth, being the most important pillar of comprehensive development, and the most important element of sustainability which comes within the priorities of Warba Bank. He also pointed that the key reason behind achieving positive results and growth at various levels is the huge investment Warba Bank is dedicating to its manpower.
During his speech at the launching event of Al-Rowad Program 3rd Edition, Al Ghanem said “Al-Rowad has succeeded in stimulating the capabilities of Warba Bank employees to innovate more banking products and services that satisfy customer needs. The 3rd Edition has been dedicated for university students from all over Kuwait and will kick off on Sept 30 and ends on Dec 1, 2019.”
He further elaborated that the idea of Al-Rowad Innovation Program has emerged from the bank’s desire to support its employees and allow them to play a key role in enhancing the bank’s position, along with the possibility of professional development, especially as their innovative ideas will be adopted and later implemented. They will be rewarded by the bank for their dedication and interaction with this program yielding in the best interest of the bank. Through this program, employees wishing to participate can present their developmental and innovative ideas in the bank’s various operational and administrative processes. These include: improving online and mobile banking channels, designing new and unique products and services, proposing mechanisms to develop customer service and increase their loyalty, in addition to presenting perceptions on how to enhance the bank’s brand.
Success
Due to the great success the program has achieved, Warba decides to expand the scope of the program to allow university students to enroll as well. Warba Bank initiative stems from its corporate social responsibility towards the youth to help them become apprentices under experts in the financial sector; experience difficulties and challenges they may encounter later; formulate deep understanding of the customer needs and try to respond thereto by introducing more innovations that contribute to making each customer’s banking experience a pleasant and seamless one. The program also stimulates youth spirit of innovation and competition while adopting their ideas turning them into real banking products. Participating students at Rowad will have the opportunity to receive valuable cash prizes at the end of the program.
This year, Warba Bank will open the field for the Third and Fourth Year Students of Kuwait University, Australian College of Kuwait, Gulf University for Science & Technology and the American University in Kuwait to participate in the Rowad Program in its 3rd Edition, where a specialized committee from Warba Bank will select the talented candidates from each university so that a team representing the university consisting of 5 students in any discipline will be formed later, not necessarily from the Faculty of Finance and Banking, in order to compete among themselves. The program will last for 10 weeks, with a number of workshops so as to enrich the students’ knowledge in this field and provide them with all the necessary knowledge in the banking sector in order to make it easy for them to develop innovative services and products that enrich the banking sector.
“The winning team will be selected from the participating teams based on several criteria including innovation, outside the box ideas. In addition to adopting the idea and converting it into a final banking product launched on a further stage by Warba Bank. The participants will receive rewarding prizes,” Al Ghanim said.
In his speech, Mohammed Atef Al Shareef – Chief Strategy & Digital Officer – at Warba Bank, stressed that Warba Bank aspires to be the Islamic bank champion in the investment and corporate sectors as well as to provide digitally enabled retail banking services to its customers. In order to achieve this goal, Warba Bank launched Rowad Program back in 2016 to represent Warba’s innovation program in the form of a box of ideas that allows employees to share their innovative and creative ideas, which once selected, will be transformed into a banking product. He further elaborated that the expansion of Rowad Program to include university students stems out of the banks social corporate responsibility and the bank’s desire to pass this experience to the younger generation so that they have the opportunity to enter the banking sector and unleash their ideas and innovations in this field.
From his part, Professor Antonis Sementeras, the Dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences at the Gulf University of Science and Technology, welcomed Warba Bank initiative saying: “We highly appreciate Warba’s initiative to support university youth and give them the opportunity to participate at Al Rowad. We highly believe in our students abilities to achieve progress and success in their academic and practical lives due to the skills we implant in them during their study at GUST. We highly believe in our students due to their several previous experiences in similar competitions and programs that focus on finding solutions in Science, IT, Marketing and Communications”.
In the same context, Dr Hanan Muthaffar, Vice-President for Student Affairs at the American University in Kuwait, said: “We are delighted to be part of Al Rowad where our students will have the chance to develop their skills and enhance their career path. Rowad will provide them with a real-life experience to practice what they have learned at the American University of Kuwait, through a solid program, while building their teamwork, work ethics, competing spirit and gain the necessary skills they need to succeed in their future careers”.
Compete
Dr Asma Al-Fadhil, Director of Innovation Center at Kuwait University, commented on the participation of Kuwait University students. “I would like to thank Warba Bank for cooperating with the Innovation Center at Kuwait University and giving our students the opportunity to be part of this program which also comes in line with our strategy to develop the scientific and practical skills of our students and enthuse them to compete”.
In his speech, Dr Iyad Salhia, Assistant President of Student Affairs at ACK, said that Rowad is an excellent platform to work with banking experts as well as a golden opportunity for students to demonstrate their academic and personal skills. He added that being part of Rowad program comes in line with the vision of the Australian College of Kuwait which aims to build manpower equipped with necessary practical knowledge and skills in order to efficiently contribute to economic development in the State of Kuwait. This vision is based on meeting the needs of the labor market through providing our students with the required educational program and experiences gained through problem solving, project implementation and systematic training”
In conclusion, Al Ghanem expressed his wishes and firm determination saying: “Warba Bank will provide favorable environment for the students to widen their horizons and prepare them for the labor market. Participation in the program will give them the chance to join Warba Bank team where they will be able to achieve further development on their future career.