GUST wins top tier position in the startup Kuwait challenge

Gulf University for Science and Technology’s students won a top tier position at the final round of the Startup Kuwait National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Challenge for Fall 2016/2017, held earlier this month at the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce & Industry. The challenge rounded up the top teams from different schools across the country, after several qualifying rounds, to compete.

Seven teams from institutions and universities around the country participated, including Kuwait University, Arab Open University, and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), qualified for this round after a grueling selection process. The remaining four teams were from GUST.

The winning team from GUST was Techno Fun Games, composed of Meshari Alabdulhadi, and Abdulmohsen Alfulaij; was mentored by Dr Ali Roumani. Techno Fun Games is a gaming studio which sells smartphone games and helps aspiring game developers learn how to prepare and sell their own games. A game created by their studio, called Pass the Torch, has been played more than 15,000 times, by more than 5,000 people in more than 100 countries, and managed to score a rating of 4.1/5 by users. Pass the Torch was selected as the winner of Kuwait Imagine Cup competition held by Microsoft last year.

GUST Vice President of Academic Affairs, Salah Al-Sharhan, said “The university prides itself in fostering and developing our students’ talents. This competition is just one of the ways in which we can help develop not only our students’ ideas, but also specific skills such as conducting presentations, nurturing innovative business ideas, entrepreneurship and teamwork. We are extremely proud of our winners, and also proud of our students who went out of their comfort zone, and participated in this event.”

GUST students who also made it to the finals include: Duaa Al-Mousawi, Fajer Al-Qadeeri, Heba Al-Arradi, Lana Aboalnaaj, Saleh Al-Najem and Shahad Al-Shenifi, and their supervisors Dr Mohamed Elian, Dr Ali Roumani, and Muhammad A B Ilyas.

Startup Kuwait is an initiative launched by Global Centre at Kuwait University to encourage students to understand the challenges and opportunities of entrepreneurship, and be able to work on and launch their own business ideas. As part of this initiative, students are encouraged to work on innovative ideas which can be successfully turned into real businesses. The ideas go through several rounds of filtering before qualifying for the final round.