‘Nutribox’ named winner of 4th KIPCO Tmkeen Award for Young Entrepreneurs
KUWAIT: Nutribix, a healthy living smart phone application, was named the first place winner of the 4th KIPCO Tmkeen Award for Young Entrepreneurs. Technocare was awarded second place, while Zidnei came third.
The announcement was made on the second day of the 7th Youth Empowerment Symposium, held under the patronage of His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. KIPCO’s Vice Chairman (Executive), Faisal Al-Ayyar, announced the winners. The award is a collaboration between KIPCO Kuwait Projects Company (Holding) - and the Youth Empowerment Organization (Tmkeen). The grand prize awarded to the first place winner is $100,000 in services from the KIPCO Group, including financial, strategic and operational consultation sessions, market analysis studies, insurance coverage and advertising. In addition, this year’s three finalists were also given cash prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $5,000 respectively.
Nutribox - founded by Noora AlAskar - is the Arab World’s first intelligent and interactive healthy living platform that guides and empowers people to lose weight and live healthily by connecting them to a curated marketplace of healthy food and with healthy living experts for private consultations.
Technocare - founded by Aljazi Alajmi and Aishah Alenezi - is a product that consists of a smart watch and an application that helps patients with many of their needs in early stages of a disease. It also helps the family monitor the patient. Zidnei - founded by Abdulaziz Alfarhan and Abdulrahman Alalouch - is an e-learning platform for secondary school students, offering tuition in maths, physics, chemistry, English, aptitude tests and IELTs. The three finalists gave presentations to a live audience on the first day of the symposium. The ‘Startup Battle’ judging panel included Founder and CEO of Cooler Screens and Founder of Argo Tea, Arsen Avakian; CEO of KAMCO, Faisal Sarkhou; and CEO of Boutiqaat.com, Abdulwahab Al-Essa.
Eman Al-Awadhi, KIPCO’s Group Communications Director, said: “Young entrepreneurs have an opportunity to be innovative and express their creativity and talent through the businesses they set up. At KIPCO, we believe that this is a necessary contribution to the diversification of our local economy. We are very proud of the great ideas that we have seen in the two judging rounds, as the youth of Kuwait challenge themselves in ways that have allowed them to set new standards for entrepreneurial success in the region. I would like to congratulate Nutribox for winning this year’s title, and wish the teams of Technocare and Zidnei all the best.” Ali Al-Ibrahim, CEO of the Youth Empowerment Organization, added: “Tmkeen takes prides in its collaboration with KIPCO to organize this award on an annual basis. We would like to congratulate the entrepreneurs who participated in this year’s award, all of whom have shown passion for the work they do, and are committed and dedicated to continue to battle the challenges that they face in order to grow their businesses. We look forward to continuing to work with our partners, KIPCO Group, in encouraging and supporting Kuwait’s youth in creating a better tomorrow.”
KIPCO Group companies - including Burgan Bank, OSN, Gulf Insurance Group, KAMCO Investment Company, United Real Estate, Qurain Petrochemical Industries, United Education, United Networks and Marina FM - are supporters of the KIPCO Tmkeen Award for Young Entrepreneurs.