‘Upgrade’ chooses 3 student projects for ICT start-ups

MUSCAT: The programme of transforming graduation projects to start-ups in the Information and Communication Technology sector (ICT) ‘Upgrade’ announced the three winning projects that will be incubated under the programme to be transformed into ICT start-ups.

Out of the nine graduation projects that reached the third evaluation stage of the programme, Upgrade’s three winning projects were Bee App — Transforming the Retail Industry, Anaween — a Personal Mobile Delivery Management Application, and an Augmented Reality System for Tourism in Oman.

Bee App — Transforming the Retail Industry is a project presented by Sultan al Subhi, Alya al Shanfari and Hana al Raisi from Gutech, while Anaween — a Personal Mobile Delivery Management Application was submitted by Hamood al Essai, Faris al Juma, Al Harith al Juma and Saif al Essai from Cardiff University. An Augmented Reality System for Tourism in Oman was submitted by Ahmed al Balushi, Ahmed al Zakwani and Loay al Abri from SQU.

Dr Ali al Shidhani, Director of Research Centres at TRC, said, “Announcing the winners was an important milestone. Now that the three winners are identified, the real work starts in transforming their graduation projects into successful start-ups. The programme is designed to provide an adequate support system to achieve this goal.”

Khalid al Huraibi, Acting CEO of the Public Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Development ‘Riyada’, said, “Upgrade is making a great added value to the community and is making a special transition in the ICT start-ups.”

“Collaboration with the government and private institutions contributes a lot into ensuring the proper start and the sustainable practices, provision of the enabling environment, and improvement of its products and services,” he said.

Each of the three winning graduation projects will get seed funds, training at one of the international companies and incubation for three years at SAS for entrepreneurship of the Information Technology Authority.

The winning teams will get all the possible assistance to turn the idea of its graduation project to a startup company through incubation, entrepreneurship consultancy, providing the necessary seed financing, giving commercial and financial skills and providing technical advice, in addition to a training opportunity in one of the project-related international companies. While the labour and ownership of those companies go to the project owners themselves, they will have to work on preserving their intellectual property rights.

The closing ceremony of ‘Upgrade’, which was held at Omantel headquarters in Mawalih under the patronage of HH Sayyid Taimur bin Asaad al Said, Assistant SecretaryGeneral for Communication at TRC, was accompanied with an exhibition for the nine projects that reached the third evaluation stage of ‘Upgrade’ competition.

It is worth mentioning that ‘Upgrade’ programme on transforming student graduation projects to start-ups received a total of 62 projects applied under the programme and 38 of them qualified for the second evaluation stage. The 38 projects were then shortlisted to nine projects that competed in the final stage on Wednesday (July 26). Participating projects had to fall among one or more of the following topics; a) Smart Cities Solutions, b) Internet of Things Applications, c) Information Security and d) E-Government Solutions.

‘Upgrade’ is jointly developed and supervised by The Research Council (TRC), Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel), SAS for entrepreneurship from the Information Technology Authority and The Public Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Development ‘Riyadah’.

‘Upgrade’ aims to create a convenient environment to the innovations of students in the university stages and the conversion of graduation projects in the ICT sector to start-up companies that are capable of delivering economic and social benefits.