Anglo-Omani Society’s talk focuses on technology opportunities
Times News Service
MUSCAT: Dozens of Omani students, entrepreneurs, and officials from the Sultanate’s embassy in London attended the Anglo-Omani Society’s “Talk of the Season”.
The event featured Omani businesswoman Sharifa Al Barami, Managing Director of the Oman Technology Fund’s (OTF) Wadi Accelerator Programme, who introduced attendees to the wide variety of opportunities provided by the public authority.
Opening the event, she said, “I really want to introduce the OTF, especially to students, and emphasise the opportunities we are currently seeing within the MENA region and around the globe, especially in science, technology, engineering and all of the beautiful degrees we see a lot of students studying.”
“This information is updated so quickly. Right now when you talk about technology, it is the big industry. The biggest companies in the world are no longer automotive anymore, it’s not even military-based manufacturers, it’s tech companies. Google, Facebook, and the like. And this is where a lot of investment in the world is going,” she added.
“We were established in October 2016 by the Oman Investment Fund. Our objective was to create a unique Oman tech hub and also to diversify.
“The capital that was put into the company was $150 million in three micro funds,” she said.
The event was attended by a mix of Omani students who are exploring ways to accelerate their projects into successful start-ups and officials from the Embassy of Oman in London. Her talk, which was live-streamed around the world, was followed by a questionand-answer session with the multi-disciplinary strategist.
Since its launch, the OTF has partnered with institutions such as 500 Startups, a San Franciscobased venture capital fund and global accelerator network, to train and accelerate the growth of selected technology start-ups.
As part of its mandate, the public authority runs the incubation programme, to support and accelerate the successful development of angel or start-up companies by providing entrepreneurs with an array of services; the acceleration programme, which allows for improved probabilities of a start-up’s success; and a global venture capital investment programme.