Zubair SEC and BIAC host meet for SME support organisations

MUSCAT: Zubair Small Enterprises Centre (Zubair SEC), and in collaboration with Business Incubators and Accelerators Company (BIAC) in KSA, hosted a meeting for SME support organisations, which was attended by a number of organisations and programmes from the Sultanate and neighbouring countries.

BIAC through Badir Programme for technology incubators runs such meetups every quarter in different countries in the region, and Zubair SEC has been actively attending for the past few years, and hence hosted the meetup in its fourth round. The meetup, an initiative by Badir, aims at creating dialogue amongst SME support organisations and share experiences and insight in supporting startups and SMEs. It also seeks to create synergies and collaboration between the various SME and entrepreneurship support programmes in the region, which will enhance opportunities for SMEs to access different neighbouring markets and achieve cross-selling amongst themselves.

The meetup was followed by two workshops on Mapping SME Support Ecosystems, and Measuring Ecosystem Impact, conducted by Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE), one of the leading entrepreneurship development organisations in the Netherlands, and in partnership with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Muscat. The workshops aim at building capacity in the area of SME support, and ecosystems growth, in addition to measuring impact on programme level, and overall ecosystem level.

The first-day agenda started with opening remarks by BIACon SME support in the region, followed by presentations on various experiences in SME support, and two sessions on accessing Omani and regional markets for SMEs. Yousuf Al Harthi, CEO, Oman Technology Fund (OTF) spoke about their experience in supporting and investing in tech-startups inside and outside the Sultanate. Martin Luxemburg, Managing Director of Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship shared insight on theDutchexperienceinsupporting startups and developing entrepreneurship ecosystems. Mohammed Al Tawash, CEO, Corporate Hub9 (CH9 Bahrain) gave a presentation about collective SME support and main issues faced by startups and scale-ups. And Muhanna’ Al Sinai, Investment Promotion Specialist, Ithraa spoke about investment and doing business in the Sultanate. Also during the meetup, Zubair SEC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Badir to collaborate in extending support to SMEs in the Sultanate and KSA, mainly in the matter of facilitating access to market and cross-selling between them.

The agenda was concluded by a trip to some of the leading startup support programmes in the Sultanate, including the National Business Centre, SAS, Oman Technology Fund, and Innovation Factory, which allowed attendees from the region to learn more about how such programmes support startups and SMEs in the country.

Khalid Almahfouz, Director of Business Development of BIAC said: “When we started these series of Meetups we couldn’t believe the impact we made in just a few months; it has been a tremendous journey so far. Today in Muscat we witness one of the solid outcomes and synergies of these meetups by signing an MOU to collaborate in multiple venues with Zubair SEC.