CMU’s Qatar campus helps foster talent for tech startups

— Education City — which is a 2,500-acre campus with universities, including branch campuses of Weill Cornell Medical College, University College of London and Carnegie Mellon University, among others.

CMU’s current class includes 414 students representing 37 nationalities.

“What I think we’re seeing is that, especially from Pakistan and India, there is a lot of interest for one reason or another to get some advanced education [for those who] don’t want to go to the United States,” Mr. Moore said.

Still, the newly nurtured innovation town might be positioning itself for a brain drain.

Starting up and leaving

Some of the homegrown computer scientists from CMU’s Qatar campus are being swallowed up by what Mr. Moore calls “big, expatriot consultancies.” He specifically lamented Capgemeni, an outsourcing company from France, and UKbased consultancy Logica hiring people away.

“This is a really interesting phenomenon I don’t think it’s anything any of us could have predicted,” Mr. Moore said. “There is less of an effect of people staying in Qatar than maybe we would have liked.”

But it’s not all because of outsourcing companies.

There actually is a vibrant community of startups cropping up in Education City, Mr. Moore said. Many end up leaving Doha for more entrenched tech economies.

He did not have specifics on the number of startups launched in Qatar, though a few noteworthy ones operating in Doha include Meddy, a platform connecting doctors and patients; Snaapy, a company creating tech tools for small businesses; and MaktApp, a cloud-based management tool for offices.

Sabih Bin Wasi, CEO of an academic planning and advising startup called Stellic, graduated from CMU in Qatar with a degree in computer science and entrepreneurship in 2015. Originally from Pakistan, Mr. Bin Wasi illustrates the popularity of Qatar’s Education City with non-Qatari students, who account for almost 60 percent of enrollment.

Established in 2015, his startup, Stellic, is a platform that helps students stay on track for timely graduation by suggesting courses that fulfill academic requirements and align with individual interests. CMU and Boston’s Tufts University already use the tool.

Mr. Bin Wasi said he believes Qatar’s leadership is serious about making Doha a knowledge-hub, but tech graduates have a difficult time finding opportunities around the technology park.

“I think there are ingredients for disruptive innovation in the country, but they are not yet weaved together,” he said.

Stellic left Qatar for San Francisco this summer to join the enterprise-focused Alchemist Accelerator, a six-month program that helps companies scale their businesses with advising, co-working space and a $36,000 investment in exchange for 5 percent equity.

“The mindset of the Valley is disruptive and in my experience, very different than other places I have been to,” Mr. Bin Wasi said. “It is important for us to grow Stellic in the ‘think-big’ culture which, as of now, is missing from Qatar’s startup environment.”

He did note that he would love to base Stellic in Doha once he feels the tech crowd in the city has embraced a risk-taking attitude.

Mr. Moore at CMU said Qatar has seen the most drastic growth in its startup culture over the past five years, and although many companies may move away, it’s a step in the right direction.

“Doha in Qatar is starting to just sort of reach the very early stages of getting noticed in a world hungry for software engineering talent,” he said. “It’s still got a long way to go, but it’s just starting to set a blip on people’s radar aroundthe world.”