Waref student team from N Batinah wins regional Injaz contest
The Waref student team from Abdullah bin Al Abbas Basic Education School in North Batinah has won the best student company at the Injaz al Arab Young Entrepreneurs Award.
The competition, which concluded on Tuesday in Doha, Qatar saw the Omani team ace the high school category. The competition also has a category for university students.
The regional competition is a culmination of six months of experiential education and training in work readiness, financial literacy and entrepreneurship, after which students from 13 countries in the Arab world meet each year to contend for the Injaz Al Arab Young Entrepreneurs Award.
Waref competed against teams from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Sudan.
Their product ‘Hosn’, or castle, is a mosquito repellent that also works as perfume, which won the sixth edition of Injaz Oman for the academic year 2023, qualifying them for the regional competition.
The students described Waref as specialised in the production of natural insecticides made from waste material. It produces safe natural products that provide sustainable alternative to chemical pesticides.
Injaz al Arab Young Entrepreneurs Award facilitates peer-to-peer learning through tried and tested methods of putting students through various company competitions in order to encourage innovative business ideas among students.
Every year thousands of students participate in Injaz national competitions, creating hundreds of student companies in the process. The national competitions build excitement and momentum, with winning entries moving on to the Injaz region-wide competition.