Makkah Techno Valley (Wadi Makkah) participated in the closing ceremony of the MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) Saudi Competition, the new branch of the MITEF global network in partnership with BAB RIZQ JAMEEL, one of Community JAMEEL initiatives, and Zain Saudi Arabia, the innovation partner of the competition in KSA. Wadi Makkah was represented in the event by its Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Faisal Alaf, as well as founders of startup companies in Wadi Makkah including Dr. Abdullah Morad, Dr. Salih Ba-Salama and Dr. Anas Ba-Salama.

During the event, which was held in King Abdullah Economic City, the winners of the second edition of the MITEF Saudi Competition were announced. The prizes were classified this year into three categories: Ideas Track, Startups Track and Social Track.

The event was hosted by King Abdullah Economic City under the auspices of the Small and Medium Enterprises Authority (SMEA), and was attended by Sofana Dahlan ‏(Vice Governor of Entrepreneurship Advancement at SMEA), Mr. Fahd Al-Rasheed (Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Prince Mohamed Bin Salman College of Business and Entrepreneurship and CEO of Economic Cities Reconstruction), Dr. Nabeel Koshak (Dean of Prince Mohamed Bin Salman College), and Mr. Hassan Jameel (President of Community Jameel domestic). Participants also included a large number of officials, investors, entrepreneurs and representatives of the major companies supporting entrepreneurship and sponsors.

During the event, the nine winning teams were announced. It is worth mentioning that such teams will now advance to the 10th MITEF Pan Arab competition – which will be held in Bahrain next April.  

The winners were:

Startup track first place winner Madad Services LLC who received SAR 100,000; runner-up iBoat received SAR 25,000; and third place Nushmi Services received SAR 15,000.

Social Enterprise first place winner Tadweer who received SAR 100,000; runner-up Banafsajeel received SAR 25,000; and third place Ketaby Lak Application received SAR 15,000.

Ideas first place winner Aquaponica won SAR 20,000; runner-up Stitches False Wall, who received SAR 15,000; and third place Packageha who won SAR 10,000.

In addition to the winners, the partners, judges and guides were honored. They included Zain (strategic partner), Small and Medium Enterprises Authority (government partner), Prince Mohammed bin Salman College (cognitive partner), King Abdullah Economic City (co-host), MIT Technology Review Magazine (media partner), MITEF Pan Arab (regional partner), Wadi Makkah Company (innovation partner), King Khalid Foundation (social entrepreneurship partner), Sedco Holding (financial awareness partner), Badir Program (technical incubators partner), Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Center ‘Wa’ed’ (promising partner), and Saudi Investment Bank (investment partner). Further support was provided by Microsoft, Oracle, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, as well as Olou, Qotuf and Al Mosa’don Companies.

On this occasion, Dr. Faisal Alaf congratulated the winners of the competition’s three tracks, commending their innovations. He confirmed that Wadi Makkah was a multi-disciplinary company which fully believed in the significance of investment in young national cadres, pointing out that the best evidence of that was the existence of Wadi Makkah as an innovation partner in the Forum. Moreover, Dr. Alaf illustrated that the company was aware of the significance of the next phase, which rendered it determined to exert more efforts to contribute basically to the achievement of KSA Vision 2030.