Two of the top teams at the 2019 Arab Innovation Academy included students from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. Jawaria Abbas and Roudha Al Emadi helped create Needee, a platform for university students to buy and sell used textbooks. The team also won an AIA Special Award. Sara Hussein led the project AquAI, an optimization platform to automate water desalination calculations.

All of the students are in their first year of studies at CMU-Q.

The Arab Innovation Academy is a two-week program for aspiring entrepreneurs throughout the MENA region. A collaboration between Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) and the European Innovation Academy, the second AIA included nearly 200 participants from 30 countries.

During the academy, participants attend workshops on creating business plans and marketing strategies, and attend lectures by mentors, investors, and experts from different parts of the entrepreneurial sector. Participants work in teams to build a plan for a start-up. Teams who are selected for the finals present their projects to a panel of experts and investors.

“Participating in Arab innovation academy gave me a lot of information about business concepts and marketing that I didn’t know about, which makes me consider taking business courses or perhaps pursue a minor in business,” said Al Emadi, who is in the Information Systems Program at CMU-Q. Abbas and Hussein are both studying business administration.

In order to build their knowledge base in entrepreneurship, the students are looking to other learning opportunities. The three students are planning to form a team at this year’s Quick Startup competition, an annual weekend-long challenge to create a working business plan.