DOHA, QATAR – Students pursuing a minor in Tech Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) showcased their final projects to a diverse group of judges from Qatar’s growing startup ecosystem. The Demo Day event was the finale of the capstone course, Tech Startup Launchpad, where students develop, prototype, and pitch their own tech-based startups to a panel of real-world investors and incubators. 

The course, taught by Nui Vatanasakdakul, teaching professor of information systems, brought together 23 students from the Business Administration, Computer Science, and Information Systems programs to form five multidisciplinary teams. 

“We’ve seen a growing level of interest from Qatar’s tech startup community to support and nurture the entrepreneurial talent we have at CMU-Q,” said Vatanasakdakul. “To reflect this, we transformed the traditional judging panel into a community-based investor model, where investors decided the winning team based on which startup secures the highest investment.”

Prizes were sponsored by the Qatari Businessmen Association, a strategic partner of CMU-Q. Ashraf Abu Issa, Chairman of Abu Issa Holding, represented QBA at the event.

The winning project, a wearable cooling device with an IoT connected app and enterprise dashboard, was led by Mohammad Annan and Lujain Al Mansoori. Along with teammates Ajlan Al Kaabi and Daanish Khan, they won both the Investor’s Choice Award and the Emerging Tech MVP Award.

An AI-powered mentorship platform to level up presentation skills received the Disruptive Idea award. The project was led by student Maria Mina, along with teammates Reem Muhammed Hashir, Sara Mubarak, and Muhammad Hamza Sohail.

A distinguished panel of judges provided feedback and guidance to the student teams. The judges represented a wide array of key organizations, including Abu Issa Holding, Cosette Solutions, Embassy of the Kingdom of Thailand to the State of Qatar, Enable.tech, Flare Business, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, MKaNN Ventures, Prorenata Biotech, PwC, Qatar Business Incubation Center (QBIC), Qatar Foundation (QF), Qatar Research, Development and Innovation (QRDI) Council, Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP), Qatar University, Qatari Businessmen Association, the Supreme Council for Economic Affairs and Investment, and Texas A&M University at Qatar.

The minor in Tech Entrepreneurship at CMU-Q provides students with the foundational knowledge and practical experience to transform technological ideas into viable business ventures. The minor is available to students from all of CMU-Q’s academic programs.