QSTP paves way for young entrepreneurs
Photo caption: Sabih Bin Wasi and Rukhsar Neyaz Khan share their experience creating a startup during a video conference with CMU-Q students, moderated by Nui Vatanasakdakul, visiting associate professor of information systems. Bin Wasi and Khan, along with Jiyda Moussa, are CMU-Q alumni who turned a student project into a successful business. After their graduation, Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) incubated the Stellic project.
In Qatar Tribune, October 31, 2018
Qatar’s young innovators have little to no difficulty in coming up with original, groundbreaking ideas. However, when it comes to turning these into products and technologies that are ready to enter markets worldwide, sometimes they need a little help. And this is where Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) steps in.
QSTP, founded in 2009 as a member of Qatar Foundation (QF), houses a ecosystem that facilitates the development of new high-tech products and services while creating opportunities for startups. Its signature programme, XLR8, transforms products, services and technologies from ideas into reality, with the goal of producing a prototype, and ultimately, a Minimum Viable Product.
Many startup ideas originate as school or university projects, with QSTP aiming to create the means for aspiring entrepreneurs to maximise the potential of their ideas and accelerate the commercialisation of their products.
That was how it started for Sabih Bin Wasi, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q). Wasi and two classmates began working on a project that would help university students to organise their academic journey and track degree progress.
With the guidance and mentorship of professors at CMU-Q, what initially started as a university project gradually turned into a full-time company: Stellic. Initially joining the XLR8 programme, their startup quickly moved into its Incubation Center full-time.
The QSTP Incubation Center allowed the startup to get where it is now. The user-friendly, intuitive technology is currently being utilised in seven universities worldwide in Qatar, Mexico and the US with the hope of further expanding to additional academic institutes and countries.
Similarly, it was while Mahmoud Eltouny was studying Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University that he and three Qatar University friends began developing a product that would help to improve the lives of the visually impaired.
He created an easy-to-use aid that would help those with visual impairments to read. What followed was the creation of Bonocle, a portable device with just one Braille cell, which consists of pins that move up and down, creating letters in Braille. Bonocle also went on to be further developed at QSTP’s Incubation Center, where it experienced tremendous growth. (TNN)