By Eman Hamed
Tatweer Misr, the leading real estate developer, has officially announced the winners of the fifth round of The Tatweer Misr Innovation Competition organized by Innovety and hosted by the Greek Campus, during a fruitful pitch night that featured a number of successful entrepreneurs and economists that have an active role in the entrepreneurship eco system .
In first place for the Start Up track came Bassem Nassef with a grand prize of EGP 250,000LE for his project NOTCH n CO. The project is a conversational service provider for various verticals like real estate, automotive, health care, and F&B. Amira Salem’s start up, Kennah, came in second place with a prize worth EGP 100,000. Kennah is a branded residence of serviced apartments that are furnished according to a design manual and are then leased for short stays.
For the ideation track, targeting university students or graduates with innovative ideas the prize totaling EGP 100,000 was awarded to both Mohand Salah for his project “HydroPal” which is a smart compressible water flask with water consumption time tracker and reminder, along with a partition for medication; and Sahar Abdel Azeem for her project “BB Materials” – which works on producing sustainable building materials.
The winners were selected by the esteemed members of the jury that were specifically chosen by the organizers according to their leading positions and high expertise in their fields. The jury panel included Amr El Abd, Chief Executive Officer, Endeavor Egypt; Rafeh Saleh, Founding Partner, Cubit Ventures; Ahmed Mansour, Head of BD and Venture Building, Plug and Play Egypt
Celebrating the success of the fifth round of The Tatweer Misr Innovation Competition, Dr. Ahmed Shalaby, President and CEO of Tatweer Misr stated, “we are proud that Tatweer Misr Innovation Competition has succeeded to become a prominent platform for hundreds of creative ideas that contribute to the enhancement of the Egyptian economy. we focus on providing them with the guidance and support to develop their concepts to be implemented in real-life application and are in line with the state’s directions.”
He continued, “We constantly strive to develop The Tatweer Misr Innovation Competition either through our updated annual themes and tracks or through collaborations that contribute to the enhancement of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. One of which is our three-year partnership with Egypt Entrepreneur Awards (EEA) to create a complete cycle of innovation and entrepreneurial support, as we target young and early-stage innovators, while EEA is directed at later stages of innovation and more developed and established entrepreneurs. This alliance gave the opportunity to the winners of the former rounds of the Tatweer Misr innovation competition to exhibit during one of EEA’s events, it also allowed for participants to attend a Power Talk by Yaseen Abdel Ghaffar-a winner of 2021 EEA- which was described as motivating and enlightening.”
“We were honored to partner with Tatweer Misr in their innovation competition for the second year in a row . One of the unique tracks of this year’s edition is the Wellness and Recreation which of course has become a crucial pillar in global innovative solutions especially since the pandemic.” Dr. Mohab Anis, Founder & CEO of Innovety stated. He continued,” I’d like to seize this opportunity today to thank all our stakeholders whether universities, co-working spaces, accelerators, and incubators for their restless efforts that have contributed to our wide outreach to over 600 applicants whose innovative solutions were of high-quality and were distributed evenly among this year’s three main tracks ”
This year’s contestants expressed their excitement to participate in the Tatweer Misr Innovation Competition, especially after the huge successes it has achieved over the past years; becoming one of the largest platforms for exchanging innovative ideas. They also expressed their appreciation for the efforts of the competition’s organizers in providing the necessary guidance and support.
The Innovation Competition’s pitch night also witnessed a fruitful panel discussion led by: Ramy Khorshed, Cofounder & CEO at Sakneen; Muhammad Nagi, Founder & CEO at MQR; Hana Fahmy, Community Psychologist & Cofounder at The Community Hub; and was moderated by Tarek Taha Fintech and Innovation Hub Director at Central Bank of Egypt.
Established in 2017, The Tatweer Misr Innovation Competition aims to impact the lives of youth and create opportunities for the development of innovative ideas that will elevate traditional methods in the real estate sector and conquer its existing challenges. This vision comes in line with UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, Egypt’s 2030 Vision and supporting entrepreneurship to enhance the overall national economy.
This year’s round was inspired by Tatweer Misr’s strategy of creating sustainable, smart, and happy communities; featuring three tracks focusing on: sustainable solutions addressing built environment, smart solutions that have a positive impact on resident’s livability and solutions affecting wellness and recreation, all of which lead to happy and well-functioning communities. Around 610 applicants have applied for this year’s round with various innovative ideas and solutions such as building technology and building materials; water and waste management; new retail concepts, e-commerce; automation tools and assistive technology; community enhancing projects.