Student Entrepreneurship

Description

This initiative gives higher education students across the UAE an exciting opportunity to develop their business ideas and compete for funding. With support from their university or college business incubators, student teams can win up to AED 30,000 to bring their innovative ideas to life.

The competition is held twice a year, focusing on key UAE challenges across four categories. Each edition selects the top five teams in each category to present their ideas in front of expert judges. Winners in each category receive AED 30,000, runners-up receive AED 20,000, and second runners-up earn AED 15,000.

Funds are directed to the university incubators to help teams create a prototype—a vital step toward conducting market research and securing seed funding. If a team’s university lacks an incubator, they will be assigned to another institution’s incubator. This competition promotes innovation and encourages entrepreneurship as a viable career path for students.

Eligibility Criteria

You and your team members are active students or within 1 year of having completed your degree

This program is exclusively open for university students and those who have graduated within the past year.

Your team consists of at least 50% Emiratis

You can apply individually or as a team of maximum 4 members, which consists of at least 50% of Emiratis.

Your team must be working with a higher education incubator that is a member of Sandooq Al Watan’s National Incubator Network

Sandooq Al Watan has a community of practice of incubators, including higher education incubators. To view the full list, please visit nin.ae.

Your chosen incubator must be able to accept the funds on your behalf.

The funds for the winning teams, are provided through the incubator chosen, hence the incubator must be able to accept the funds on your behalf. You must also follow your incubator’s rules for the use of funds.

Applications Open

March 2025

Final Pitch Competition

January 2025

Applications Closed

April 2025

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Our Impact

Our Ambitions

2023

Teams

2024

Teams

2025

Teams

2026

Teams

2027

Teams

Benefits for joining

Gain the opportunity and access to a platform that will support you to further develop your entrepreneurial skills and ideas.

Gain access to resources and guidance to develop prototypes of your business ideas. This support accelerates your path from concept to tangible product or service

Get the chance to win AED 30,000 in funding to kick-start your business ventures. This funding helps cover initial expenses and supports the early stages of your startup journey, fostering innovation and entrepreneurial spirit among students.

Relationship with National Identity

This initiative has a bi-modal approach, where some of the entrepreneurs develop the technological leadership of the country embracing Emirati economic characteristics like openness and enterprise. Other entrepreneurs will focus on delivering value to communities by leveraging more of the culture, heritage, and traditions to provide resilience not only at the macro-economic level but also for local communities and economies. Enhances the key Emirati economic characteristics of productivity, enterprise, and openness.

Its Impact

Greater numbers of budding Emirati student entrepreneurs able to commence their business start-up ideas. The intangible benefit of this initiative is that it will foster an entrepreneurial mindset which is empowered to see and capture not only global opportunities, but also realizes the challenges and opportunities the UAE has at a local level.

Its Uniqueness

Uniqueness of this initiative is that the grants are disbursed through an incubator to ensure the entrepreneurs focus on execution. This serves as a launchpad for Emiratis that are tech founders and would like to target the Emirati Innovator program as a next step. It also targets Emiratis that are keen to setup businesses in the remote regions within the Collaborative Entrepreneurship framework, that i.e. Nationals that want to start business that are not tech startups but rather SMEs.

Kickstart Your Entrepreneurial Journey!

Win up to 30,000 AED and start your journey as an entrepreneur

Closed for application

Location of Pitch Competition 2025

TBD

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