{"id":41920,"date":"2019-12-13T07:22:15","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T07:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41920"},"modified":"2019-12-13T07:22:15","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T07:22:15","slug":"israel-bars-gazas-christians-from-visiting-bethlehem-and-jerusalem-at-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41920","title":{"rendered":"Israel bars Gaza\u2019s Christians from visiting Bethlehem and Jerusalem at Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nCAIRO: The Startup Roadshow was founded in 2018 to help Syrian refugees and expats in four different countries: Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan.<\/p>\n

\nIt was established when Spark, a Dutch organization supporting youth projects all over the world, reached out to Jusoor.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe have been running our entrepreneurship program for five years, and we\u2019ve been running training boot camps and competitions for Syrian startups,\u201d said Dania Ismail, board member and director of Jusoor\u2019s Entrepreneurship Program.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe have also developed our own proprietary training curriculum, which is tailored to Syrian entrepreneurs, in the region and around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nSpark sought out Jusoor to create a project to support Syrian entrepreneurs in those four countries, later bringing on Startups Without Borders to handle the competition\u2019s outreach, marketing and PR.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe came up with this idea where a team of trainers, facilitators, and mentors would move from one city to another because it\u2019s hard for Syrian youth to travel around. So, we decided to go to them,\u201d said Ismail, a Syrian expat all her life.<\/p>\n

\nThe competition goes through five cities: Beirut, Irbil, Amman, Gaziantep and \u0130stanbul.<\/p>\n

\nThe boot camps last for five days in each city, and throughout the Roadshow, 100 entrepreneurs will undergo extensive training and one-on-one mentorship to develop their skills and insights into the business world.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe have five modules that are taught on different days. Then, the pitches are developed, practiced and presented,\u201d Ismail, 39, said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIn each location, we pick the top two winners \u2014 in total, we\u2019ll have top 10 winners from each city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe top 10 teams pitched their ideas live in front of a panel of judges, at the second edition of Demo Day 2019, which was held in Amman on Nov. 4.<\/p>\n

\nThe best three Syrian-led startups won cash prizes of $15,000, $10,000, and $7,000, respectively.<\/p>\n

\nThey also had the opportunity to pitch their business ideas during Spark Ignite\u2019s annual conference in Amsterdam. The competition aims to give young Syrians the hard-to-get chance to secure a foothold in the business world.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to empower young Syrians who are interested in the entrepreneurial and tech space. We want to empower them with knowledge, skills and confidence to launch their ideas,\u201d Ismail said.<\/p>\n

\nDespite the limited duration of the Roadshow and the lack of financial aid, the people behind the program still do their best to help all applicants.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe try as much as possible to continue supporting them on their journeys with mentorship, advice and connections through our very large network of experts and entrepreneurs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\nJusoor\u2019s efforts to help Syrian youth do not stop at the Roadshow, and the future holds much in store for this fruitful collaboration.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019re expanding our entrepreneurship program, and our next project will be an accelerator program that will continue working with a lot of the promising teams that come out of the Startup Roadshow,\u201d Ismail said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe want to provide something that has a partial online component and a partial on-ground one, as well as an investment component where these companies receive funding as investment, not just grants and prizes,\u201d she said in relation to the second phase of the Entrepreneurship Program, which is launching in 2020.<\/p>\n

\nIsmail said: \u201cThe Roadshow was created so that Syrian youth can have the chance to change their reality, becoming more than victims of an endless war.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe competition gives them the tools to become active members of society, wherever they may be, contributing to the economies of those countries.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOnce you\u2019ve built up this generation and given them those skills and expertise, they\u2019ll be the generation that comes back to rebuild the economy in Syria, once things are stable enough there.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe hope that a lot of these young entrepreneurs the Startup Roadshow was able to inspire, train or help will be the foundation for the future of a small- to medium-sized economy inside Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u2022\u00a0This report is being published by Arab News as a partner of the Middle East Exchange, which was launched by the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to reflect the vision of the UAE prime minister and ruler of Dubai to explore the possibility of changing the status of the Arab region.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAIRO: The Startup Roadshow was founded in 2018 to help Syrian refugees and expats in four different countries: Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan. It was established when Spark, a Dutch organization supporting youth projects all over the world, reached out to Jusoor. \u201cWe have been running our entrepreneurship program for five years, and we\u2019ve been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}