The University of Sharjah in collaboration with the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry are excited to announce the opening of the 8th Sharjah Chamber A ward for Innovators that is under the umbrella of the 9th International Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Both the Forum and the award aim to embed innovation culture and entrepreneurial mindset amongst the youth by making them able to identify important problems affecting our societies and create innovative solutions that can be turned into entrepreneurial ventures.

Why should you register for the International Forum on innovation and Entrepreneurship (Sharjah Chamber Award for Innovators)?

The Innovation Forum competition offers an exiting and unique opportunity for getting feedback from experienced judges and mentors. The winners of the Award win prizes worth 100,000AED. In addition, they are given the opportunity to be mentored by our industry partners who will support them to explore and validate their ideas with real customers, in order to turn their innovative ideas and products into entrepreneurial startups.

Who can participate?

The Innovation Forum is open to University Students (Graduates and Undergraduates) and High School Students (Grades 10, 11, 12) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

What kinds of Ideas are encouraged?

General Innovation Track: For this category, we accept innovative ideas from all legitimate industries, such as information technology (IT), artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, food, clothing, agriculture and virtually all other industries.

Sustainability & Employability Innovation Track: For this category, students are expected to come-up with startup ideas that have the potential to have positive environmental or social or economic impact; or high ideas that potential to create jobs. Examples of impacts include:

(a) Environmental impact: ideas that have the potential to reduce environmental problems. Examples include: recycled products, renewable energy (e.g. solar energy, electric energy), waste collection, green housing, green manufacturing, product life extension (e.g. through repair) etc.

(b) Social impact: Ideas related to social impact include ideas that address social problems such as: hunger, poor access to education, poor access to housing, clean water shortage, inadequate access to healthcare etc. For example, Tom's shoes have donated over 95million pairs of shoes to people in need, and helped to restore the eyesight of over 850,000 people.

(c) Economic impact: high potential for sales and profitability growth etc.

(d) Employability: Ideas that have potential for creating jobs. For example Careem has created 850,000 job opportunities for its drivers in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.

To view the information of the Concept Note in Arabic, please click here , for English please click here.