The Eventati team attended the Arab Youth Startup Marketplace event in Dubai on May 1st and 2nd 2019. The event was dedicated to bringing together aspiring Arab startups to showcase their creative ventures, exchange knowledge with like-minded innovators and leaders, and ultimately collaborate with investors for further growth and expansion.
The Saraab team attended the Innovators Academies in Tunisia on April 24th – 25th 2019. The two-day event was designed to improve entrepreneurs’ business strategy and investment readiness, and to provide them with constructive feedback from angel investors and venture capitalists on their pitches and business plans. The event consisted of activities, training sessions, and workshops focusing intensively on networking and connecting entrepreneurs.
A delegation from the World Bank visited Flow with an objective to engage entrepreneurial eco-system stakeholders in Palestine and proximate Arab communities to near-term opportunities for the anticipated Innovative Private Sector Development Project IPSD, which aims to develop business/market linkages for Palestinian entrepreneurs.
Practice sessions were managed by the Flow team, as they worked intensively with one of its portfolio startups to prepare them to pitch in front of a local investor as part of the acceleration phase in the Flow Entrepreneurship Program.
Upon winning the 2018 Seedstars competition (SSW18) during the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Palestine, the Inggez team attended the Seedstars Summit Day in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 2nd – 5th 2019. The summit included some industry-focused workshops and panel discussions, keynotes from experts and successful entrepreneurs from emerging markets, startup pitches, and a networking event that aimed for 100+ startups and innovative initiatives to meet and exchange experiences.
As part of celebrating the social, cultural, economic and political achievements of Palestinian women, the Higher Council for Innovation and Excellence hosted ‘the HCIE’s Women Day’ to campaign for greater progress toward ‘Women Empowerment’. Flow’s Investment and Finance Manager, Majd Khalifeh, spoke on the entrepreneurial mindset and capacity building for entrepreneurs in building businesses and the importance of catalyzing young female initiatives.
Flow hosted a group of 22 young university students from Germany who have scholarships from Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and are interested to learn about entrepreneurship and the startup scene. Flow, two of its startups and Gaza Sky Geeks talked about the Palestinian Startup reality, the challenges facing them, and their vision towards a sustainable ecosystem as a fundamental part of the Palestinian economy.
The Higher Council for Innovation and Excellence in partnership with the Ministry of National Economy, the ANIMA Investment Network – The Next Society, and the EU Representative Office organized an advocacy panel workshop on building a common strategy for innovation in Palestine. Flow’s Chairman, Saed Khatib, spoke on legal bureaucratic and regulatory frameworks to enhance the legalities in the innovation sector.
A very rich and fruitful business lunch meeting between the Flow Team and a group of top level managers at Google. The meeting was energetic and included an interesting exchange of experiences. Google showed a deep interest in supporting the Palestinian ecosystem and entrepreneurs.
Flow hosted UNICEF MENA Regional Director, Geert Cappelaere; UNICEF Representative/State of Palestine country office, Genevieve Boutin; and UNICEF Deputy Representative for UNICEF/State of Palestine country office, Etona Ekole, who met young Palestinian entrepreneurs and accelerators from Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem in Ramallah. The event aimed to introduce UNICEF to the Palestinian ecosystem and the challenges facing its entrepreneurs. UNICEF State of Palestine is exploring ways of cooperation to help support Palestinian Startups.
Flow has ended its three-month incubation phase covering topics related to business development, product development, personal skills empowerment, and technical assistance. Mentorship was structured on generic, specific, one-one-one, virtual, and in-house basis to cope with the incubated startup stages. Sessions were given by both local and international mentors.
As part of its incubation completion, Flow has arranged several peer mentoring, one-on-one sessions with top Palestinian startup leaders who worked closely to improve and provide constructive feedback and advice for a better and efficient strategy building and business growth.
