Teaching young students how to work collaboratively to address business challenges and identify business opportunities to solve existing challenges was the focus of the half day workshop, part of Doha Learning Days, an initiative by Qatar Foundation’s World Innovation Summit for Education.

Attended by over 26 students from the SEK International School of Qatar, the interactive workshop was led by Noura Al Jurdi, Manager of Entrepreneurship Programs at Injaaz Qatar, who started off by introducing students to the basics of entrepreneurship, and highlighted that an entrepreneurship perspective is valuable for each and everyone, regardless of their profession.

In the first half of the highly interactive workshop, students were asked to look around the room they were in and spot an innovation. Following which, they were asked to look around to spot a problem and then propose a solution for it.

The students’ creativity knew no bounds as they proposed ideas all the way from an app that can help people dress up to portable laptop chargers to having an app that could help track and feed stray cats.

They were then introduced to the five main components of a business idea – and one of the main elements of successful entrepreneurship is having a good business plan and what this means.

They also learned the importance of working as a team and spent some time discussing the question of “what is more important – the idea or the team behind it”, to which many responded that in most case, the idea is only as good as the team behind it. 

Yazan Leo Soboh, one of the workshop participants said he appreciated the workshop much more than he thought would. “It was interactive and kept us engaged the whole time. Also, in addition to improving our knowledge about entrepreneurship, it tested us on other skills like public speaking – something that’s of huge importance for those of us that plan on being entrepreneurs in the future.”

In the last hour, as part of their assessment, the students were asked to think of a profitable business solution that fills a gap in the market while having a positive impact on the environment. Divided in five groups the students came up with a range of innovative ideas including recycling pencils, a smart trash can, using abandoned buildings to house vertical farms, recycling toys and creating an advanced environmental awareness program that targets adults.

The winning proposal was called Retoy – it was built around the idea that existing toys sitting unused and forgotten in homes can either be recycled to create new ones or those that are in good condition can be resold or even rented, all through a digital platform.

Latifa Al Dolaimi, a member of the winning proposal said the masterclass experience was an inspiring and motivational one that “challenged us to be creative while working under a tight deadline.”

Ayaz Syad, a teacher at SEK, who accompanied the students said: “Exposing students to workshops like these at a young age is critical in opening up their minds to entrepreneurship possibilities and teaching them that they each have the power to bring about change.”

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