Demo Day of Kazakhstani startups took place in Saudi Arabia
On March 3, on the eve of the official opening of the Al-Farabi Innovation Hub in Saudi Arabia, a Demo Day of Kazakh startups planning expansion into the MENA market was held. The presentation of our startups took place at the Center of Digital Entrepreneurship (CODE) under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
More than 50 founders competed for the opportunity to present their startup to Saudi investors, and only 13 of them made it to the final shortlist. At the end of Demo Day, each project will receive feedback: be it advice on the next steps that need to be taken to enter the Middle Eastern market, an invitation to participate in an incubation or acceleration program, or an investment proposal.
All this became possible thanks to the integrated approach of ICRIAP to attract investment in our technological and IT projects and the idea of creating a special hub that would serve as a bridge between Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia. To fulfill this role, Al-Farabi Innovation Hub was created - a hub that is designed to become a starting point for all types of businesses that want to scale to the MENA market.
Al-Farabi Innovation Hub already offers a so-called soft-landing, or support program, ranging from visa support to the provision of offices and housing at special rates for startups that come to the region.
According to the General Director of The CODE Abdullah Alshamrani, on whose territory the debut Demo Day took place, the creation of Al-Farabi Innovation Hub is a natural step in the development of bilateral relations between our countries: “The markets of the Central Asian region and the Caucasus are interesting to us, just as you are interested in the Middle region East and North Africa, so creating a hub that would establish connections between our regions is a necessity.”
The official opening of Al-Farabi Innovation Hub took place on March 4 in the capital of Saudi Arabia - Riyadh.