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5,000 visitors attend the biggest Sharjah Entrepreneurial Festival so far

Future business leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs descend on Sharjah Technology and Innovation Research Park to change their lives through SEF 2022

As things came to a close at the most successful Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival to date, this 6th edition of the two-day extravaganza, created and organised by Sheerah, attracted over 5,000 visitors, future business leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs to Sharjah Technology and Innovation Research Park (STIRP) this past weekend.

It was clear to see the lasting effect that was made this year at SEF 2022 as the energy at the Impact Stage was palpable as a large crowd gathered to witness the closing speech from Sheerah CEO, Najla Al Midfa, as well as the highly anticipated awards ceremony honouring standout entrepreneurs and winners of this year’s SEF Hackathon.

The festival has continued to grow from strength to strength and has doubled the amount of speakers at talks and discussions since last year, going from 70 speakers to almost 140 speakers this year, providing visiting entrepreneurs knowledge and insight that could literally have a hand in their future success.

Al Midfa congratulated everybody that attended SEF for making it such a successful festival and reminded everyone that they were the real focus, to always stay determined and keep going, saying “We are always on the verge of our greatest adventure”.

After the closing speech the MCs prepared the audience to hear the winners of the SEF Hackathon, powered by ICT Fund, to a great applause, and called Engineer, Mohammad Al Hajri, to the stage to present the awards, on behalf of ICT Fund. The third place for the award went to Badran, second place to Decode, and overall winners and first place went to Read my Voice.

Next, the winners of “iCodeJr”, the SEF Coding Championship were announced, and CEO of iCodeJr, Hannan Moti was called to the stage. For the Junior Cadet track, Gopika Shendy took the stage and the audience's hearts as the huge sign announcing her achievement was bigger than her. For the Junior Captain track, Mohamed Jefran scooped the awards and for the Junior Colonel track, Waleed Afridi took the honours.

Rashid Sahoo, director of Business Centre Management of Sharjah Media City, was invited onto stage to hand over the award for the SEF Startup Pitch Competition which went to ‘Optimise’. Ayesha Jasem, head of Business Development Section of Sharjah Business Women Council, was then called up to grant the winner of the Women Founder Track their award, which went to Takalam and the winner of the Tourism track went to Simly and was presented by Karim El Marmari, Marketing Manager at Sharjah Commerce & Tourism Development Authority.

The anticipated SEFFY awards winners were then invited on stage with Zohare Haider, founder of Jalebi.io receiving the Inspiring Founder Award, Fatema Al Hammadi receiving the Promising Future Entrepreneur Award and the Best Pitch Award went to Fortyguard.

There was a huge round of applause and congratulations to all of the winners as the MCs wished them all the best in the next stage of their entrepreneurial journey.

— business@khaleejtimes.com