Al Fikra Competition

Al Fikra has been operated over the past years by Qatar Development Bank, the launch of the National Entrepreneurship Competition (Al Fikra) dates back to 2013, when the first version of the competition was launched as a joint initiative between Enterprise Qatar, the MIT Enterprise Forum, Silatech, and Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, with the aim of fostering and developing entrepreneurs in the country. Over the years, Al Fikra gained interest from entrepreneurs, sponsors, the business community and various supporters making it the biggest and most anticipated entrepreneurship competition in Qatar. The last edition of Al Fikra in 2022, Qatar Development Bank aimed to shift Al Fikra focus towards Universities for supporting further knowledge & innovation driven startups where Universities normally are core knowledge and innovation entities in the national ecosystem, and hence QDB partnered with the Office of Strategic Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development (SIEED) at Qatar University to run Al Fikra nationally with focus on higher education and Universities. Al Fikra 2022 received over 200 team’s applications equivalent to 582 team members from over 15 higher education institutes across Qatar. For the first time in Qatar, Al Fikra 2022 provided the opportunity to attract the higher education segment across Qatar including undergraduate students, graduate students, researchers, staff and faculty members to learn how to take their ideas forward while being hosted at Qatar University.