Team of Four Qataris Wins FahrasQatar Business Case Competition


ictQATAR to Support Innovative New Business In New Digital Content Incubation Center

الفائزين بمسابقة فهرس قطرCompetition Winners now have the business rights to Fahras Qatar

For four young Qataris their dream of owning an exciting business is about to become a reality. Mohammed Al-Sada, Reem Al-Muftah, Fahad Al-Hammadi and Mohamed Al-Kuwari were announced as the winners of ictQATAR's FahrasQatar Business Case Competition, giving them the business rights to FahrasQatar.

The competition required individuals or a team to submit and present a detailed business plan for FahrasQatar (http://www.fahrasqatar.com), an interactive online business directory developed by ictQATAR.

FahrasQatar, under the leadership of the winning team, will become the first company to be part of ictQATAR's new Digital Content Incubation Center, which aims to help grow a sustainable digital content industry in Qatar. The Center will provide promising digital content enterprises with expert guidance, innovative technology solutions, telecommunications services, office space, accounting services and legal advice. The winning FahrasQatar team will receive this incubation support for two years, and also be giving hosting services for the site.

"We have great confidence in the ability of young Qatari entrepreneurs to increase the amount of business-focused digital content here in Qatar. The ictQATAR Incubation Center is committed to helping nurture promising digital content endeavors in the state of Qatar" said Khaled Tawfik, ictQATAR Market Development Manager.

"We have great confidence in the ability of young Qatari entrepreneurs to increase the amount of business-focused digital content here in Qatar. The ictQATAR Incubation Center is committed to helping nurture promising digital content endeavors in the state of Qatar"
-- Khaled Tawfik, ictQATAR Market Development Manager.

""We are very happy and proud to be chosen as the very best of Qatar's applicants'. As the team leader, I realize it is a big responsibility, yet we are certainly confident that we will deliver a product that sets the bar for superb quality and professionalism not only in Qatar or the region, but in the world,"" said Mohammed Al-Sada.

""The competition is excellent as it enriches the IT sector in Qatar in many ways and certainly puts Qatar in the right track for total IT national infrastructure development.""

In their winning business case, Mohammed, Reem, Fahad and Mohamed outlined an ambitious strategy for the ""Qatari Yellow Pages"" that would focus on better integrating a Geographic Information System (GIS) into the site, improving its Search Engine Marketing, enhanced security and better functionality of the site across multiple platforms, such as mobile phones.

They also outlined plans to introduce a service through the site that allowed users to send SMS questions about businesses and receive fast SMS answers. In the longer term, the team outlined plans to expand the site regionally to different markets and in different languages, in addition to the Arabic and English already available.

Mohamed Al-Sada, the team's leader, graduated from Qatar University in 2009 with a degree in Computer Science. Reem Al-Muftah graduated from Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar in 2009 with a degree in Business Administration.

Fahad Al-Hammadi graduated from Queensland University of Technology in Australia in 2008 with a degree in IT and Business Systems. Mohamed Al-Kuwari graduated from Texas A&M University -Qatar in 2010 with a degree in Petroleum Engineering. They were the youngest team to enter the competition.

The FahrasQatar Business Case Competition was launched in April 2010. More than 50 interested individuals attended an initial competition briefing and more than 30 people submitted official entries. ictQATAR provided coaching sessions for all the contestants to assist them with developing their business cases.

Based on the initial assessment, the top ten business cases were selected to present their cases in front of FahrasQatar's incubation committee, with the winner being selected based on final voting by the judges. Deloitte oversaw the entire competition from an external auditor perspective and was also involved in the coaching process.





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