SIRB, an Angel Investors Network established by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), representing BADIR program for Technology Incubators, announced Wednesday the launch of a first of its kind competition aiming to bring together angel investors and entrepreneurs within the Kingdom for unsurpassed investment opportunities. The competition aims to provide access to finance and support entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia through creating a network whereby prominent businessmen and angel investors can contribute to the success, growth and sustainability of small to medium sized projects with an overall objective of diversifying the National economy to one that is based on knowledge. Hesham Rowaihy, Executive Manager of the Sirb Network, said: “Sirb Award is a first of its kind competition in the Kingdom. It will attract entrepreneurs with existing developing or growing projects and provide angel investors the opportunity to support these projects. During the initial phases of their projects, entrepreneurs face many obstacles such as limited access to finance and lack of expertise in developing their projects into a thriving businesses. That is why through this competition, we will also provide entrepreneurs with professional training from local and global experts. We will then provide these entrepreneurs with the opportunity to showcase their projects in front of an exclusive group of angel investors who will then provide them with the necessary support.” Sirb Award competition is composed of three main stages. During the first stage, the competition will receive projects that are feasible both financially and economically. These projects will then be displayed to a screening panel who will qualify the top 25 projects to the next stage. During the second stage, entrepreneurs will go through a set of workshops and training exercises which will help them formulate their projects and further develop their business models. This will be done through the help of specialized trainers from various fields. The third and final stage, which will take place on May 4, 2013 at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Jeddah, the panel of 7 judges will select the top three entrepreneurs to win Sirb awards, which include SR200,000 for first place, SR125,000 for second place and SR75,000 for third place. Additionally, all three winners will receive full year mentoring in a specialized program. The screening panel consists of four judges: Hani Baothman, CEO of Sidra Capital; Engineer Soraka Al-Khateeb, Managing Partner of Fullstop; Engineer Khaled Al-Sulaimani, founder and CEO of Basetech; and Yasser Baharith, founder and owner of Yasser Mohammed Baharith Group. — SG
