University of Science and Technology and Startup Aden Hand in Hand to Support Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The symposium opened with a welcoming speech by the initiative team. Then, Professor Mohammed Al-Ban addressed the topic of innovation by presenting a training material in which he introduced university students to the importance of innovation and the difference between it and creativity. He also touched on the tools needed for innovation, and then spoke about the importance of studying the customer journey, presenting the journey of a university student as an example; to identify potential problems and find innovative solutions for them. After that, the initiative’s head, Professor Maram Abdullah, gave a motivational speech to the students.

The symposium included a short spontaneous discussion session with the students, moderated by a team consisting of Professor Bakil Hashim and volunteers Hanaa Yasser Mohammed Faisal, Mohsen Abdul Rahim, Hashim Abdul Rahman, Wafaa Qaed, and Ahed Khaled. The discussion session aimed to identify the obstacles to innovation that students may face, and concluded that the country’s weak infrastructure, poor internet, some misconceptions about innovation, fear of failure, and fanaticism of opinions are the most prominent of these obstacles.

At the end of the seminar, the “Startup Aden” initiative announced that it would provide full guidance and moral support to students who wish to search for ideas or wish to develop their ideas to turn them into commercial projects in the future. The initiative also announced that it seeks to hold more seminars in the future to spread the idea of innovation among young people in Aden, in order to achieve the initiative’s primary goal of promoting a culture of entrepreneurship.