Madinah, Prince Faisal bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Governor of Madinah, patronized the Start Smart Conference closing ceremony for the MIT Enterprise Forum and Startup Competition in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Arab world, in the presence of Prince Saud bin Khalid Al Faisal, Deputy Governor of Madinah. King Salman International Convention Center in Madinah hosted the events and activities of the conference that was organized by Jameel Community and Bab Rizq Jameel in cooperation with the Economic Development Center in Madinah.
Governor of the General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises (Monsha’at) Eng. Saleh Al-Rasheed, during a speech, noted that launching the Saudi Vision 2030 has contributed to realizing the first place globally for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the in business environment reforms among 190 countries, which facilitated procedures for business doers, according to the Ease of Doing Business Report 2020 issued by the World Bank. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also ranked fourth at NECI Index and first at the response of the government and entrepreneurs to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic among 44 countries according to GEM report 2020/2021. In addition, it contributed to the increase of venture capital from SAR 112 million to SAR 2.05 billion over five years, making the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia realize the second rank in the venture capital in 2021, noting that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also advanced in the growth of innovative facilities to the seventh rank according to the Global Competitiveness Report, and the steady increase in the number of small and medium enterprises despite the circumstances of the pandemic from 560,000 facilities to 663,000.
Later on, Prince Faisal bin Salman bin Abdulaziz honored the nine winning team in this exceptional edition that brought together entrepreneurs from across the Arab world, where the winning teams in the three tracks received financial awards worth SAR 188,000 (USD 50,000) for winners of the first place at the Startups Track and Social Track, while the winner of the first place at the Ideas Track received an award of SAR 56,400 (USD 15,000), where winners of the second place of all tracks received awards of SAR 37,600 (USD 10,000), in addition to the third place award for all the tracks, where winners received SAR 18,800 (USD 5,000) each.
The forum included the participation of 60 international startups from across the world and 60 Saudi innovative companies from MIT Enterprise Forum Startup competition, with the aim of attracting local, regional and international investors to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and contributing to realizing the wider economic ambitions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in a way that accords with Saudi Vision 2030, in addition to providing international startups around the world with an opportunity to expand their businesses in the Saudi market, meet Saudi investors and facilitate the procedures for these enterprises to compete in the Saudi market.
Source: Saudi Press Agency