Biban, Saudi Arabia's largest start-up SME and entrepreneurship conference, is returning to the Riyadh Front Exhibition & Conference Center between March 9 and March 13, 2023. Organized by Monsha'at, the Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority of Saudi Arabia, this year's event will welcome its largest audience ever, with more than 350 speakers and an anticipated 105,000 attendees from the Kingdom and abroad. The event will also host over 300 workshops, distributed among more than 20,000 beneficiaries. Attendees will also benefit from over 120 government and private enabling entities. The theme of Biban 2023, Attract-Connect-Achieve, highlights the event's focus on collaboration within the SME ecosystem, with the aim of achieving tangible outcomes through the sharing of knowledge, skills, and resources. As well as enjoying a unique opportunity to network, share ideas, and pursue shared goals, attendees at Biban 2023 will gain valuable insights from distinguished international and local speakers. Biban will also host several key areas, or "Doors", on its premises this year, which include: the Startup Door, the Funding Door, the Innovation Door, and the Growth Door, among many others. These are specialized areas where businesses and entrepreneurs can explore how to reach the next level. In addition to this, Biban 2023 will host the final round of the Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC), the first and largest competition of its kind, which sees entrepreneurs from over 200 countries competing for cash prizes worth over $1 million. This year's Biban takes place during an exciting era of development for Saudi Arabia's SME sector. The comprehensive economic and social reforms implemented under the Kingdom's ambitious Vision 2030 strategy are transforming the nation into a global hotspot for SMEs, entrepreneurship, and business innovation. Saudi Arabia was ranked first in the 'ease of starting a business' category of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report for 2021/2022, and the transaction value in the Kingdom's FinTech sector alone is set to grow by 100% between 2021 and 2025. The emergence of Biban as a one of the region's biggest entrepreneurial events adds more momentum to the development of the SME sector, connecting ideas with capital, driving innovation across key sectors, and transforming Saudi Arabia's entrepreneurial ecosystem to the benefit of the entire region. — SPA
