This year's MIT Arab Business Plan Competition will see 9 finalists present their business ideas to a panel of experts at Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel in Dubai next week, all battling for the $50,000 prize money. The MIT Arab Business Plan Competition is the first of its kind in the Arab world, designed to encourage all entrepreneurs in the region to start their own company and, ultimately, create a platform for viable businesses throughout the Middle East. As well as the large sum of prize money, the winner will also be invited to participate in the MIT Global Startup Workshop Forum, organized by the MIT Enterprise Forum Inc, in Massachusetts, America. Budding entrepreneurs from all over the Middle East will showcase their business plans for a variety of projects, ranging from the development of therapeutic peptides for the treatment of cancer created by a team in Dubai, to the cultivation of fertilizer from rice straw from a team based in Egypt. All projects are presented by a team of at least three people, at least two of them being Arab nationals. The business concept must be implemented in a country within the Arab world. Members of the winning team will be given the opportunity to attend the MIT Global Startup Workshop. First and second runner-ups will receive prize money worth $10,000 and $5000 respectively. The winner of the competition will be announced in Dubai at an awards ceremony held at Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel on June 11. This year has seen two of the MIT Arab Business Plan Competition finalists from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including a team which has developed a webmail application to rank all emails in order of their perceived importance. Another group has devised an interactive and online curriculum to teach English to young Arabic speakers. The MIT Arab Business Plan Competition offers people from all over the Arab world the chance to foster their business talent. During these challenging economic times it is imperative that we continue to nurture and promote these entrepreneurial ideas to stimulate the economic community within the region. The competition gives people from the region the opportunity to network with all relevant business constituencies, and interact with the global entrepreneurship culture. This year 1,650 applications were received and 5,000 people from 16 Arab countries were involved with the competition. __
