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Thursday 1 December 2016

Winning the third place in Challenge for Innovation and got the seed capital

It was a great experience to participate in the Challenge for Innovation program from17th to 28th of November 2016, organized by the Science and Innovation Park at UAE University. More than 100 groups submitted their innovative ideas for startup. 35 groups were chosen to be in the competition, only 23 continued till the end of the program. Then 16 groups pitched their ideas to a panel of experts, who chose only 10 groups to be accepted in the incubator program and the first 6 teams get seed capital for the startup.
I was the team leader of my project Linovate (Link-to-Innovate) which is a platform to link academia with industry. My team consists of five members mainly from College of IT and Business. We were enrolled to 16 workshops in teamwork skills and business fundamentals. Also, they provided teams of supervisors and mentors to help in building the business plan and the pitch.
During this great experience I have learned a lot of things. One of the most important things was the Win-Win deal and focusing on the customer validation even before starting building the product. This is a key point for a successful startup. In addition, teamwork is significantly important as no single member is able to do everything. Sharing knowledge and trust build a strong team.
We won the third place in this competition and we are qualified to enter the business incubator and make our dream comes true.


Friday 7 October 2016

Software Decoder for SRMSAT-1 Cube-Satellite beacon data of SRM University, India, 2011

It was a great memory to find the Software Decoder I developed in 2011 to decode SRMSAT-1 Cube-Satellite beacon data for SRM University, India. The software gets the received data as a text file, and then displays a readable format of the data with chart analysis.  The Software was originally developed for decoding the KNSAT-1 beacon data for University of Khartoum, then modified according to the SRMSAT-1 data. It was used in several ground stations around the world such as Japanese ground stations.


Tuesday 6 September 2016

Very Inspiring Personality (VIP) Workshop

During the last three days, I joint the Very Inspiring Personality (VIP) Workshop held at UAE University organized by UAEU Science & Innovation Park, 3rd - 5th September 2016. We met three VIPs who told us about their inspiring stories from zero to success and how they overcome failures. 
The first one was  Sadaffe Abid. She is one of Pakistan’s most successful businesswomen. She was the chief executive of the Kashf Foundation, one of the largest microfinance institutions in Pakistan, growing it from a pilot project in two rooms, to serve 300,000 female clients with micro-loans. Ms Abid also co-founded the Buksh Foundation, a Pakistani start-up that enhances financial access to micro entrepreneurs. 
The second one was Sabriye Tenberken. She lost her sight slowly as a child due to retinal disease. In 1997, Sabriye travelled to Tibet alone in order to assess the situation of the blind there. Returning in 1998, she founded the Centre for the Blind in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, to educate blind people. Before that, blind children had not been able to attend school in Tibet. The school started with five children, with Sabriye initially teaching the children herself, as well as serving as coordinator and advisor. She then began training native Tibetans as teachers, selecting and supervising all staff-members of the Centre.
 Finally,  Roland  Schatz, he started his career as a journalist and worked in Germany‘s leading opinion research institute before founding Media Tenor International in 1993.He opened the first Arab Media Institute in 2007 at Emory University.
This workshop and the stories of the three VIPs increased my confident in my self and gave me the ability to face life difficulties. I have learned a lot of things at these three days. First, things seems impossible until it is done. Also, I liked the attitude of Sabriye who traveled from Germany to Tibet alone and was able to change the mind set of blinded children and their families and how they became proud of them where blindness was considered a punishment by God. 
This workshop was a very amazing experience that will definitely change my life.