CHAIRMAN: DR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: DR. KHALID MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

Qatar

Qatar Science & Technology Park inspires innovation through creative collaboration

Published: 07 Oct 2019 - 08:33 am | Last Updated: 01 Nov 2021 - 05:26 pm
Participants at the Arab Innovation Academy 2019.

Participants at the Arab Innovation Academy 2019.

The Peninsula

Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), through its Arab Innovation Academy (AIA), has created a unique learning environment that equips young people with the confidence and ability to turn their innovative startup ideas into a reality.
AIA, a two-week entrepreneurship bootcamp launched by QSTP, part of Qatar Foundation Research, Development, and Innovation, in collaboration with the European Innovation Academy – takes place every year, and provides participants with hands-on experience, mentorship opportunities, and access to investors in order to help take their startup concepts from ideation to commercialized products. 
Shaikha AlSubaey, a graduate of Qatar University, and her team won joint third place in AIA 2019 with their project ‘EyeTalk’ – a software-hardware system that aims to people with disabilities completely paralyzed people communicate using just their eyes, by blinking.  
Talking about how the AIA experience allowed her to develop and grow as an individual and as an innovator, AlSubaey said, “One of the most important things I learned during my AIA experience was to speak up. Great ideas are irrelevant if they only exist in your head; and developing the self-confidence to articulate your thoughts and challenge others’ thinking, especially within groups of strangers, is a skill we all should possess.”
“But it’s not just about talking – listening is something that is fundamentally important to innovative thinking. It’s about being open, flexible, and accepting of the ideas of others, even though they may be different or come from a completely different cultural point of view. The key thing is to embrace the notion that knowledge is organic and innate to us all, and genuinely effective solutions will only really materialize when we work together to improve our world through innovation, creativity, and original thinking.”
Intrinsic to the AIA philosophy is mentoring, with experts on-hand to share their experiences and advice.   AlSubaey felt the mentoring that was available throughout the AIA program was an essential part of the whole experience and one that allowed her to be  in the right place to learn from those with more knowledge and experience than myself. 
“The unique interaction of all these diverse personalities, with all their professional experiences seemed to exemplify the idea of the ‘whole being greater than the sum.’ And you felt that this critical mass of knowledge, experience, personalities, and energy was exactly what you, as a participant, needed to hear,” she added.
AlSubaey  majored in accounting – not an area that anyone would immediately associate with innovation or creativity – but as an accomplished artist illustrator, and as a direct result of her involvement in the program, she is now volunteering with the AIA’s marketing team, to work on their 2020 marketing campaign, where they are using her illustrations, and her experiences, to encourage next year’s young innovators to step up, speak up and get involved.