University of Salford delivers workshops to over 100 young Omani entrepreneurs

The virtual workshops will take place across seven days between June and July in an entrepreneurship programme, .nxt, launched by AJW Innovation, a sustainable technologies and innovation development company, and sponsored by Occidental Oman LLC., an international energy company.

Acting as part of their third phase of the pioneering entrepreneurial development programme in frontier technology, the workshops will aim to provide training and enhance employment opportunities for those involved.

Naomi Timperley, an Honorary Industry Fellow at Salford Business School, will be delivering a series of bespoke entrepreneurial skills workshops including ideation, design thinking, financial management skills and pitching designed to encourage an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset.

She said: “I’ve been working with Salford for a long time and I’ve worked with thousands of young entrepreneurs, so it’s really brilliant to now work with 100, all at the same time, but also in a different country where they may have different issues to solve than those in the UK. It’s especially wonderful to see that young people are keen to apply entrepreneurship skills to solve those problems and that Salford can be a part of that.”

By the end of the programme, participants will utilise their newly acquired skills and pitch their business ideas to a panel of committees and investors in a competition. Those who are successful will win a cash prize and have a chance to bring their ideas to life.

Dr Costas Chryssou, the Programme Lead in Oman, said: “The entrepreneurial bootcamp programme is the culmination of an intensive year for the .nxt participants. We are excited to see that 90% of the final 100 entrepreneurs are female. We have seen a large proportion of women engage in the programme and it’s wonderful to see that they will be taking on the 5-week challenge and developing new ideas towards commercialisation.”