EU in Jordan celebrates three years of ShamalStart achievements
Irbid, November 24 - The EU Ambassador to Jordan, H.E. Ms. Maria Hadjitheodosiou, visited ShamalStart, the leading hardware business accelerator in the north of Jordan, today and met with a number of entrepreneurs supported by the project. The visit coincides with the EU celebration of the Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Over the past three years Shamalstart has trained and supported more than 800 entrepreuners and provided a comprehensive business development services to over 100 startups. This included capacity building, incubation, mentorship, access to digital fabricaltion facilities, workspace, equipment, seed financing, and any other support needed, from conceptualization to launching the final products locally and internationally.
Commenting on the visit, H.E EU Ambassador Maria Hadjitheodosiou said: “The European Union in Jordan promotes and supports initiatives that can unlock entrepreneurship and innovation in the country. With programmes like ShamalStart, we invest in young talents, bright minds, creativity, passion and drive for innovation. We want to help entrepreneurs generate new ideas and turn them into business, create new products and jobs. And this is what we have been successfully doing with Shamalstart”.
Director of ShamalStart Eng. Ibrahim Faza expressed his gratitude to the support of the EU; “We are very grateful for having the support of the EU over the last three years which resulted in receiving more than 3,500 business ideas, training 300 startup teams, incubating more than 104 startups, with more than 20,000 hours spent in making products at our fabrication space, and most importantly, we jointly created more than 300 jobs. We look forward to helping more entrepreneurs in the coming three years.”
Background:
With funding from the European Union, Luminus Education established Luminus ShamalStart in 2016 in collaboration with the Royal Scientific Society (iPark) to provide makers, innovators and entrepreneurs with a comprehensive ecosystem in which they can transform their innovaitve ideas into successful businesses that can best serve their local communities. ShamalStart soon became a flagship hub for innovation and entrepreneurship in Jordan.
Luminus ShamalStart grants access to a designated workspace - namely FabLab Irbid, the first of its kind in Jordan and one of the 20 largest digital fabrication laboratories in the world. The lab comprises of advanced and easy-to-use equipment and tools that facilitate the production and market evaluation of almost any prototype while lending insights and knowledge presented by a resident group of experts and specialists.
For more info: www.shamalstart.com