Doha: Silatech has announced a partnership with Yomken to support young entrepreneurs using the world’s first Arab-region-focused and web-based open innovation and crowd-funding platform, dedicated to micro-enterprises.
This comes in line with its efforts to develop innovative solutions to create economic opportunity for young people across the 22 countries of the Arab world.
Yomken.com is a non-profit open innovation and crowd-funding platform which launched its pilot phase in Egypt in October 2012, with seed funding from the World Bank’s Youth Innovation Fund. Yomken helps micro and small enterprises meet their design challenges by posting challenges online on a web platform, and sourcing innovative solutions from supporters (problem solvers), thus bridging the gap between those with a problem to solve and people with skills who need help.
Yomken provides a crowd-funding channel for innovators to post their product ideas on the platform to raise funds and transform them into actual products. Customers get access to a set of innovative products which they can pre-order, thereby financially supporting the production process.
The partnership with Yomken builds upon Silatech’s focus on providing innovative solutions to young Arab entrepreneurs by combining micro-financing opportunities with technology and helping people engage with their communities.
An earlier social investment by Silatech Kiva Arab Youth, developed in collaboration with Kiva.org (the world’s largest online micro-lending platform) has supported more than 60,000 individuals in raising nearly $3m to fund 2,500 young entrepreneurs in the Arab world, using a web-enabled micro-lending approach.
QNA
