During the closing ceremony hosted by MCIT to arbitrate the final phase of Tomouh competition, recognizing program owners and partners, Egypt ICT Trust Fund (ICT-TF) affiliated to MCIT announced the top five winner projects in the competition.
Tomouh was organized by Youth Social Entrepreneurship Program (YSEP) in partnership with UNDP.
The competition aims to boost youth ideas in the field of IT applications, emphasizing its role in providing suitable technical solutions to counter challenges and problems facing community.
The idea endeavors to apply the concept of entrepreneurship as a methodology, thus creating real job opportunities by youth to meet community needs in all fields.
The project “Made in Damietta” ranked first place (Mohamed Siam – Mohamed Behiri- Ahmed Nabil). Its main idea is based on creating an interactive e-portal for professional marketing, as well as providing database for manufacturers and producers of furniture in Damietta.
The project idea also focuses on assisting Damietta manufacturers to open up to larger domestic and international markets and make them aware of the significance of communicating with clients in those markets, thus contributing to the upgrade of their products to meet the demands of new markets.
The second place winner project is “Say It” by Ali Mones, Karim Ashraf, Ahmed Bahaa El-Din Amar and Islam Mustafa Mohammed. It focuses on producing and providing software for computers and smart mobile phones to serve the ones with special needs of hearing and speaking disabilities.
The project main idea is to simplify, for people with hearing and speaking disabilities in Egypt, dealing with various modern technology means, in addition to facilitating their communication with the community.
Third place winner project is “Clean Propaganda” by Rania Mahmoud Omar and Omar Mahmoud Omar. This project addresses a new idea for propaganda through smart screens in streets where advertisers can publicize their ads via a website. The program then displays and nominates appropriate locations for their advertisements.
The idea of the project is to help in regulating and coordinating the cultural images of Egypt streets and attain financial returns for affiliated provinces or administrative bodies via exchanging and promoting advertisements on those smart screens at streets.
Achieving fourth place is "pension delivery" Project by Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa, Marwa Ahmed Mostafa, Abdul Rahman Abdul Karim, Maha Samir Ahmed and Marwa Fekry.
The project targets serving pensioners with utmost convenience by home delivering their pensions as well as other services such as medications and food.
Finally, winning fifth place is “smart telecom systems” project- private mobile network using wi-fi by Alaa El-din Issam, Abdul Rahman Said, Abdul Hai Mohammed, Abdullah Saeed Mehran and Tariq Mohammed.
This project’s idea is based on building a wireless network for mobile phones; permit its use in various institutions. Eventually, it will expand to cover populated areas, hence reducing costs and improving quality of calls in areas free of renowned networks.
The judging panel comprised a number of consultants and experts from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Social Fund, Vodafone, Zolia network and MCIT experts.
The National Director of Egypt ICT Trust Fund (ICT-TF), Ms. Hoda Dahroug said that youth with ideas and social entrepreneurship projects were invited to select best winner innovative ideas in Tomouh competition.
Furthermore, she added that Tomouh intends mainly to highlight pioneering ideas of Egyptian youth, bring the concept of entrepreneurship into action, transform their major projects into realistic beneficiary economic ones to achieve financial returns and provide youth with good spirit, representing a solution in addressing unemployment.
Ms. Dahroug added that the program contributes in providing communication channels and partnership with companies of private sector and civil society organizations to support, guide and sponsor those distinguished youth and their projects.
This is in addition to building their capacities, providing them with needed skills through training, especially in how to overcome social and environmental challenges their projects could face during implementation processes. This guarantees opportunities for technical and funding sustainability for their projects.
In essence, Egypt ICT Trust Fund program aims to promote economic and social development aspects in Egypt through the use of ICT. Tomouh is one of the notable activities implemented by the Egyptian program, Ms. Dahroug stated.
During 2010/11, the competition’s first phase commenced, while its second phase started in July 2012 to motivate youth to start small projects that have social impact using ICT. A number of 1039 participated with 277 creative ideas for social projects, of which 137 entrepreneurs were selected and trained on entrepreneurship skills, preparing action plans for projects and means of implementation.
UNDP/Assistant Resident Representative, Mr. Sheriff el takla said that this program is one of the axes for creating job opportunities for youth in Egypt project, which is being implemented by Egypt ICT Trust Fund in cooperation with UNDP in its first collaboration with Japan government in this regard.
This project was executed through three axes represented in supporting small and micro enterprises using IT tools, education program for employment and social entrepreneurship program for youth (Tomouh competition), Mr. Takla added.
In this framework and throughout the competition phases, youth were provided with necessary training in the field of ICT through holding a number of workshops attended by several experts and specialists in the field of project management skills and planning in a sustainable manner, Mr. Takla explained.
Net working services for funding bodies were offered, in addition to consultations to numerous projects for competent execution, as well as developing business for participant companies, Mr Takla concluded.
At the end of the ceremony, program partners and distinguished project owners participating in the competition received certificates of appreciation.
Furthermore, invitations for civil society organizations and private sector to participate in sponsoring theses projects and the promising distinct youth in technical, advisory and funding aspects were underlined, thus serving community and its segments in every field.
Next June, phase III of Tomouh competition will launch. An announcement to provide young entrepreneurs the chance to participate with their projects and ceative ideas is to be made.
