Somaliland Youth Business Challenge — Global Entrepreneurship Week

According to an assessment conducted by the Ministry of Employment, Family and social affairs the number of unemployment rates indicates that 75% of Somaliland people are unemployed. According to this data, 30% of the unemployed are females while 20% are young males, but the remaining 15% are adults. The assessment noted that Hargeisa, which is the capital city of Somaliland, has been constrained by high levels of unemployed youth and especially university graduates.

As stronger entrepreneurship ecosystems emerge, young people unable to secure jobs have more opportunities to leverage their economic freedom and create a job. As they start and scale new businesses, they not only change their lives but also contribute to their communities and country through job creation and economic renewal. As part of an effort to promote youth entrepreneurship, Shaqodoon has organized youth entrepreneurship challenges in Hargeisa during the Global Entrepreneurship Week in November 2019.

We have selected five Innovative and Investment ready tested prototypes/businesses with a functioning business model that can be scaled up with the potential market opportunities to pitch their business ideas during the demo day for the chance of winning seed funding.

Hundreds of youth attended the event eager to witness the tough competition to get inspiration from the awarding of these startups and for the sole purpose of networking.

Mr Abdiqani Dirie of Shaqodoon has welcomed the guests and delivered the opening remarks thanking the distinguished guests, entrepreneurs, partners and participants, he has also given some explanation on how the competition will take place, as well as shedding the light onto youth and entreprenurship.

“Youth are the greatest resource of our nation. We have committed ourselves to equip them with 21st century skills for them to thrive and have an impact in their communities. We are set to empower youth through entrepreneurship and technology, since technology has offered accuracy and speed and through it the creation of a million of jobs, and we want our youth to lead the development of the society with these skills and mindsets.”

The minister of Youth and Sports Mr Boos Mire who attended the ceremony officially opened the competition and had few words to say about Shaqodoon and how it is always working on an innovative way to lead youth to take part of the economic growth and solve interesting problems within the community.

Also, representatives from Oxfam, Spark, and Sonyo were present to oversee how the event undertakes each also taking on the podium for a word.

All five startups pitched their ideas to an experienced business jury who had also asked questions after every pitch to see how innovative the idea is and how much impact it could have in the society.

Finally, Sami Online and Colorplus art and Paint was declared winners, winning total seed funding of $6,000 to uplift and scale their businesses, winning against three other competitive ideas.

Two other ideas undertook a training from HargaBits and went through the same competition has been awarded seed funding of $5,000 Girls decoration and Somlight Digital Printing.