The big start

The big start

Fancy becoming a CEO of your own company? Yeah, well, so does Kipp. Al Tamimi Investments is giving the UAE’s final year university students the chance of a lifetime.

October 12, 2009 9:18 by Austyn Allison

Last week venture capital company Al Tamimi Investments (ATI) launched The Big Start, a business competition for final-year university students in the UAE. The prize: the chance to become CEO of, and a shareholder in, your own company.

The competition calls for students – there is no restriction on nationality or area of study – in their final year at university to enter a business plan online at www.thebigstart.ae. That’s stage one. In the second stage, students ATI feel are good enough will strengthen their ideas at a business plan workshop.

Those with the best plans will be put through to round three, when they will present their plans to an ATI management team, and finally to Essam Al Tamimi, ATI’s chairman, who will pick a winner. Or winners. The organizers say they have no limit on the number of students they will invest in at the end of the competition. However, they say there will be at least one.

ATI is a private, Dubai-based holding company established in 2006, and has interests – through its own start-ups or through venture-capital investments – in a range of industries, including real estate, education, healthcare and publishing.

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Tags: Al Tamimi Investments, students, The big start, UAE, university