The Abu Dhabi SME Hub, the interactive knowledge platform launched in 2021 as a public-private partnership initiative, has expanded its offerings to empower MSMEs and startups to drive the growth of this vital sector and contribute positively to sustainable development.
The platform is a collaboration between the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED), Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, and Dunes Ventures, a venture builder by Mediaquest Business.
It has launched business educational web-series to provide entrepreneurs and start-ups with necessary, timely and interactive guidance to support their journey to success. These series shed light on successful companies and core skills-sets to start and grow thriving businesses. The two web-series, ‘Pin the Pitch’ and ‘Scale-Up Insider’ provide audiences with best projects pitching techniques and insights on operations of startups and MSMEs by experts.
Abu Dhabi SME Hub has also upgraded the platform to enhance experience of entrepreneurs, mentors, and partners. As a result, users base grew to over 17,000 unique users who benefit from various services and tools to set up and run their businesses. The platform provides mSMEs with updates on initiatives and announcements as well as best business practices by engaging a multi-format educational content, implementing market-tested strategies and technologies through partnerships with key market players and connecting with the wider business ecosystem, including government entities, regulators, investors, mentors, and peers.
Abu Dhabi SME Hub follows an approach that champions collaboration to support startups and mSMEs, giving them access to a diverse pool of mentors to address all issues, topics, challenges faced by entrepreneurs and mSMEs business owners at different stages of their journey in one-on-one advisory sessions. The number of mentors, with vast experiences in various fields, has rose to over 35 in the last period.
Mouza Obaid Al Nasri, Executive Director SMEs Sector at ADDED, said “Since its launch, the Abu Dhabi SME Hub has made great strides to support startups and mSMEs throughout their journey from ideation to setting up and doing business. We are keen to drive the growth of SME as it is one of the vital sectors in the economy and plays a critical role in the diversification strategy by increasing non-oil GDP and creating jobs in knowledge-based, innovation-driven sectors”.
“To this end, ADDED has launched many initiatives to further enhance the business ecosystem, incentivize and stimulate entrepreneurship in the Emirate by simplifying procedures, reducing costs and requirements, and enabling seamless integration of government services. We believe that adding new services to Abu Dhabi SME Hub will immensely help entrepreneurs to move to the next stage of their success journey,” Mouza Al Nasri added.
Abu Dhabi SME Hub is planning to further develop the platform and add new features, engage new partners from public and private sectors in the coming months. New initiatives will enable business founders to build companies faster, better, and cheaper; facilitate access to banking services, provide a wider scope of educational and advisory offerings.
