With business strategies being fundamental for the success of start-ups, the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an’s Innovation Platform, The Exchange, today led a conversation with industry experts on choosing the best route to scale up and deliver a scaling strategy.
This year’s The Exchange platform theme focuses on ‘Collaborate For Good’ to inspire, educate and empower community members to join a collaborative community and facilitate the exchange of inspiring stories and ideas, encouraging new connections and collaborations.
On 23 March, the event’s main topic was ‘Scaling Social Innovation Projects’ to identify the existing strategies and how start-ups and innovators can propose new ideas for scaling up social innovations.
The workshop began with a keynote presentation from Dr. Yasar Jarrar, Global Economy Fellow, MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth, UAE, who advised how social innovators can create social change and how they can find support in the ecosystem to grow exponentially.
Dr. Yaser Jarrar said: “Scaling is about exponential growth and it is very challenging to prove the potential for start-ups to scale. At the moment, most social innovations do not scale and fail to reach their potential due to the lack of motivation to grow exponentially.
“The UAE is a scale up nation and Ma’an is playing an important role for social innovators. Start-ups from elsewhere in the region have come to the UAE to help scale up and become unicorns. The UAE is the access to your gateway to other key markets.”
Following the keynote speech, the Ideas Lab workshop was facilitated by Aakanksha Tangri, Founder, Re:Set, UAE with audience members to examine successful case studies and roadblocks in scaling existing routes, new routes that social ventures can adopt to scale and the challenges that could arise from new routes.
During the workshop, pre-recorded videos were presented from discussions leaders including Josh Mandell, Chief Operating Officer, Halcyon, USA, Mariam Almeraikhi, Co-Founder, AstroCloud Studios, UAE and Prof. Barbara Scheck, Visiting Professor of Business, Organization and Society, NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE.
The speakers spoke about how the private sector and government sector can help catalyze start-ups, the room to scale creative industries and existing routes to scale social enterprises.
The Exchange will be running until Monday 29 March at The Galleria, Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi and will welcome more speakers tomorrow to discuss how innovators can partner with social enterprises to deliver community solutions.
Among the speakers will be Aakanksha Tangri, Founder, Re:Set, UAE, Roberto Croci, Managing Director for Startups MEA, Microsoft for Startups MEA, UAE, Åsa Skogstrom Feldt, Manager, IKEA Social Entrepreneurship, Sweden and Yasmina Zaidman, Chief Partnerships Officer, Acumen, USA.
