IEEE Region 8 Entrepreneurship Competitions at Tunisia Section
IEEE Region 8 Entrepreneurship Initiative kicked off in 2018 and we now stand delighted to see the colors of nations and their young professionals united in aspiration to serve the needs of societies through technology to explore new horizons, to make the world a better place – all by hands-on empowering of the sustainable engineering.
The initiative consists of three main envisioned programs: Entrepreneurship Week , Mentorship Program and IEEE Pitch.
What’s Entrepreneurship Week ?
Entrepreneurship Week as series of local tech-entrepreneurship events coordinated by local ambassadors in their own sections, joined by various IEEE organizational units and regularly far further beyond the IEEE.
The week, aligned with Global Entrepreneurship Week, spanning November 18-24, hosts the greatest success stories of accomplished startups and CEOs, presentations and guidelines how to start and scale up the business, workshops with hands-on necessary skills development, and a distinctive tech entrepreneurship pitching
competitions.
What’s Mentorship Program?
Mentorship Program takes the local winners to the global scene as an acceleration program of education and visibility, supported by platform of dos and don’ts, success stories and experience-based encouragement. Accomplished mentors and leaders now take the lead of tech startups of various domains and cultures and turn them into new success stories. Long term, the Mentorship Program aims at building the entrepreneurial foundations for additional benefits of IEEE membership to the tech entrepreneurship ecosystem.
What’s IEEE Pitch?
IEEE Pitch is a pool of local winners that are taken to the next level of the competition. Each Entrepreneurship Week provides 3 winners to the total expected number of 70 in 2019 that are further filtered by International Committee of evaluators who are experienced in various domains of technology, business, marketing, management but also of strong social impact stemming from sustainable engineering.
The 3 out of 70 startups will be selected by the Committee, additionally supported by 2 more startups with the most votes in social media, and will be brought through Mentorship Program to the finals in IEEE Region 8 Student and Young Professionals Congress in Gothenburg, Sweden, in July 2020. The finalists will be awarded and taken to a high-profile entrepreneurship summit in 2020.
Call for ambassadors released !
Last summer, a call for ambassador was released and 110 candidates from 32 countries were selected for the next step of the Initiative.
Ambassadors were asked to organize a free-form event of the entrepreneurship spirit that also incorporate pitching competition for the teams with innovations, startups and capable teams with creative intentions in general.
IEEE Tunisia section is one of the most active sections in IEEE and for that, it was so important to take a part in such initiative. It’s a great opportunity to held more events in the theme of entrepreneurship and encourage student branches to organize such competitions. Also, having winners at the regional levels is an honor for the IEEE Tunisia section.
As the Entrepreneurship Ambassador for the IEEE Tunisia section, I saw it as an honor and as new step in my IEEE experience. The first idea I got was : “why not to work under the umbrella of the IEEE Tunisia Young Professional AG and definitely with other student branches. This way, it will be a good opportunity to get closer to student members”
And that was the first step.
First Entrepreneurship Competition : PES WEEK 2.0
PES Week (short for Power and Energy Society) blew its second candle on the 22,23 and 24 of November.The event took place at the Galaxy hotel , giving the opportunity to network with the industry in a great atmosphere.
Who was the organizer?
It was organized by the exemplary IEEE PES Chapter – ENIS Student Branch. This chapter formed in 2013 and has more than 80 members repaired as undergraduates, graduates and young professionals. It is one of the most successful chapters in IEEE. We aim to provide knowledge to our members in organizing various events, workshops, conferences and industrial visits and by participating in several competitions.
It won the 16th global position, the 4th in region8 and the first in tunisia on the 2019 PES HPSBCP with 34.17%
Little summary !
The week features inspirational speakers, industrials and experts in a series of workshops , success stories and panel discussion.
High profile speakers participated on the PES WEEK, such as :
- Mr. Peter Sutherland as our PES distinguished lecturer
- Mr.Akram Taktak as our soft skills trainer animating a workshop untitled “Are you the next leader ?”
- Mr.Mahdi mkaouar as our soft skills trainer animating a workshop untitled “PITCH SECRETS”
A 24 hour entrepreneurship competition took place on the 2nd and 3rd day of the event. Each team presented an innovative idea of an entrepreneurship project on the use of renewable energy in agriculture field.
The jury made up of:
- Mr.Mohamed Belhaj, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Transfer – University of Sfax
- Mr. Aymen Tmar, EX- IEEE PES ENIS SBC “Chairman” & Engineer within ShellEnergy. YP IEEE TUNISIA President
- Mr.Soulaymen kammoun, R&D Manager at Green Power Company
- Mr. Riadh Ben Hlima, University professor at ENIS
The judgment criteria were essentially : Creativity,Feasibility,Benefit and Presentation.
Awards given were :
Second Entrepreneurship Competition : Tunisia Innovation Meeting 2019
IEEE ENIG Student Branch organized a multidisciplinary national event titled “Tunisia Innovation Meeting 2019” (TunI’M 2019), on November 23 at the National Engineering School of Gabes. Event Link on vtools : https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/209908
Who was the organizer?
IEEE ENIG Student Branch was formed on January the 1st 2013. The actual number of its members is 56. It was one of the TOP 3 on the International scale by taking the 2nd place in IEEE Milestone Showcase Contest 2019: Future Milestones. https://ieeeday.org/milestone-contest-winners/
IEEE ENIG Student Branch Member’s Mrs Ines Abedenneji win the outstanding Student CMD Officer for 2019
Also Mr Achref Selmi won a funding amount of 500$ for his project in the Driven Initiative contest. At the TSYP’2019, this student branch won the first place in the humanitarian project challenge during the TSYP 2019 as well as the honour to organize the 8th TSYP edition.
Little summary !
A conference under the theme of engineering and business was the first in the event plan. In fact, several Tunisian CEOs joined the conference as speakers, such as Africa Flying and Engineering enterprise and Technosolaire enterprise.
After that, a debate session took place. It covered the industry and environment motion. Therefore, governers from the ministry of environment, leaders from Tunisian societies and young professionals from IEEE shared promising practical solutions on how to make a better bond between industry and the environment.
At the end of the program, more than 10 teams participated in a national competition under the theme of eco-friendly entrepreneurship with innovative presentations and promising potential as leaders.
The jury made up of:
- Mr. Fitouri Oussema : elected as Student Branches coordinator within Tunisia Section for this year (2019) and he is one of the founding members of SAC Tunisia
- Mr. Welid Meskine : a Tunisian engineer specialized in Energetic Sciences. He had been the chief engineer in the Ministry of National Defense.
- Mr. Messaoud Yamoun : a retired biology professor, an entrepreneur, an activist and a global citizen.
The judgment criteria were essentially : Creativity,Feasibilityand Presentation.
Awards given were :
- First price winner : 150 $
- Second price winner : 100 $
Winners
In conlusion, such event aimed to bring together, not only Tunisian IEEE members but also researchers, industry experts and entrepreneurs. Above all, they all shared their knowledge and expertise with students.
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