Trainer(s)

Arwa Shafi

Title:

Ventures Associate at KAUST / Co-leader at Taqadam Entrepreneur University.

Bio:

Arwa has worked closely at the intersection of education and entrepreneurship across a wide range of programs throughout her career. Currently, Arwa is the New Ventures Associate at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) where she co-leads the Taqadam Entrepreneur University Accelerator. Funded by the Saudi British Bank (SABB) Taqadam supports student, staff and faculty entrepreneurs across the Kingdom commercialize their technology through a new venture, in its first batch 25 teams benefited from the program.

Arwa has also founded the Agents of Innovation program, an exclusive apprenticeship program for selected high potential students from partner universities. The Agents are exposed to opportunities to solve major challenges and support the KAUST Entrepreneurship Center during important events. The program allows students to work directly on significant real-world challenges and well interact with leading entrepreneurs and develop their networks. Arwa also mentors a diverse portfolio of startups and students as part of the 910ths accelerator and also as part of the Master’s and PhD level “New Ventures & Product Development” elective module taught at KAUST.

Arwa also mentors and coordinates with partner institution during STEAM, a major innovation challenge where up to 240 students in cross functional teams take on significant global challenges. Moreover, Arwa established the junior mentor program in STEAM and thereby multiplying the level of support and direction student teams received during the intensive programs and visibly improving the outcomes.

Abdulrahman Aljiffry

Title:

Founding member of the KAUST Entrepreneurship Center

Bio:

Abdulrahman is a founding member of the King Abdullah University for Science & Technology (KAUST) Entrepreneurship Center where he has developed training and mentorship programs for a variety of major events and startup conferences in the Kingdom including MIT Pan-Arab Enterprise Forum and Arabnet. Work has included developing the program for the KAUST STEAM Innovation Challenge in collaboration with organizations such as Northrop Grumman and Dow Chemical.

Abdulrahman Co-leads the TAQADAM University Startups Accelerator, which is sponsored by Saudi British Bank (SABB) with a variety of technologies including Internet of Things, New Materials, Software, Internet and Biotechnology from 18 different Saudi universities. Abdulrahman supports a diverse portfolio of early technology start-ups ranging from clean tech to education to social enterprise. During his tenure, KAUST has been the recipient of numerous high-profile awards, such as being named the best higher education institution supporting entrepreneurship at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) and recognized by University Business Incubators Index (UBI) as a high potential incubator program.

Additionally, Abdulrahman also leads the Entrepreneurship Center’s corporate innovation programs. These programs are designed to foster innovation and new thinking in large organizations. Abdulrahman has worked with driven teams from Saudi ARAMCO, SABIC and Islamic Development Bank among many others.