Abu Dhabi Announces First YouthTech Competition, Powered by NYU Accelerator

The Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge (ADEK) has teamed up with startAD, the global accelerator based in NYU Abu Dhabi, to launch the YouthTech Competition in partnership with knowledge-based development company Tamkeen.

The virtual competition invites budding innovators to hone their passion into finding tech-enabled solutions for the most pressing issues plaguing industries the world over during COVID-19, including education, the economy, infrastructure and society. The competition is part of a larger programme which invites young entrepreneurs and thinkers to develop fully-realised, tangible ideas that can impact people and societies positively.  

The competition will provide the up-and-coming innovators with respective training to bolster their skills to be able to manifest their ideas to entrepreneurial projects over the course of a month. YouthTech doesn’t require participants to have any prior experience to enter and compete to win a total cash prize of AED 25,000 will be distributed among the winning ideas as seed capital for the startup concepts, with the top startups nabbing a spot in startAD’s programmes. 

“One of our key objectives is to foster a culture of entrepreneurship amongst the youth. When evaluating partners for this initiative, startAD was the obvious choice because they share our vision on the importance of empowering young talent to develop innovative ideas that will impact the future,” said Majid Al Shamsi, Higher Education Business Development Division Director at ADEK. “This will encourage the youth to continue innovating despite the challenges and build the future that will serve our society. We look forward to witnessing innovative ideas being turned into impactful projects over the coming weeks.”

Interested UAE innovators can apply right here, until August 8th.