A new mentoring programme will link up-and-coming entrepreneurs with experienced business leaders through an online and mobile platform.
Mara Mentor was launched by The Mara Foundation, Mara Group’s social enterprise established in 2009, at an event held at the Armani Hotel in Dubai on Saturday, 24 October.
Mara Mentor in the Arab World is free and can be accessed on www.mentor.mara.com and also through a mobile app available on iPhone and Android.
The launch event, supported by the United Nations Foundation and its Global Entrepreneurs Council, brought together a number of government representatives, industry leaders, and global institutional stakeholders.
Ashish Thakkar, the founder of Mara Group, is also the newly-appointed chair of the United Nations Foundation’s Global Entrepreneurs Council.
The event started with a mentor-mentee session which was followed by the official launch Thakkar’s book The Lion Awakes: Adventures in Africa’s Economic Miracle.
Speaking to StartUp on the sidelines of the event, one of the selected Mara Mentors, Tarek Ahmed Fouad, a serial entrepreneur and a mentor at the Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Foundation and its partner, The Impact Hub Dubai, said that entrepreneurs in Dubai had difficulties in reaching out to people who could help them.
“It’s difficult to reach out to people who are influential, who have vast experience, because of the natural barriers that are there. And such platforms [Mara Mentor] are important for entrepreneurs,” he said.
“Then funding. The culture of investing in start-ups and small companies, especially the ones with high risk, is still not out there.
“Number three is the fact that you’re starting in the UAE, which is a very hard place to crack because obviously it’s an expensive place to start, it’s not as start-up friendly as other places.
“But it’s changing. Probably number three will take some time to change, but if we take the first two out, we’ll achieve something good. “
Another Mara mentor, Aziza Osman, social entrepreneur and start-up advisor, has already started, developed, and sold her first venture – Fruitful.
Set up in 2013 in cooperation with Vox Cinemas to offer healthy options to cinemagoers, she sold her company in 2015.
When asked about the lessons she had learnt, Osman said: “It’s very hard to start up, you need to be very patient and you need to wear a lot of hats.
“I would advise entrepreneurs here to have a lot of patience, to never give up, to accept that some things are not ready yet in the country in terms of specifying the industry or model or activity when registering.
“Also I would advise entrepreneurs not to start alone, to always have a partner.
“For me, being alone was tough. You have to accept that you don’t have that social work environment like you would have in a corporation or a company. You have to get used to being alone. “
Osman currently serves as a board member of Jusoor, an NGO of Syrian expatriates to help Syrian youth get scholarships for the world’s top universities.
She has also been mentoring young entrepreneurs at the Emirates Foundation and The Impact Hub Dubai.
Speaking about Mara Mentor initiative, she said: “What is different today is [that] a lot of effort [has been invested] from organisers to bring together mentor and mentees from the same fields to help cultivate and develop their ideas.”
Initially launched in Africa, Mara Mentor e-platform is now available to entrepreneurs in six African countries. It has grown into an online community of over 600, 000 active entrepreneurs across 30 African countries.
The Mara Mentor also aligns with the UAE’s efforts to foster entrepreneurship in the Arab world, and has an influential advocate in Ohood Al Roumi, Director-General of the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and a new member of the UN Foundation’s Global Entrepreneurs Council.
Mara Group, founded by Ashish Thakkar in 1996, has grown to become a business conglomerate with a presence in more than 22 African countries.
Although the group’s activities are focused on the African continent, the group has its main office in Dubai, which Thakkar considers as a hub for African entrepreneurs to access international markets.
In his book, The Lion Awakes: Adventures in Africa’s Economic Miracle, Thakkar explained that Dubai had played a key role in his entrepreneurial journey.
Speaking about the importance of mentorship for entrepreneurs, Thakkar said: “One of the smartest moves a young entrepreneur can make early on is to take on a good mentor to offer guidance and valuable input.
“This has been a key lesson throughout my entrepreneurial journey. Our goal with this mentorship platform is to help guide entrepreneurs’ business ideas into profitable and thriving business entities and contribute to the local and national economies.”
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