Aim: The Syrian youth remain a pivotal section and torchbearers in Syria’s move towards early recovery. While the sanctions imposed on Syria, crippled various segments of its economy, the digital space continued to exist, providing a breathing space for its people, particularly its youth in their vision and planning about a resilient future. The aim of project Digi-EYE supported by the United Nations Development Program, was to harness the power of the digital space, and provide the requisite platform from which youth entrepreneurs in Syria could launch themselves. Through this project, selected youth-led start-ups were provided digital skills development, business incubation, and employment support. Another aim was to facilitate incubation in an advanced digital innovation centre (DIGIT centre), for long term, sustained support.
Results: Two major events were planned and hosted as part of this project; Hackathon and Bootcamp. These events were both mentoring and selection spaces where start-ups attended workshops on business development while competing for their selection for sustained incubation at the DIGIT centre and seed-funding support. 7 start-ups were finally selected & trained, with a focus on products and services for social impact. Rehabilitation and furnishing of the DIGIT centre with up-to date technologies was completed. Improved access to cutting edge incubation support via the centre was provided. The start-ups received extensive coaching and mentoring support from industry stalwarts on a number of topics ranging from business plan improvement, financial planning and projections, investors’ ecosystem, market access etc. The start-ups also acquired enhanced networking and partnership building opportunities through exposure training and coaching.
