The Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center (Sheraa) conducted a panel discussion titled  ‘A Session with Sheraa’, and a reading evening themed ‘Book Review’, on September 19, 2019, the third day of ‘Creative Publishing Café’, being organised by the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA) at Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone (SPCFZ).

‘Creative Publishing Café’ is a five-day cultural event being organised as part of the Sharjah World Book Capital 2019 celebrations, which includes a series of prestigious book-themed events and cultural activities.

The session was led by Saeed Nofal, Project Development Manager at Sheraa, who gave an insightful presentation on creative thinking in cultural investment. He also highlighted the unique services Sheraa offered to empower young entrepreneurs and infuse a positive entrepreneurial spirit in today’s youth.

Nofal said the Creative Publishing Café is a unique event that is designed to motivate young people to think creatively when it comes to cultural investment, which has increasingly become the focus of attention of all countries. “Investment in cultural projects helps achieve more than one goal as such projects boost the cultural movement and inject fresh blood into the emirate’s economic sector,” he said.

Nofal revealed that Sheraa had nurtured 72 successful start-ups which have raised $37 million in investment and generated $24 million in sales revenues since the entity’s inception in 2016.

He pointed out that Sheraa did not finance projects. The Center’s purpose was to nurture innovative entrepreneurial ideas for tech start-ups with its experts providing advice and support to young entrepreneurs to help develop their start-ups.

The Project Development Manager highlighted Sheraa’s relations with various government bodies and departments which enabled it to refer entrepreneurial projects to relevant entities which would adopt, support and provide funding to develop them into businesses and products that could compete in the marketplace

He stressed that Sheraa’s strategy focused on fostering a culture of entrepreneurship and nurturing a new generation of tech entrepreneurs by engaging youth in brainstorming sessions to train them to come up with innovative ideas that attracted investment.

Highlighting the influence Sheraa has had on the entrepreneurial ecosystem since its inception three years, Nofal noted that Sheraa organises a series of mentoring programmes, training courses and workshops for entrepreneurs. The center also conducts specialised programmes for university students with creative project ideas to help implement them.

Speaking about Sheraa’s successful models, Nofal pointed out that the Center had helped a young entrepreneur successfully manufacture a robot that filters waste from seawater. The project had attracted Sharjah Environment Company (Bee’ah) as a partner.

Apart from its achievements in the domestic arena, the Project Development Manager noted that Sheraa has been actively engaged in many international events andentrepreneurship exhibitions inPortugal, the UnitedStatesandFinland. The Centre also sponsors representatives from its affiliated start-ups tointernationaleventstoacquireexpertiseandshare experiences.

Employee – Manager relationship

Later, at the book reading session titled ‘Book Review’, Colonel Saeed Al Madhloum from the Al Dhaid Police, highlighted some prominent values that ensure job satisfaction and happiness.

Reading from his book ‘Manager’s Beetle’, Col. Al Madhloum narrated how managers could establish a good relationship with their staff and the steps that managers should take to improve the employee – manager relationship to facilitate a highly productive and happy workplace.

“There are many things that managers can do to establish trust and good relationship with their employees,” said Col. Al Madhloum. He underlined the need for managers to acquire the necessary tools that would contribute to improving the relationship with the staff.

Having an open-door policy and providing an ideal and conducive working environment, based on a strong employee-manager relationship would help enhance the performance and efficiency of employees to a great extent, he said. This would reflect in the overall productivity and quality of work.

Al Madhloum’s urged employees to do their best at work and take the initiative, without depending on the manager for every decision. He also advised them to choose the right time to bring up an issue at the workplace.