Queen Rania Visits Zain Innovation Campus (Zinc) and Meets Young Jordanian Entrepreneurs

(Office of Her Majesty – Press Department – Amman) Highlighting Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah’s interest and continuous support for Jordanian entrepreneurs, Her Majesty visited today Zain Innovation Campus (ZINC), met with CEO of Zain Jordan, Mr. Ahmad Al Hanandeh and spoke with several groups of entrepreneurs about their start-ups.

Zain Innovation Campus (ZINC) was launched during the MENA ICT Forum in November 2014, with the aim of incubating entrepreneurs and startup owners in an environment that is equipped with the latest technologies.

During her visit, Queen Rania listened to a brief about one of Zain’s partners in this project, Zoomaal, a leading crowd funding platform that aims to support the ambitious young talents in the Arab World. Through its website, Zoomaal, allows entrepreneurs to share their ideas with the world and attract the necessary funds to start them.

Queen Rania also spoke with representatives from Eureeca, an equity based crowd funding platform that provides the largest angel investor network in the Middle East.

Al Hanandeh also talked about the partnership between Zain and Zoomaal which resulted in the establishment of a dedicated Corporate Entrepreneurship Responsibility (CER) division within the company making it the first company in the Kingdom that includes within its organizational structure, an assigned section to support and develop startup projects submitted by young entrepreneurs.

He added, “through its social and entrepreneurial responsibility programs, Zain aims to provide equal opportunities to beneficiaries across all governorates. That was the reason behind launching Zain Al Mubadara which provides a monetary prize to one project from each governorate. This is part of our belief that Jordanian minds are our true wealth and giving our youth equal opportunities will definitely unleash their creativity and develop their abilities to become successful business owners who, in return, provide work opportunities to their peers in their communities.”

Three entrepreneurs, including the winner of Zain Al Mubadara, spoke about their entrepreneurial ideas and the scope of work of their start-ups in their local areas. The companies vary between digital education, marketing and printing services.

While at ZINC, Her Majesty listened to a number of success stories from Jordanian youth from all governorates, she also spoke with employees of Zain Call Center in Tafileh which provides technical support and services for Zain internet services. All employees of the Call Center have graduated from Zain Mobile Maintenance Training Center which is located in Tafilah governorate.

The Queen was also briefed on 3D MENA, a commerce platform for 3D printing, which aims at making high quality printing accessible to creators, designers, and shoppers in the MENA region. ZINC hosted five sessions for 3D MENA with a total number of 100 participants.

While at the Games and Apps Publishing Corner, Her Majesty listened to a brief about Zain’s partnership with Maysalward, a leading mobile games development company in the Middle East. Nour Khrais, founder and CEO of Maysalward, spoke about his company’s partnership with Zain which aims to support and promote locally developed digital mobile games regionally and internationally.

Khrais also gave a detailed brief about a number of digital games that are being developed by Jordanian youth from several governorates and the plans to publish and market these games through Zain in the near future.

Her Majesty also met with the winners of the Traxn program which is designed by Wamda in partnership with leading corporates, including Zain, to give traction to established startups by connecting them with the right resources at leading corporates.
Queen Rania also met with representatives from several Jordanian start-ups including, ifood.jo, Cash Basha, Feesheh, ShopGo, and Yislamo.