Tamkeen Expo 2013 a resounding success

Participants and visitors alike praised the benefits received from attending Tamkeen Expo 2013, which was held at the Gulf Hotel on the 7th and 8th of January 2013. The majority supported the idea to make it an annual event to keep the private sector updated on the latest business trends as well as opportunities offered by Tamkeen to enable them to enhance their business and drive economic growth, in line with Bahrain’s Economic Vision.

Held under the patronage of Tamkeen Chairman Shaikh Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa, the two-day event was met with overwhelming interest. Over 2,000 business leaders and entrepreneurs participated and attended the various activities that brought together Bahraini entrepreneurs and an elite group of entrepreneurship experts from Bahrain and abroad to share knowledge and discover how to boost their business.

Commenting on the conclusion of the event, Tamkeen Chairman Shaikh Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa thanked all the participants and visitors for their support for the success of this leading initiative in its inaugural edition, and stated, “We are immensely pleased with the great response from everyone involved. Tamkeen will take into consideration all the feedback received and seriously look into bringing this event back and possibly expanding it in the future.”

Tamkeen Expo 2013 commenced with a conference that was attended by about 400 people and focused on the leading role played by Tamkeen in the overall national economic development roadmap, and the importance of entrepreneurship in driving economic progress and innovation development and key challenges facing start-ups in the region.

Mr. Mohannad Hourani, Regional Manager of Blue Visions in Abu Dhabi, commented, “I came all the way from the UAE just to attend the conference and workshops. Since training and development is my field of work, I was very keen on networking with Tamkeen as I consider it the leading organisation in Bahrain in this field. I found the subject matter extremely useful, and I hope to take part in more Tamkeen events in the near future.”

In parallel, 80 enterprises which benefited from Tamkeen's various support programmes participated in the Tamkeen Expo exhibition to network and encourage visitors to benefit from the opportunities that Tamkeen offers, in addition to Tamkeen partners and service providers who introduced the wide-ranging training, advisory, and financing services that Tamkeen offers through its programmes.

Managing Director of Mandevco Mr. Graham Nugent also praised the event, commenting, “I thought the event was exceptional from start to finish, and we thank everyone involved for their amazing support. We managed to get over 100 new business prospects through our participation in the exhibition, which is an outstanding result for us, and I strongly recommend to Tamkeen that this becomes an annual event moving forward.”

Mrs. Ruth Williams, Head of Silah Academy, stated, “We found the Tamkeen Expo immensely useful.  The layout and venue of the exhibition were wonderful. We managed to network very successfully in terms of attracting candidates to train at the Silah Academy and recruit young Bahrainis as potential candidates for employment, in addition to generating new business opportunities.”

Mrs. Janet Lancely, owner of KG Kids, commented, “This was without doubt one of the best exhibitions we have been to. The layout was bright and user-friendly, and we managed to get a lot of networking done. We took advantage of the presence of Tamkeen’s service providers to inquire about how we can benefit from Tamkeen’s training programmes for our Bahraini employees. What made our participation especially gratifying also was that we were able to speak to visitors about how they too can benefit from Tamkeen and start their own business.”

Also held were a series of workshops led by a group of experts, with hundreds of  attendees learning key aspects of entrepreneurship, including setting objectives and priorities, improving quality, increasing profits, using social media, applying to electronic tenders, and developing marketing techniques.

Ms. Rawya Khalil, an aspiring entrepreneur in the fashion industry, attended several workshops in order to find out how to start her business idea on the right track. “I thought the content of the workshops were very relevant to us as entrepreneurs and immensely valuable as they opened my eyes to many new ideas which can only further enhance my future business.”

More than 66,000 Bahraini individuals and enterprises in Bahrain have benefited from Tamkeen programmes to date, and more than 100,000 beneficiaries are set to benefit from these programmes in total.