Zoho Corp, a leading technology firm, has signed a deal with Saudi-based Falak Investment Hub to digitally empower youth and startups in Saudi Arabia and support them in their digital transformation journey. 

 

As per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed, Zoho will provide startups associated with the Falak Investment Hub network wallet credit worth $2500, an initiative by the 'Zoho for Startups' programme. 

 

The wallet credit can be used for accessing any of its 50+ products. In addition, members of the Falak Investment Hub will get access to learning resources and training workshops by Zoho's team to help them digitise their business. 

 

The MoU was signed by Adwa Al Dakheel, Founder and CEO at Falak Investment Hub and Hyther Nizam, President Middle East and Africa at Zoho Corp. 

 

Booming ecosystem

“With a booming ecosystem, a young and ambitious population, and a rising talent landscape, Saudi Arabia is on the forefront of innovation and startup ecosystems in the Mena - and such ecosystems are worthy of local and global partnerships to elevate benchmarks, cultivate entrepreneurial thinking, and inspire greatness from every existing founder and future founder. As long-term users of Zoho’s superior tools, we’re proud to formalise and scale this partnership for the betterment of Saudi Arabia’s local ecosystem.”

 

Falak and Zoho are also jointly conducting a series of bootcamp sessions, which will offer hands-on training on low-code, using the platform Zoho Creator, for university students in Saudi who aspire to test their ideas and hone their entrepreneurship skills. This comes as part of Falak’s Future Founders programme.

 

The Falak’s Future Founders Programme comes as a part of Falak’s initiatives to execute its mission of finding, enabling and growing the next unicorn startups of the Mena region. A five-day collaborative and educational event where students can develop and pitch new startup ideas. It's a series of ideation, design thinking, business modeling, market validation, mentorship and pitching sessions.

 

Bootcamp

The first bootcamp took place from June 26 to 30 at the Falak Investment Hub which was attended by students from the Prince Sultan University. More than 30 students joined the first cohort with ambition, dedication, and commitment - and they left the 5th day with more than 50+ cumulative ideas and 7 final MVPs that were ideated and developed in the same 5-day period.

 

Nizam commented: "We will provide an added-value to the developers, startup and the entrepreneurship community in Saudi through our unique business offerings. By coming together with a leading partner such as Falak, we aim to train and enable young talents and budding entrepreneurs with the tools needed to stay ahead of the curve. This partnership is part of Zoho's continued efforts to expand operations in the kingdom and extend its 50+ digital offerings to the  business community as well as embed digital literacy skills within the academic curriculum, in line with the nation's digital transformation aspirations."

 

Zoho uniquely offers the most comprehensive unified and centralised platform for users to run their entire business in the cloud, eliminating the need for multiple, asynchronous business management applications that do not seamlessly integrate with one another. 

 

Unparalleled user experience

This eliminates the problem of data silos, multi-vendor contracts and integration hassles. With a privacy-first approach, Zoho offers its users an unparalleled user experience, ensuring their information is securely stored and is not shared with any third-party software, as Zoho does not follow an ad-revenue model.-- TradeArabia News Service