Batelco’s stem leadership summer camp 2020

A journey of learning and innovation; this is what Brinc offered through Batelco’s STEM leadership summer camp in partnership with Batelco and Clever Play.

The month-long journey came to an end on the 7^th of September, after the successful run that it had. The summer camp was a fun, educational, and stimulating experience that was aimed at the Bahraini youth, as it strived to inspire them to take a path in entrepreneurship. Through the virtual experience, the selected students participated in entrepreneurial and STEM activities that aimed to stimulate their minds to be innovative in order to become game-changers and solve some of today’s challenges with their technology-based companies.

The camp was limited to 38 students between the ages of 15-22 that were divided into 8 teams. They all underwent sessions, which were aligned with SDG 4 “Quality Education”, and provided the students with the set of skills, required to develop their app, website, or game. They took part in 13 sessions conducted by Brinc and Clever Play, in which they learned everything from the idea and planning stage, creating and designing, and how to pitch their products. The camp gave the participants the opportunity to develop business models with technology being at the core, tackling real-world problems while generating profit. The camp ended with a pitching competition where the teams had the opportunity to pitch their ideas to a panel of five judges who later picked the winner of the grand prize. Through this pitching competition, the participants benefited from a sense of how it would feel to be an entrepreneur pitching their ideas to investors, customers, and partners. “Sendan” which was chosen as the winning team, created an application that enables customers to place customized product orders for their homes, from various craftsmen within the country.

The teams consisted of efficient and hardworking Bahraini youths. Thirty-five percent of Bahrain’s population falls within the youth segment and they have high potential and a promising future in becoming job creators rather than job seekers. Brinc Batelco aims to create opportunities that would allow the youth to establish their own businesses.

Young people are the backbone of society and their participation is vital in all aspects of it, therefore, Brinc Batelco has generated eight summer camps so far with participation from 215 students, aged from 7-30. Brinc Batelco has also held nine successful hackathons, with 40 problems tackled and a 5% conversion rate for startups.

The participants took away a great deal of knowledge and experience, with one participant saying, “It was very helpful to be working with a team and discovering all aspects of not only leadership but starting a company,” while another one said: “Brinc’s digital summer camp allowed me to explore the tech industry’s wide potential in improving our society, and gave me the courage to experiment with how I could be a part of this current tech revolution”.