On 15th September 2019, the Bahrain Businesswomen’s Society (BBS) launched the Youth Education and Innovation Committee. It is headed by Nahed Eshaq, Founder and Principal Designer of Link Ateliers, provider of fine home furnishing solutions.

The mission of the youth education and innovation committee is to enhance the entrepreneur ecosystem, empowering youth to grow sustainable and job-generating businesses. The objectives are to tackle the opportunities, the challenges in innovation and creativity for the youth and industry leaders; to create and accelerate successful business models.

The committee’s main goals are to bring a diverse set of industry leaders, academics, policymakers, practitioners, and youth; to bring together amazing opportunities, business trends, research, and experiences.

What inspired BBS to introduce such a niche committee?

The BBS Advisory Committee Head reviewed the Deloitte report concerning youth education and innovation research 2018, which outlines key actions that can create scalable, sustainable, and systemic change for today’s young people, and is intended to raise awareness on the challenges and opportunities that exist in global education and its effect on market growth today.

Based on this, the committee emphasized on creating a youth hub and in fostering the engagement with the local and international community. The Hub will be located in the Bahrain Businesswomen’s Society headquarters.

A.Youth Skills Action Hub

BBS Youth Education and Innovation will electrify and pledge to create a hub for action from the private sector to implement partnerships, knowledge-sharing, and to create measurable outcomes.

The Action Hub is fueled by:

• An active business coalition of 50 businesses, SMEs and entrepreneurial start-ups.
• An active young leader’s advisory council on skills development which provides mentorship program.
• A Youth Education and Innovation Network, building on relationships with 10 youth-serving organizations and innovative incubators and accelerators locally and globally.

The Action Hub will further harness the power of young people – specifically girls and young women – to shape their businesses and policy decisions alongside industry leaders at the local, national, and corporate levels.

B. Engagement with the Local and International Community

1. Emphasis will be on creating dialogues/ Education & Innovation Hack sessions with the youth, academia, businesses, and government officials.
2. Emphasis will be on creating quarterly youth education and innovation workshops for the existing members and their guests.
3. Emphasis will be on creating an annual theme led youth education innovation forum by inviting prominent guest speakers and subject matter experts.

In conclusion, the committee will encourage the development of business skills and entrepreneurial studies regardless of your field of study.

Having said that it is extremely vital to emphasize digital knowledge and skillsets and harness technological innovations for business development.

If you are a female start-up and/or entrepreneur interested to join the social committee, please contact the society secretariat at +973 17721188 or email: info(at)bahrainbusinesswomen(dot)com.