The Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development has set the closing date for entries for its award as August 29.

The Khalifa Fund Award for Entrepreneurship, in its fourth year, recognises entrepreneur’s skills and vision, project’s pursuit of quality, profitability, growth, expansion and application of best practices in the field.

The six categories under the umbrella of this award are Bedaya programme, Zeyada programme, Khutwa programme, Heritage sector programme, Membership programme and the Best Emirati Project of Non-beneficiaries of the Fund’s services.

The judging panel, which comprises representative from the Khalifa Fund, the  Department of Economic Development, a leading national bank and a leading economic organisation, will scrutinise and evaluate the submissions after the deadline, according to the criteria for each category.

Abdullah Saeed Al Darmaki, CEO of the Khalifa Fund, said: “The entries that have been submitted so far have been truly outstanding in terms of both quality and quantity.”

“We will carefully weigh the merits of each submission according to the criteria, conduct field visits to the entrepreneurs’ premises to validate that the claims in their submissions match the reality on the ground, and interview the entrepreneurs to gain deeper insights into their methods, motivations and business philosophies,” Darmaki added.

The entrepreneurs will be hounoured at an award ceremony to be held on October 7, where government agencies that have been most supportive of SME’s based on factors such as the level of procurement allocated to the SME sector will also be recognised. - TradeArabia News Service