Thirty projects have made it to the final round of “Best Technology Business Plan” awards, constituted by Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE) to honour entrepreneurship and business innovation in Jordan.

The projects were nominated by QRCE, a non-profit organization established in 2004 to help develop technology entrepreneurship in Jordan, and Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Competition (QRNEC) supervising committee.

QRNEC awards over $50,000 worth of cash prizes to the best business plans mainly in technology areas in general - ranging from Information and Communications Technology (ICT), biotechnology, agriculture, water, energy and environment.

'Choosing the finalists wasn’t as easy as expected; especially that most of them included new ideas and regional markets that made the qualification process take longer than expected,' Farhan Kalaldeh, the executive director of QRCE said.

He said that qualified projects were in three categories, pre-Startup track for new ideas, Startup track for established projects, and Universities track for projects coming from academia.

The main criteria in selecting ideas in QRNEC are feasibility, innovation, and regional and global market potential.

The nominated projects have undergone a boot camp supervised by 14 experts and practitioners, during which they received more than 60 hours of training on strategic planning, business plan development, startup projects management, and other subjects related to technology entrepreneurship.

'I believe we have helped the participants unveil their latent talents and unleash their creativity in a healthy direction,' he added.

Commenting on the selection process, Omar Hamarneh, El Hassan Business Park CEO and member of the judging committee, said, “I was excited after reviewing the proposed plans and projects, which elevates this competition to an international level.”

He lauded the growing appeal the competition had witnessed in its fourth cycle, and the quality and quantity of the participants.

Hamarneh said these projects will undergo mentoring and supervision by specialists who will assist them in translating their plans into actions.-TradeArabia News Service