The $10,000 Award for Female Owned SMEs

By Rasha Al-Bani

Raa’idat is an initiative involving the French Embassy to Iraq, The Station, Zain Iraq, Ashur Bank, Agence Universitaire Francophonie and UNDP Accelerator Lab. The initiative is a competition for Iraqi SMEs owned by women. The main requirement for eligibility is a fully operational business, experiencing a degree of success.

The competition has three stages. It began with 20 participants entering a set of trainings such as business model validation and finance related skills. As the trainings progressed, a few participants withdrew and by the end of the training program, 16 participants were left. UNDP Accelerator Lab provided the competition with sponsorship in the form of financial training, teaching participants on the specificities of budgeting and revenue calculation.

During the second stage of the competition, which will commence end of June, participants will pitch their projects in front of a panel of experts and 5 will be selected to enter the third and last stage of the competition. During the final stage, startups will re-pitch their project to the same panel where two winners will be announced. The runner up will win a 6-month membership at The Station’s Coworking Space and the finalist will be awarded with a whopping $10,000 award co-sponsored by Zain Iraq and Ashur Bank.

The Station spoke to one of the startups currently participating in the trainings.

Batool Hussein Abdulraheem first founded her initiative in Baghdad, ABCODE, in 2016, where she focused on teaching code to children. She describes her business as the “first company to specifically teach coding to children using a specially tailored American curriculum by code.org”. The curriculum covers a range of areas, such as architecture and 3D designs using an artistic and innovative method to keep children excited and focused throughout. Batool is extremely passionate about helping the younger generation have access to opportunities that she didn’t have growing up. She recognizes that globally, we are moving towards a digitalized world and therefore “we must create a generation of well-educated and well cultured individuals capable of positively serving society as well as themselves”.

She describes her experience with Raa’idat as an “enriching” experience. “I realized I was making some really fundamental mistakes and adjusted my business model accordingly. I highly thank the trainers for their efforts and patience with us during this journey. They have made this experience not only beneficial but enjoyable too”. We asked Batool if she had any words of inspiration for Iraqi women everywhere. “I encourage all women to not succumb to the societal pressures we face every day in Iraq. Take risks, run after your passion and most importantly be resilient in everything you do. No matter how many times you fail or are told ‘you can’t’, stand up, dust yourself off and try again. You deserve success”.

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