Dubai Holding, the global investment holding company, announced the winners of it’s first-ever Intrapreneurs Challenge, a company-wide initiative to foster entrepreneurial thinking and a culture of innovation across Dubai Holding. The bi-annual challenge involves Dubai Holding employees across Corporate Office, TECOM Group, Jumeirah Group and Dubai Properties Group, who submitted over 500 innovative business ideas that could be pursued for new growth avenues or efficiencies. The ideas were assessed for creativity, relevance and potential for future implementation and the top three ideas were rewarded with AED 120,000.

The entries were evaluated by a panel of external judges, who are renowned leaders in their industries and have extensive entrepreneurial experience.

- Mr. Fadi Ghandour, Founder and Vice Chairman, Aramex 
- Mr. Osman Sultan, CEO, du 
- Mr. Avishesha Bhojani, Group CEO, BPG Group, MD Innoventures Education

The Dubai Holding Intraprenuers Challenge was the first in a series of initiatives under “Dubai Holding Strategic Innovation Management Framework,” a formalised approach of leveraging knowledge and talent internally, which encourages employees from across all levels to put forward their creative ideas and innovations in relation to the different sectors that Dubai Holding operates in.

Ahmad Bin Byat, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Dubai Holding, said: “Innovation is a key guiding principle at Dubai Holding, where we have led some of Dubai’s most outstanding achievements that are new, bold and creative. We are honoured to have been mandated by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to lead the implementation of Dubai Innovation Strategy.

“We believe that our huge talent pool is a valuable source of innovative ideas. To ensure we continue to innovate and build on our past successes, we have launched ‘Dubai Holding Intrapreneurs’ to enhance the competitive advantage of Dubai Holding and our companies, sourcing ideas from the 22,000 employees across the Group.”

“At Dubai Holding, through our creative clusters we support entrepreneurs by providing them with an environment that allows them to thrive and grow. Now, we are looking internally to create a similar environment, which not only encourages intrapreneurs within the Group but also harnesses the brains of our own people.”

Last month, Dubai Holding entered into a partnership with Dubai SME, the agency of the Department of Economic Development (DED) in Dubai, mandated to develop the growth of small and medium enterprise (SME) in the UAE. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will provide Dubai SME members with attractive incentives for operations within Dubai Holding companies such as TECOM Group, Jumeirah Group and Dubai Properties Group. The MoU was signed between Ahmad Bin Byat, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Dubai Holding and Abdul Basit Al Janahi, CEO, Dubai SME.