UAE Ministry of Economy, Huawei Cloud launch startup programme

The programme will provide up to $150,000 in vouchers and access to Huawei Cloud ecosystem resources for eligible businesses

by Divsha Bhat

July 31, 2023

Image credit: Getty Images / Supplied

The Entrepreneurial Nation, an initiative of the UAE Ministry of Economy, has announced its partnership with Huawei Cloud to launch the Huawei Cloud Startup Program in the country. The programme seeks to accelerate UAE’s startup ecosystem, providing up to $150,000 in vouchers and access to Huawei Cloud ecosystem resources for eligible businesses.

The Huawei Cloud Startup Program is a global support programme to help accelerate technology startups’ business growth. Through the programme, Huawei will leverage its expertise and cloud innovations and help startups address challenges associated with funding, technical and commercial resources and connections they need to expand, contributing to the emergence of innovative businesses that can lead the region’s digital transformation.

With Huawei Cloud, startups can scale their business by eliminating high infrastructure costs and limited computing capacity associated with on-premise data centers. Businesses can also gain access to technologies and resources at a fraction of the cost.

The Huawei Cloud Startup Program will leverage Huawei’s three decades of ICT and digitalisation expertise to support this crucial sector while helping unleash innovation in the UAE and further boosting the country’s digitisation goals.

Further, participating entrepreneurs can tap into Huawei’s extensive ecosystem, with access to its vast innovations, technical support, mentorship, and market development opportunities. Huawei also provides go-to-market assistance, ensuring small business owners can reach their target audience effectively. Recognising that collaboration is crucial to growth, Huawei Cloud also helps connect founders with like-minded entrepreneurs, industry experts, and thought leaders worldwide.

Jiawei Liu, CEO of Huawei UAE, said: “Startups and small businesses play a pivotal role in the continuous development of UAE’s economy. We are proud to partner with The Entrepreneurial Nation Initiative by the Ministry of Economy, which provides a perfect platform for entities like Huawei to support the growth and development of the SME sector.

As a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, Huawei will be continuously committed to acting as the foundation for the digitalisation and development of the UAE.”

Meanwhile, in October 2022, the UAE Ministry of Economy launched the second phase of The Entrepreneurial Nation, the comprehensive and one-of-a-kind national project for the development of the UAE’s SMEs and the overall national entrepreneurial landscape. This phase of the project is based on the largest public-private sector partnerships of their kind and aims to develop the tools to foster the culture and practices of entrepreneurship in the UAE.