Sheraa Team Comes Out On Top At GlassQube Startup Weekend FinTech Abu Dhabi

Bringing together designers, developers and entrepreneurs, GlassQube Startup Weekend FinTech Abu Dhabi was held in November in the UAE capital by TechStars, with the support of Google for Entrepreneurs. The weekend hackathon, which included mentor sessions as well as fintech and legal workshops, challenged participants to develop a functional MVP for challenges in the fintech landscape, which were pitched in front of local and regional entrepreneurs for feedback.

Bagging the first-place title in the competition was a team sponsored by Sheraa (Sharjah Entrepreneruship Center), which called itself Sahim and consisted of seven tenth-grade students: Hashim Al Zaabi, Vinay Naresh, Abdullah AlhajKhalil, Mohamed Rashid, Saif Ur Rehman, Wasi Ur Rehman and Odya Daher.

The winning team developed "Sharia-compliant trading instruments" for the needs of the fintech sector, and thus earned a cash prize of US$5,000, plus an additional $1,000 to launch an online crowdfunding campaign, access to GlassQube's co-working incubator program this year, 12 hours of legal advice, a website domain, and mentoring on various essentials such as business development, marketing and web design.

Related: Moving Mainstream: A VC's Perspective On The MENA Fintech Ecosystem