Ford today announced the return of the Henry Ford Entrepreneurship Academy (HFEA) to Dubai where it plans to host a unique three-day workshop at the UAE Ministry of Youth Affairs’ Youth Hub in the Emirates Towers, next month.

This will be the first-ever HFEA focused on business ideas which have the potential to shape the future of mobility, impacting how people and goods move across all modes of transportation. The HFEA has already held workshops in various Higher Colleges of Technology campuses and the Youth Hub in Dubai.

This year’s workshop, under the theme of tackling Mobility and Future Transportation, will see 15 teams* – selected from UAE-wide applications by representatives of HFEA and Ford Mobility teams – participate in the programme between October 21-23, 2018, where they will have access to the very best mentors, co-founders, and partners of effective enterprises to help guide them in their own promising projects. Successful applicants will benefit from resources designed specifically for their project, aided by a global, and local, community prepared to help them succeed in their endeavour.

Led by the HFEA programme architect, Jay Markiewicz, and hosted by the UAE’s Ministry of Youth Affairs’ Youth Hub centre in Dubai, Mobility and Future Transportation will also see participation from Ford’s Mobility Senior Executives from Europe, Middle East and Africa.
The three-day workshop culminates in a pitch competition for participants, whereby the business proposal deemed to hold the greatest potential, given the quality of presentation and display of acquired skills, will be awarded with a much sought-after, in-depth, start-up consultancy from a premier US-based venture capital firm.

“Technology is advancing at a phenomenal rate, and transportation and mobility needs to keep pace,” saidSimonetta Verdi, director, Government and Community Relations, Ford Middle East and Africa. “Ford works closely with city planners, public transport agencies and communities in the region to create solutions for the changing needs of both urban dwellers and cities.

“Programmes such as the Henry Ford Entrepreneurship Academy – aimed at stimulating an entrepreneurial environment that leads to better solutions for people and goods to move across all modes of transportation – give us the opportunity to help shape the future of mobility in the cities and communities we live in,” Verdi added.

The Ford Motor Company Fund, which is responsible for financing the HFEA, invests about one third of its funds in support of education, including scholarships and programmes that help schools offer students new approaches to learning. Since its launch in 2015, the Henry Ford Entrepreneurship Academy has trained close to 300 entrepreneurs across the Middle East and North Africa.

Together with the Ford Motor Company Fund and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), the Henry Ford Entrepreneurship Academy workshops offer a great opportunity for local future business leaders to excel in their endeavours, and influences them to think and act like entrepreneurs.