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Intelak Hub offers support for Dubai’s travel, tourism and aviation start-ups

Intelak Hub offers support for Dubai’s travel, tourism and aviation start-ups

 

Start-ups can apply for three-, 8- and 12-week programmes and up to AED50,000 in equity-free funding  

Intelak Hub – the region’s only start-up platform dedicated to travel, tourism and aviation – is inviting local, regional and international start-ups to apply for its new cohorts of programmes, from today (13 June 2021).

The Intelak Hub was created to enable entrepreneurial growth and is led by a consortium of industry-leading principle partners:

  • Dubai Tourism, with its extensive knowledge and reputation in destination marketing
  • Emirates Group, with its established track record as world-class providers of air transport (Emirates) and air travel services (dnata)
  • Accenture, with its expertise in shaping and connecting disruptive ecosystem start-ups to its clients
  • Microsoft, with its global scale and technology expertise

With a substantial footprint across the world’s aviation, tourism, technology and innovation industries, the principle partners have built an ecosystem dedicated to mentoring start-ups from ideation through to equity-free funding, growth and scaling.

Programme participants will have access to a robust alumni pool for networking and business opportunities, in turn allowing them to approach more complex business challenges and benefit from collective perspectives.

Intelak Hub’s 2021 offerings include three distinct platforms:

Intelak Incubator
The Intelak Incubator, a 12-week programme for early-stage start-ups offering equity-free funding, market feasibility guidance, pitch deck advisement, and demo day showcases where Dubai is used as a proof-of-concept for their solutions. Additionally, it will include AED50,000 in equity-free funding, with the opportunity to showcase solutions at a demo day, and further access to ecosystem collaborations.

Intelak Accelerator
The Intelak Accelerator is an eight-week programme for late-stage start-ups looking to scale their businesses, offering comprehensive go-to-market counsel, access to partner ecosystems to test and implement their solutions, exhibition space and exclusive pitching and investor opportunities at GITEX Future Stars, a premier technology event for the region.

Intelak Idea Lab
The Intelak Idea Lab is a three-week programme nurturing young Emirati talent as part of the UAE’s vision to develop and support home-grown innovation and entrepreneurship. Applicants can be considered for all programmes regardless of which programme they enter when joining Intelak Hub and start-ups do not need to be based in Dubai to take part. All cohort programmes will have a hybrid structure consisting of physical and digital components.

“Intelak Hub is one of the strategic steps taken by Dubai Tourism to support the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to position Dubai as a global city at the forefront of innovation and technology,” said Yousuf Lootah, executive director of Tourism Development & Investments, Dubai Tourism. “Launched last year amid the pandemic, Intelak Hub is testament to Dubai’s capacity to transform challenges into opportunities, as it has quickly and successfully entrenched itself within the start-up community as a catalyst for disruptive thinking.”

“As we move into our second year under this platform, we’re honoured to collaborate with our esteemed partners to drive entrepreneurship forward and leverage these pioneering programmes to support and empower the resurgence in international travel and tourism,”

Lootah continued. “We welcome applications from around the world and are excited at the prospect of engineering new ideas and aspirations to spur new growth and innovation across the industry.”

Alex Alexander, CTO of Emirates Group, said: “The Emirates Group has seen immense success in partnering with Intelak Hub start-ups already, mentoring them, learning from them and helping to evolve their products for commercial success. The passion the founders and their teams have for improving the way people travel is incredibly inspiring and I have no doubt they will have a real, lasting impact on our industries into the future.”

Norberto Cibien, products industry lead for Accenture in the Middle East, said: “Through Intelak Hub, Accenture is proud to contribute its extensive technology know-how and industry expertise towards building a start-up ecosystem that translates into new opportunities for the UAE’s economy.”

Sayed Hashish, general manager of Microsoft UAE, added: “Microsoft’s mission is to enable every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more, and Intelak Hub holds a unique proposition for a sector that has seen tremendous disruption during the pandemic. This year has already begun on a high note, with UAE start-ups attracting investment of $256 million in the first quarter.”

With one-third of the world’s population reachable within a four-hour flight from Dubai, and two-thirds reachable within an eight-hour flight, the UAE is ranked the fifth most connected country globally and number one in the region. With its world-class physical and digital infrastructure, Dubai has emerged as a sought-after hub for regional and global start-ups, and Intelak Hub is here to support businesses of the future.

For more information on Intelak Hub and to apply for Intelak Accelerator and Incubator visit www.intelak.com

 

 

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