By ; Saber Mohamed
HSBC and Potential.com have today launched the third edition of its future skills flagship programme, Tatawwar: Building Tomorrow’s Minds, for students across the UAE, Egypt, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Algeria. Tatawwar: Building Tomorrow’s Minds is an interactive online and face-to-face programme that brings together students aged 15 to 18, schools, parents and the business community to innovate for a sustainable future by addressing the three United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Climate Action Human Health and Well-being Clean Water and Sanitation Tatawwar, which is translated to “to develop” in English, encourages students to develop core future skills in innovative design thinking, financial literacy, critical thinking, and entrepreneurship. It raises awareness of how business can help address social and environmental problems in their community through innovation.
The past 2 editions of Tatawwar: Building Tomorrow’s Minds have seen more than 5,000 students from over 1,000 schools across the Middle East and North Africa region, register in the blended learning programme.
The Tatawwar team hosted 20 prototyping workshops for over 500 shortlisted students, in each of the programme’s countries in partnership with local Fablabs and maker spaces. Commenting on the launch, Daniel Howlett, Regional Head of Commercial Banking, HSBC Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, said: “Education is a priority for governments across our region as they transition towards building sustainable and knowledge-based economies.
As the region’s leading international bank, HSBC is uniquely positioned to support the growth of this vital sector.” Sabrin Rahman, Regional Head of Sustainability, HSBC Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, added: “Ensuring every student has the opportunity to build the core future skills they need to thrive in tomorrow’s global economies, while building awareness of how business can help address social and environmental concerns, is fundamental to our approach.
Tatawwar: Building Tomorrow’s Minds embodies just that, and we are very proud to roll-out this great initiative to students, parents and schools again by building on the great success of the programme over the last two years.” To date, 9 winners and 30 ambassadors have graduated from the programme after undergoing extensive mentorship and further development on social entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and employability skills.
First prize in the last rollout was awarded to Bader Al Sarraf from Bahrain for his ‘Solar Panel CO2 Converter’, a project that produces green energy while also reducing CO2 in the air.
One of the winners of the first rollout, Samah Abdulla from Egypt, has already raised capital through crowdfunding, launched her Water Management and Saving (WMS) app and has secured participation in a local incubation programme.
"We are very proud of how the potential.com empowerment platform has enabled Tatawwar to scale and adapt to various disruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. Together with HSBC and through the engagement of the high-school student stakeholders, we are demonstrating how large scale empowerment and impact can be achieved,” said Shadi Banna, Chief Empowerment Officer, Potential.com.
Students can now register for the programme at www.tatawwar.com. Schools, parents, NGOs and any other partners who would also like to participate in empowering the next generation of social innovators are also invited to get in touch through the website.
