Budding entrepreneurs rewarded for their ‘smart developments’

Henry Saba, 16, in his final year at the International School of Choueifat in Abu Dhabi, wants to shake up the iPhone accessory market.
Instead of buying many iPhone cases, "what if users could buy one iPhone case that could replace every other case that was, is, and ever will be in the market"?
Mr Saba, along with his Emirati partner Ameera Haider, came up with the Pixelcase – an iPhone case with a display that can "dynamically change as per the user's demands".
If you want a particular colour on the case, or a picture of yourself on a particular day, the display can change to whatever you want, he said.
Mr Saba and Ms Haider won second place in the Abu Dhabi group of the Akoun Business Idea Competition, run by the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development.
That means they will receive Dh15,000 to make the Pixelcase a reality.
The prize money will allow Mr Saba to hire a web designer and a software engineer to design the application that will operate the case.
Nora Al Katri, a 19-year-old media student at Ras Al Khaimah's Higher Colleges of Technology Women's College, won first prize for a smart vending machine that dispenses books.
"It's called Tanmiya Thakeya – which means 'Smart Development' in English," said Ms Al Katri.
"It's a vending machine where you can buy a book at any time. You can choose the book and the machine will contain a smart tablet on which you can find a book, read reviews, put your comments online and tweet about your purchases," said Ms Al Katri.
"These machines will be a place to sell Emirati books. We all read books, but we forget about Emirati books," she says. "It'll give people a chance to read books from the country."
The competition, which this year received 224 entries from teams of schoolchildren, awards funding and mentoring to budding school-age entrepreneurs.
Twenty-three workshops were held in universities and colleges across the UAE, with Anas Bukhash, an Emirati entrepreneur and photographer, mentoring students as part of the scheme.
"The Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development is proud to have inspired numerous young people to create award-winning business ideas," said Fahad Al Raqbani, the director general of the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development. "And we are determined to help them turn these ideas into successful enterprises."
Both of the competition's prize winners have high ambitions.
Mr Saba aims to study electrical engineering and computer science in the United States, because "to manage a tech company, you can't just know about software – you have to learn about hardware too".
Ms Al Katri, who won a Dh25,000 prize for her literary vending machine, is just as optimistic.
"I want to see it everywhere I go," she said.
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