london: A young Saudi woman scooped the Entrepreneur of the Year award on Nov. 16 at St. James’s Palace in London. Thirty one year-old Ghadah Baaqil was named the winner of the People’s Choice Award, part of Youth Business International’s Entrepren-eur of the Year competition. The event was hosted by the Prince of Wales and marked the first day of Global Entrepreneurship Week.
From Nov. 9 to 16, supporters of young entrepreneurs all around the world voted for their favorite of 12 entrepreneurs shortlisted in the Youth Business International Entrepreneur of the Year competition. In a landslide victory, Baaqil won 16,000 votes — five times more than second-place contender, Juan Ramón Nuñez from Argentina, who received nearly 3,000 votes for his audiovisual company. In third place was Jorge Alberto Noverón, an eco-friendly architect from Mexico who came in just short of 1,000 votes.
Outlining her background for voters during the selection campaign, Baaqil said that after gaining a master’s degree in the study of autism she discovered her love for children and their hidden potential. This motivated her to found the Ghadah Madinah Autism Center, where, as the first enterprise in this field in the city, Baaqil had to fight countless misconceptions, parental aggression and initial resistance — even to using the word “autism” in the name of her center.
“I felt most deeply that (the children) were part of me, especially as they have great capabilities that we can highlight with a great deal of effort and dedication under the umbrella of a center for autism,” she commented. “This project constituted a challenge for me which the centennial fund helped me realize through financial and technical support. And so the Madinah Autism Center was born.”
In addition to the misconceptions about autism — some parents refused to admit that their children are autistic in order to avoid the stigma of having an “abnormal” child — Baaqil had to face prejudices against young female entrepreneurs as many people were reluctant to do business with her. Undeterred, Ghadah pushed on with the help of the Centennial Fund, a Saudi-based organization and one of the economic reforms introduced by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in 2005. It offers financial aid of up to SR150 million to young Saudi men and women who intend to open their own businesses. The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, which organized the opening ceremony, said at the time that the fund would help young Saudis establish 280 projects and create more than 4,000 jobs by 2010.
Baaqil’s dedication, however, produced results, winning over the wife of the governor of Madinah who donated a bus to transport children to the center.
Now she runs a center that employs 17 women and is attended by over two dozen children, many of whom are partially funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs.
Youth Business International is one of The Prince’s Charities, which is a group of nonprofit organizations of which The Prince of Wales is president.
