The MIT Enterprise Forum of the Pan Arab region, in partnership with Zain Group and Abdul Latif Jameel Community Initiatives (ALJCI), announced that a total of 75 teams from 15 countries have qualified for the next round of the MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) Arab Startup Competition.

The competition received an outstanding 4,275 individual and team applications from 21 Arab countries. The final winners ceremony now confirmed to be held at the Symphony Style Hotel, Kuwait on April 20.

The remaining 75 teams will now be assigned coaches to work closely with each of them in order to achieve specific deliverables in the track they are participating in. The national origins of the groups with corresponding number of semi-finalists who made it to second-round include Saudi Arabia (5), Algeria (1), Bahrain (2), Egypt (15), Iraq (2), Jordan (7), Kuwait (5), Lebanon (7), Morocco (8), Palestine (3), Qatar (2), Sudan (1), Syria (1), Tunisia (2), and the UAE (14).

Zain Group CEO, Scott Gegenheimer said: "I congratulate all the semi-finalists for showing how progressive and dynamic their startup ideas are. It is clear that today’s innovators are tomorrow’s differentiators, and much of the region's future development will be driven by young people in technology, so Zain is especially proud to be fostering the growth of this competition."

Hala Fadel, chair of the board of MITEF Pan Arab, said: “Our new partnership with Zain helped us achieve real breakthroughs in terms of applications from Saudi Arabia , Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, and Sudan, while with our founding partner ALJCI, we continued to drive more applicants from across the Arab region with a record participation of over 12,000 entrepreneurs.”

The sessions will also extend to additional coaching and networking sessions with the business community in Kuwait, as well as regional and international participants.