Business Shortcut

Business Shortcut is a Mosul based incubation program from QAF Media Lab supported by Asiacell for local startups at the idea stage or pre-launched stage. The program focuses on ten entrepreneurs from Nineveh or Nineveh residents and helps them for three months to develop their ideas and build and activate their startups to be companies that enrich the private labor market in Nineveh and Iraq.

During the lifetime of the program, Business Shortcut provides the ten entrepreneurs with the necessary knowledge and training on how to develop their business model and validate their ideas, then to prepare them for the real market and have them launch their startups. As a result, this raises awareness about the importance of the private sector and how to be part of the entrepreneurial eco-system not only to the 10 founders/teams, but to those around them and the Mosul young community all together.

This incubation program consists of several stages; starting with the admission, interviews and acceptance into the program to the exit stage out of the program where the startups are armed with enough knowledge to go into the market and start their journey.

The team of trainers is composed of local trainers only. This distinguishes Business Shortcut from the rest of the incubation programs within Nineveh Governorate. There are various trainings. They are innovative and based on a modern international system followed in most countries of the developed world. These trainings generally aim to firstly build a business mindset for the owner of the project or idea. Secondly, they help to develop not only life skills but also skills for building a business from the ground up.

Lately, Mosul witnessed the closing ceremony of Business Shortcut incubation program in the presence of a number of eminent persons interested in the field of entrepreneurship in the city of Mosul. The trainees had the chance to present their products and services that will be provided to the local market. In the same vein, Zaid Khazal, Public Relations Manager at Asiacell, emphasized that Asiacell supports all the pioneering businesses in Iraq, including Mosul youth projects, with programs that transform the ideas of ambitious youth into real and promising startups.

At the end, the official sponsor of the program, Asiacell, delivered the financial rewards for the participating projects.