(MENAFN- Iraq Business News)
New Iraqi brand Makers of Baghdad has been launched at Makers' premises in Baghdad.
Makers (formerly IoT Maker) is an innovation hub that provides technical qualifications, and job acceleration programs for the youth to create job opportunities in the field of Information technology, and encourage them to develop their startups.
The methods used vary from managing educational competitions, conducting training boot camps, offering startup incubation programs, internship programs, and workshops, and organizing events such as the annual Maker-Camp event.
Makers also offers a Fabrication Lab equipped with modern machines for startups to produce products and prototypes.
At the ceremony, Makers introduced their goals, the programs they implemented, the products produced, and the new brand that showed Makers' objectives of strengthening the local community, through supporting training, and making.
Mr. Carl F. Taestensen, Co-Country Director of GIZ Iraq ; Mr. Anas Alshalabi, Private Sector and Financial Sector Specialist of The World Bank ; Mr. Ali Alhili, Marketing and Communications Director of Miswag ; Abduladeem Al-Saleh, A member of the Board of Commissioners of the Iraq Communications and Media Commission (CMC) ; Dr. Saad Ahmed, Director of the consulting office of the University of Information Technology and Communications (UoITC) ; and other representatives from different NGOs, private sector companies, local universities attended the ceremony and showed their support for Makers of Baghdad.
The Co-country Director of GIZ Iraq, Mr. Carl F. Taestensen commented:
'Makers of Baghdad and the entire partner network play an important role here. Different digital and technological innovation centers for youth in Baghdad such as Makers of Baghdad were created to promote and expand an innovation ecosystem in the city.'
Furthermore, Makers of Baghdad highlighted the programs that will be implemented in 2023, including:
Climathon. A climate change hackathon aims to tackle the climate change challenges in our community and to provide solutions. Female Founders. An incubation program supports and empowers women entrepreneurs. Masarat. A six-month job acceleration program for programming, graphic design, and 3D modeling. Jump-start. A three-month internship program offered for the graduates of the training programs to initiate their career path. 10,000 Coders for Kids. A not-for-profit initiative implemented by IoT Kids to introduce coding and technology to the next generation.
Since 2017, Makers managed to train over 4,500 participants (49% of whom were female), offered 200 programs, made 93 products, and incubated over 20 startups.
(Source: IoT Kids)