DUBAI — Glowork, a Saudi agency that matches job-seeking Saudi women to jobs online, took home the social entrepreneurship award at the second iteration of the 2015 Emirates Award for Arabian Gulf Youth.
Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, minister of foreign affairs of the United Arab Emirates, supported the institution of the award that highlights young social entrepreneurs in Gulf Cooperation Council countries who aim to showcase their ideas, and helps them interact with experts to develop and nourish their ideas.
On receiving the award, Khalid Al-Khudair, Glowork’s founder and CEO, said, “This award is proof of the brilliance of our premise and our ability to open up more job opportunities to Saudi women and help as many of them as possible get recruited all over the nation.” He added, “This win will add to our success and encourage us to contribute more to meeting the challenges of job creation. We look forward to expanding and setting up in the UAE very soon, God willing.”
The award represents a golden opportunity for societal entrepreneurs to turn their social ideas into actual projects, and furnishes a platform to engage them in competition that brings out their best innovations, so they can roll out pioneering social projects that offer solutions to many challenges faced by GCC societies.
The award offers participants an opportunity to learn how to balance financial returns with social impact, and to learn new skills that would help them push their projects along, all while learning from successful, more experienced entrepreneurs, and rubbing elbows with the cream of business and government figures from all over the region.
Winners were selected by a panel of experts who evaluate projects based on parameters such as originality, innovation, social impact, a given project’s ability to expand and stay financially sustainable in the long run.
After 15 ideas have been shortlisted, candidates attend online guidance courses and workshops in Abu Dhabi before they demonstrate their ideas to the panel.
This year’s panelists were Ms. Muna Al-Qurq, director of retail sales at Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group LLC; Sultan Al Hajji, vice president & chief strategy officer of Total UAE; Abdul Baset Al Janahi, CEO of Dubai SME; Dr. Iman Bibars, CEO of Ashoka Middle East and regional expert on social development and diversity; and Ms. Amal Ishaq Kooheji, CEO of Tamkeen.
Glowork was founded by young Saudis to empower Saudi women in business in Saudi Arabia. It is the first institution ever to specialize in matching women job-seekers with open jobs online. Additionally, the company provides women with opportunities to work from home, which further broadened the scope of employment opportunities.
This innovative concept is unique across the Middle East in that it helps women get a foothold in the job market, starting with the narrowest of localities all the way to the vast entirety of the GCC.
Through its cooperation with the Saudi Ministry of Labor, the Human Resources Development Fund, and major business to increase job diversity, Glowork has launched several projects to help women get employed and seize upon job opportunities, such as holding the first, and so far largest, job fair for women in the Middle East, and training workshops to hone job-seekers’ skills and abilities.
