Investment Strategies for Youth

2008 Silatech-Financial Times Youth Summit

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ImagineNations' team played the key role in designing and planning the global youth investment summit, held in Doha, Qatar. Under the leadership of Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Silatech and the Financial Times' Editor Lionel Barber co-hosted a two-day summit to launch commitments and actions among international and regional leaders to spur investment in entrepreneurial economic opportunities for young people in the Arab World. The Summit brought together nearly 100 leaders from the private, public and civil society sectors to promote innovative large-scale job creation, entrepreneurship and access to capital and markets.

During the Summit, Silatech unveiled its strategy, discussed its action plan and announced its initial partners, founding board of trustees, first global ambassador, as well as the initial pilot countries. Silateach also shared best practices and invited partners and investors to join the initiative and be part of the innovative opportunities that it presents.

In addition to a $100 million private commitment made in January 2008 by His Highness the Emir of Qatar and Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser Al-Missned to establish Silatech, the Summit featured further partnerships and supporting endeavors, ventures and agreements by partner companies, foundations, individuals, commercial banks and governments to improve work opportunities for young people in the Arab World. Summit announcements of partnerships include:

  1. A strategic collaboration with Cisco Systems. Cisco dedicated its globalization center to Silatech to accelerate the development of a technology platform for the creation of a favorable environment for information and communication technologies (ICT) education and to allow individuals to interact with their respective employees in a fast and highly secure manner.
  2. A strategic partnership with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Foundation across the Arab World. Silatech and the Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Foundation will work together to increase young people's access to job opportunities, capital and market support across the region, as well as to increase development of training programs. In addition, the two organizations will coordinate with financial institutions to offer attractive incentives for youth-led small and medium-sized enterprises.
  3. Partnerships for New Resources and Capital for Youth-led MSMEs. As a founding member of Silatech, the World Bank Global Public-Private Partnership for Youth Investment (GPYI) will enable the initiative to offer financial products and business development services support to encourage financial intermediaries to invest in high-growth youth microenterprise markets across the region. This will further be enhanced by the strategic alliance between Silatech, Qatar Financial Markets Authority and FTSE to launch a new index project, the first ever in the world, which seeks to attract global investors to support youth-led businesses in the Arab World.
  4. A Youth Knowledge Consortium. Initial members of this consortium include Silatech, the Wolfensohn Center for Development at Brookings Institution, the Dubai School of Government, Gallup, and the World Bank's Global Public-Private Partnership for Youth Investment, the ImagineNations Group, the ILO and the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut. The consortium members will launch several cutting-edge initiatives, such as a youth 'job-readiness' index; new research to address unemployment and skills mismatch; action-oriented new research to stimulate financial access for young entrepreneurs; and dialogue with policymakers, civil society groups, government officials and the private sector to develop effective policies and programs.