Tamakkan promotes entrepreneurship and innovation

Tamakkan, a non-profit organization aimed at supporting entrepreneurship and innovation kicks off its new season of lectures, with a seminar entitled ‘Marketing on a Shoestring Budget’ on 29 September at the Al Mamoura Auditorium on Murour Road.

The event, which is open to all, will feature a practical, nuts and bolt, presentation on how new businesses can optimize marketing tools and achieve their business objectives quickly and cost effectively. The presenter is Bob Lipsett, UAEU MBA Program Director, Abu Dhabi Campus, who has extensive business experience teaching in universities in Canada and who has held a number of senior marketing and training positions in companies such as American Express, Citibank, and Thomas Cook Group.

With budgets tight and consumers demanding, this seminar offers small and business enterprises (SMEs) with new insight and creative strategies that can improve their marketing plan, and enhance their results.

The Tamakkan initiative is a corporate grass-roots non-profit organisation aimed at providing insight, inspiration and networking support to entrepreneurs and innovators. It was launched by BrandMoxie and is supported a network of public and private enterprises in the UAE. This series of seminars is sponsored by John Buck International.

“Tamakkan is developing into an exciting platform for entrepreneurs and those in pursuit of knowledge on innovative ways of doing business. The event attracts a broad audience made up of new business owners as well as corporates and consultants who are ready to lend their expertise,”

said Sana Bagersh, CEO of BrandMoxie and founder of Tamakkan.

The upcoming seminar will also feature an entrepreneurship case study of ‘Jones the Grocer’ CEO and Owner, Yunib Siddiqui, who will talk about his experience as an entrepreneur and some of the challenges that he had to overcome. He will be interviewed by Dr. Alma Kadragic from the University of Wollongong, Dubai who is a former broadcast journalist with ABC News and an entrepreneur.

Tamakkan seminars kick off with an engaging introduction by Grant Regan from the outreach programme of Zayed University. Regan picks up members of the audience and subjects them to the 30 second elevator interview challenge, an exercise intended to help entrepreneurs hone their sales skills.

Tamakkan seminars also include an extended session of questions and answers, as well as general discussion, to provide entrepreneurs an opportunity to present their own issues and learn from experts as well as from their peers. Entrepreneurs also benefit from networking opportunities, building relationships with other entrepreneurs and with corporate benefactors.

Bagersh explained that Tamakkan was founded on the belief that SMEs are the backbone of growing communities, and that new businesses can benefit from peer support to help them succeed.

“The creation of a knowledge transfer platforms are essential and there are people and companies that want to share their knowledge with others, in the spirit of community engagement and social responsibility. It is such efforts that foster greater creativity and innovation, while also promoting best practices in business,” she said.