COY17’s 3rd Day: How MIklah’s Inititiative, ShareLand, won the Best Global Startup 2022 Award in Arab Youth Center Pitches in Egypt!

The Arab Youth Center is a youth-focused and UAE Government supported initiative that provides space, resources, and all support necessary for youth to thrive in the world of entrepreneurship and social development. The headquarters are in Abu Dhabi, the Capital City of United Arab Emirates. Details of how I got to know about this Youth Pitches program, applied, and got selected have been shared in my earlier article. Read it all here. Or read the whole of COP27 and COY17 series here.

READ THIS: How I applied and secured flight support to Egypt for COP27

In this short article, I will focus on the day of the Arab Youth Center pitches, which was the 3rd day of COY17 (also, the last day of that preliminary conference to COP27).

The 3rd DAY OF COY17 In Egypt: Arab Youth Center Pitching!

Of course, so many sessions were happening on the third day. But for me, one session was above them all; Arab Youth Center Startup pitching!

In my earlier article, I explained exactly how I applied and got accepted into Arab Youth Center Pitches program, a program that was rewarding 3 of the most promising climate-focused Agri-ech startups. Well, the day of the pitches was on the 3rd and last day of COY17.

READ THIS: The Second Day of COY17: Climate Fresk, one session for the whole day!

As always, I left my room at about 9am, and joined the conference. I didn’t do much preparations since I was gonna be pitching something that I really knew well. But, yeah, I had some anxiety. And I prayed about it! Below is how I dressed for the day; simple.

And also my friend and roommate, Agustin from Ecuador, prayed for me too! He said something like, ‘Vicent, nature is putting together all resources and energy to make you a success. All you had to do was present a purpose or a goal. And you already have one! You will win. For your family and for everyone else’. It was beautiful!

Arab Youth Center pitches were happening between 3 and 5pm. However, I even misfired the information and thought the time was 1pm. So I was in the main hall as early 12:30pm. As a matter of fact, there was an offer to tour some amazing sites in Sharm El-Sheikh that morning, but I couldn’t risk going anywhere. So I stayed close!

In short, I don’t remember any other session that I attended on that day! Of course, I surely came across some happenings here and there, but never took notice of anything. I was just waiting for the pitching time.

In the meantime, I met a lady, a passionate political researcher, Mariam Sabry! Being a guy of research, I found a lot of interesting things about Mariam, and our conversation took over the whole of the morning, including the hours I waited in the main hall before the real time for Arab Youth Center pitches could occur. I will come back to her in other writings!

Anyway, at 3pm, the pitching event commenced! Haya, the amazing lady from Arab Youth Center was leading it, speaking for it throughout. I have briefly talked about this amazing lady in my other article.

There were other beautiful people from Arab Youth Center. For example, Yara, the patient and gracious lady who was in charge of our pitches, Asma (I hope he is the one, for I surely don’t remember the gentleman’s name very well). He took care of our profile photos. Yeah, he must be the gentleman that made sure our faces appeared on the giant Arab Youth Center social media platforms.

We were about six entrepreneurs, two in each category. The pitching war was real. It was one against one! That’s it! I may not explore details of each of the entrepreneurs who pitched, but I will try with photos.

Winning the Arab Youth Center Startups Pitches

My time for pitching came in. I was the 5th to embrace the stage. I walked to the stage, and gave it all that I was or I am. And waited for the announcement.

Watch the video: ShareLand Pitch during Arab Youth Center Pitching, COY17, Egypt

Do you wanna know how to do pitches even better? Join fellow sustainable entrepreneurs at Miklah Life. The program is called Sacred Entrepreneurship.

Well, when the time for announcing winners came up, Glory to God, I had won! Yes, Miklah Life’s Initiative, ShareLand (connects farmers to landowners for land) won the competition in her category, Best Global Startup 2022! Hallelujah. God had done it for me again. And again!

Winning the award was the best thing that happened to me during COY17 and COP27 in Egypt. I was happy, excited, and felt like, yeah, the struggles of being there were all worth it!

After the pitching event, COY17 closing events followed; closing remarks, recognizing organizers and other efforts, dances, and all beautiful things.

When all was done, I closed off the day by joining the rest of the youth in walking around Sharm El-Sheikh with Egypt’s Minister for Youth and Sports, ASHRAF SOBHY. Of course, I stole a selie with the gentleman.

That was all. 3rd day of COY17 was, for me, all about Arab Youth Center Pitches!

The next day was a day of ‘check-outs’. We checked out from Tulip Inn Hotel and started renting out our own private apartments to get ready for the next 2 weeks that were coming in, specifically for COP27. The story of shifting from one giant self-contained paid-for restuarant to personal hustles and endeavors of new house or room apartments is one of the deadliest and yet very exciting one. I will tell it all in my next articles. For now, that’s it!

That is exactly how day 3 of COY17 conference really happened, at least for me! As you must have learnt from our first article in the series, COY17 was a preliminary youth-led conference that happened shortly before the real Conference of Parties (COP27) could set in. Well, stick around for a detailed article on what really happened in Sharm El-Sheikh during COP27, the 14-day environment and climate focused conference that happens every year!

Otherwise, thank you for reading Miklah Blog.