Real-world exposure and ecosystem support critical for young founders balancing startups and studies, as Sharjah festival aims to bridge gap.
Juggling lecture halls and boardrooms, student entrepreneurs are launching ventures earlier than ever. However, the biggest challenges they face are not academic, but personal: a crisis of confidence and the relentless clock.
According to Sara Al Nuaimi, CEO of the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Centre (Sheraa), mastering these soft skills is more critical than the perceived choice between education and enterprise.
“Student founders are entering entrepreneurship earlier than ever, often while still navigating their academic journeys,” Al Nuaimi told Khaleej Times. “The core challenge isn’t the ‘what,’ but the ‘how’—developing the resilience and discipline to grow.”
Al Nuaimi pinpointed three interconnected barriers: a lack of practical experience, poor time management, and, most fundamentally, insufficient early exposure to the realities of business.
“Exposure to real founders, real decisions, and real pathways beyond the classroom is defining,” she emphasized. This firsthand insight helps reframe the inherent uncertainty of startups from a paralyzing barrier into a necessary part of the learning curve, directly combatting the confidence gap.
To provide this vital exposure, platforms like the upcoming Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival serve as a key avenue. The event gathers investors, seasoned entrepreneurs, and corporate executives, offering students a foundational bridge from theory to practice.
Highlighting the success of structured support, Al Nuaimi cited Eshara, an AI-powered Arabic sign language platform founded by students. Through Sheraa’s incubation program, the team transformed an academic concept into a tested product addressing communication barriers for the hearing-impaired.
“It’s about moving ideas beyond the classroom and into real-world testing,” Al Nuaimi stated.
As a government-backed incubator, Sheraa has supported over 180 startups—more than half led by women—and helped its portfolio generate over $248 million in revenue. The centre’s work underscores a growing ecosystem designed to ensure student entrepreneurs don’t have to choose between their education and their ambition, but can successfully pursue both.
