Overcoming Obstacles Tech Businesses Face in the KRI - Panel Discussion
Supporting entrepreneurs and businesses even after their graduation from our incubator cohorts is what Five One Labs' community all about, and business registration has always been one of the main struggles entrepreneurs go through all the time.
First, through our Roadmap to startup, we tackled the issue of business registration and designed a guide that would show the path to entrepreneurs and ease the process of registering their businesses.
Although guiding the way to entrepreneurs has been effective, but there were obstacles that needed change in the process itself to make it possible for tech and eCommerce businesses to work the way they are.
In a collaboration between the Consulate General of the Kingdom of Netherlands, Five One Labs, Rwanga Foundation, and with the participation of a group of innovative entrepreneurs in the KRI, we started working on a project to write a draft paper for an amendment in the business registration process which would allow entrepreneurs to register their businesses faster, easier, and with less routine. The project aimed at hearing entrepreneurs, summarizing their obstacles, and come up with methods to solve these issues with help from the KRG.
The program went in three steps as first, Five One Labs and Rwanaga Foundation initiated the project by holding a series of focus groups that mainly consisted of entrepreneurs. The aim of these focus group sessions was to directly hear from the entrepreneurs and grasp a more accurate image of the challenges they are constantly faced with. These focus groups ended with drafting a list of what the entrepreneurs defined as the most challenging obstacles they are facing and a number of suggestions and recommendations on how to address them.
These focus groups were divided into three different circles, one for tech entrepreneurs, another for women entrepreneurs and startups that have been launched by women, and lastly a focus group dedicated to businesses that either went or are going through the registration process of their businesses.
Out of these focus groups, a list of struggles was made that concluded what entrepreneurs see as their biggest roadblocks and how they think they can be solved.
The second stage of this process was presenting this list, as well as what the collaborating sides had to add to it, to the governmental directories and ministries so that we both hear their side of the story and also to use as the summarized version of both sides of the story a draft for reforming the business registration process.
After all of this and at the final stage of the project, a panel discussion was held titled 'Overcoming Obstacles Tech Businesses Face in KRI' and we had a diverse range of panelists including Hiwa Afandi, Head of the Department of Information Technology in KRG, Zana Mahmood - Entrepreneur and founder at Enlightors and
One Connect, Ahmed Surchi - Chief Operating Officer at Hawre Surchi Lawfirm, Nazmi Mousa - Representing The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Rene Van Eijk - Senior Digital Policy Advisor at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy in the Netherlands, Jacob Van Der Vis - Advisor at the Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands.
In the panel discussion, the most common challenges faced by the entrepreneurs as well as the role of the relevant government departments in the process were discussed and the panel was concluded by answering the questions and comments from the in-person as well as the online attendees.