The King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST)’s Badir Program has approved the Mathaqi smartphone application as an incubated project.
Mathaqi is an app specialising in home-cooked meals for online ordering and delivery. Currently the app has already created employment opportunities for Saudi women to earn an average monthly income of $1,067.
The project has reportedly been created with the aims to support productive families and create additional channels to improve the income of such families. Since its establishment earlier this year, the Mathaqi project has created more than 80 new job opportunities for women, according to reports.
According to Nawaf Al-Sahhaf, CEO, Badir Program for Technology Incubators, “Mathaqi app was incubated since it is a technical and innovated commercial project which is addressed to the productive families and the consumers at the same time, and which is based on the smart shopping concept to enable the families in the society to take part effectively in the economic sector and promote family products, while creating new job opportunities, achieving financial returns to them and consolidating the capacities of women in the field of entrepreneurship.”
KACST highlighted that emerging technology companies incubated by the Badir programme have increased by 24 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017 to 157 startups, compared with 127 companies during the first nine months of this year.
Around 40 percent of these 157 incubated companies have generated SR25 million in revenue and created 961 jobs.
“Today Badir is focusing on expanding its innovation and entrepreneurial hubs across the Kingdom to create 600 startups and 3,600 jobs by 2020,” said Al-Sahhaf.
