AUS student start-up offering business solutions wins Injaz UAE Competition

An American University of Sharjah (AUS) student-led start-up offering affordable and swift solutions to businesses won the Company of the Year Award at the recent Injaz UAE Competition and came in second for Best Business Strategy.

The Injaz UAE Competition comprises a high school track and university track, under which the AUS team scored their win. Injaz UAE is a member of JA World, which is one of the world’s largest and most impactful youth-serving NGOs delivering hands-on and immersive learning in work readiness, financial health, entrepreneurship, sustainability, STEM, economics and others. Participating students receive mentorship from experienced business leaders and entrepreneurs and go through the process of setting up their own businesses.

Called Brains 2 Business Solutions (B2B), the winning start-up is focused on providing creative solutions to companies by giving them access to talented students to solve their problems, and providing opportunities for students to apply classroom learning to real-world problems. 

“Through our platform, businesses can upload the issue they are facing to which they require low-cost and creative solutions, meanwhile students can sign up to the platform and select the problems they want to resolve as a team,” said Khaled Bashar Khawaja, an architecture student with a minor in design management.

He added: “The business solutions we are offering are currently oriented towards enhancing the marketing and managerial strategies of different types of companies. We plan to expand our services that focus on operations, integrated financial solutions, integrated collaboration chains and so on.”

Having won the UAE competition, Khawaja and his teammates Amaan Shad, a management information systems student, and Adam Aliasgar Burhanpurwala, a computer engineering student, are preparing to compete in the regional Injaz competition by the end of Fall 2022. They are currently working on refining their business concept to launch it in the UAE.

The team’s business plan was also recognized during the Injaz UAE Competition for its level of clarity and detail, winning the team a signature award presented by Honeywell for second place for Best Business Strategy.

The students entered the competition after learning about it from the AUS Office of Student Affairs (OSA). 

“OSA has always been investing in student leadership skills and constantly pushing them to participate in diverse programs at AUS and at the national, regional and international levels. The environment at AUS pushes you to think innovatively, and we wanted to propose an idea that doesn’t only allow us to put into practice our education, but also build our future career portfolio,” said Khawaja.

The team worked on the project while receiving weekly mentorship from an experienced market professional, leading them to think innovatively about their startup.

“Our work on the start-up also shows how our AUS education allowed us to work independently and responsibly on our project. Our AUS experience has taught us responsibility, dedication and professionalism,” said Khawaja.

He added: “It is always thrilling to participate in competitions and receive unwavering support from AUS departments, such as OSA, as well as from dedicated faculty who work continuously and collaboratively to offer us a great education. This keeps us motivated to join extracurricular activities and programs that upskill our knowledge, shaping us for the market and future.”