HCT-Fujairah held its fourth monthly LEQA (Learning Entrepreneurship through Questions and Answers) conference on May 30, with the student-organized networking event attracting a large audience.
LEQA is a regular business network initiative open to aspiring and successful entrepreneurs on the East Coast of the UAE.
The fourth LEQA event was organized by a team of third year Bachelor students, under the guidance of Ms. Abeer Al Rawahi, studying Event Management which is part of their General Business Administration course.
HCT-Fujairah’s Director, Dr. Dave Pelham welcomed the guests and spoke of the notion of success for small and medium businesses in small regions.
Maryam Al-Mesmari Business Administration student and the Student Council President, then introduced the first guest Fahad Ali Al Mehrezi, owner of the Al Najah Building Contracting Company in Fujairah. He spoke about his journey as an entrepreneur and how he overcame obstacles that were preventing him from achieving his dream.
The second guest speaker was Mohamed Ali Al Mulla, the founder of the Al Mulla Group which comprises six companies: Trading & Contracting, Automobiles, Marine Engineering, Converting Industries, Transport and Emirates Plastic Industry.
Maryam Al-Mesmari expressed her feelings on being a part of the organizing team. “I think it’s a great opportunity to be part of this huge and inspiring event. Hearing the stories of the successful entrepreneur and their amazing achievements is very motivational and inspiring for the old entrepreneurs and youths,” Maryam said.
“Being an organizer in this event made me very powerful and enthusiastic about getting on the field of business and to start one. It is great chance for building networks through meeting the ambitious entrepreneurs. It made me seriously think that I’m going to stand up here one day and be the next LEQA speaker”, she added.
Omar Ayyash from the Business Department at HCT-Fujairah emphasized the importance of passion and hard work that come together to create strong entrepreneurs.
“This LEQA was really fantastic because we heard two great success stories. The first one really highlighted how it’s not easy to be an entrepreneur. But if you had passion for it, eventually you will become successful. And the second one truly showed you if you rolled your sleeves up and get your hands into the business, the business will succeed,” he said.
Ms. Abeer Al Rawahi who’s working as an Event Management teacher at Fujairah Women’s College and one of the organizing committee members for LEQA illustrated how being instructor to students in organizing a huge event is not an easy task to undertake.
“Being the instructor for the event is of course something interesting and difficult at the same time. I feel very proud of my students because when you delegate the work and see how such creativity is around nowadays is just an amazing feeling and I’m so proud that I’m part of showing off the creative work done,” she said.
Mohamed Payab of Community Relations and one of the LEQA conference guests expressed how good the speakers were in presenting their stories. “I think both of them were very nice, especially Fahad attached things very smoothly, he started thinking about his business since he was in school and he also talked about the ambition of opening a business specially constructing company and he attached force what really make the business challenging. Also, Al Mulla Group as well sharp, sweet and nice and there were very good,” he said.
Another guest, Omar Al Hamoor, a student at Fujairah Men’s College said: ”What I liked in this LEQA more than previous one is it focuses on the east coast and got the chance to know about the business and the person himself who lives at the same standard of us as young people. The closer the entrepreneur lives, the easier for us to understand his business environment.”
The fourth LEQA conference was extremely successful and Krystyna Krol, Chair of the Bachelor Programs at HCT-Fujairah and one of the organizing committee members for LEQA discussed how the speakers inspired the students through their experiences.
“The speakers were very inspirational; they had a lot to give to the students because each one of them had different experiences, some good days, and some bad days. And I think by those different experiences, they were able to build who they really are and what their businesses is all about,” she said.
