Oman’s Public Authority for the Development of Small and Medium Enterprises (Riyada) recently organized a three-day “Build Your Business” master training program in cooperation with Silatech.

This training marks the first step in a larger partnership between Riyada and Silatech, including collaboration on Riyada’s Entrepreneurship Award, research to track the progress and obstacles faced by entrepreneurs in establishing or expanding their business, as well as programs to encourage and empower social entrepreneurs.

Silatech Acting CEO Mohammed Al Naimi welcomed the collaboration with Riyada, saying “Silatech will be significantly increasing our engagement in Oman, and we look forward to working with dynamic and forward-thinking organizations like Riyada to help unlock the full potential of Omani youth.”

For his part, Riyada CEO Khalifa bin Said Al Abri said “The Build Your Business program is the first step in cooperation with our Qatari partner Silatech. The blended approach of the program, which combines classroom instruction and e-learning, will help to train and empower Omani business pioneers.”

The program took place in Muscat during September 15-17, and was conducted as a “Training of Trainers” to enhance the capacity of Oman-based facilitators to deliver the Build Your Business (BYB) program directly to young Omani entrepreneurs. Build Your Business includes 14 thematic units taught over 30 hours of instruction; it uses a unique blended learning approach in which skills are introduced online, and then reinforced with in-person classroom instruction. The instruction is also coupled with practical, hands-on activities conducted in the community.

The workshop aimed to strengthen the capacity for the Sultanate of Oman to provide Build Your Business training directly to the owners of small and medium enterprises and help them in learning how to establish and strengthen their businesses.

Build Your Business (BYB) is a comprehensive, interactive training course designed to support aspiring young entrepreneurs by introducing them to the basic principles needed to successfully launch, lead and scale up very small businesses, or “microenterprises.” Originally developed by the International Youth Foundation and Microsoft, BYB has been used by more than 300 organizations in 20 countries.

Based in Doha, Silatech is a regional social initiative which works with over 100 partners in 15 countries throughout the Arab world to help young Arabs find jobs and start businesses. Since being founded in 2008, Silatech has financed and supported over 90,000 youth-owned businesses, and created or sustained over 140,000 jobs. The partnership with Riyada marks Silatech’s first program activity in Oman.