Sharqi Shop, a Syrian-led e-commerce startup alongside health tech startup Fadfed won the Startup Roadshow competition in Amman, Jordan, that was held on October 11th.
The Startup Roadshow is organized by Jusoor and SPARK, where they take a tour across 5 cities with the aim of finding the next generation of Syrian entrepreneurs in Turkey and the Levant region. Following two successful rounds in Beirut and Erbil, a 5-day bootcamp was held at the ZINC (Zain Innovation Campus) on October 6th in Amman.
The Syrian entrepreneur Saleem Najjar, founder of Sharqi shop won the first place in the Early Stage Track. His startup, Sharqi is an e-commerce platform that offers customers an online one-stop shop for handicrafts in Jordan. At the moment, the startup features 400 items made by 40 artisans, that are both Syrian refugees and Jordanians.
Saleem talks about the inspiration behind Sharqi stating: “My partner at Sharqi and I were inspired by the Syrian artisans we met through the Syrian community in Jordan. After having several talks with them we realized that their main concern was being unable to reach potential customers or sell their products in Jordan, as they didn’t have sales or distribution channels.”
Curious about the other startup? Wel Fadfed as well won first place in the Idea Stage Track. Fadfed is a bot-powered platform that helps people get access to mental health care and life coaching services in the region.
“Fadfed is an electronic application that creates safe spaces for people to express what they feel away from people’s judgment, through a smart chatbot that we will develop to respond to users. In addition, there is another path within the application that allows users to make an appointment for a psychologist or a life coach,” Ahmed explains.
At the end of the tour, two winning teams from each city will get the awesome chance to pitch in a Startup Battle at the SPARK Ignite Conference in Amsterdam.