The Royal Scientific Society, in collaboration with the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), the last 29th of August, organized an Innovation Day in Aqaba, within the activities of NEX-LABS, an EU-funded project under ENI CBC MED framework.

The event revolves around launching Water-Energy-Food NEXUS Open Living Labs and included a presentation of the different types of financial support for the project and an Entrepreneurs’ Corner Space, where stakeholders addressed cooperation towards a more enabling innovation environment.

The Chief Commissioner of Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), Eng. Nayef Bakheet, said that the Authority understands the importance of partnership with all official bodies and the private sector to find new pioneering projects in the Aqaba Special Region to be an incubator of pioneering projects and initiatives at national and international level.

He added that the Authority is committed to supporting youth and entrepreneurial projects to ensure technology transfer and development of the priority and most important sectors at national level, such as food, water, energy and digital transformation, which contribute to providing and increasing opportunities of work and achieve innovation-driven growth.

The WEF - CAP Project coordinator, Dr Mohammed Al Jafari stressed the importance of the concerted efforts of all segments of society to find solutions to basic resource problems, indicating that the fruitful cooperation between the Royal Scientific Society and the Authority of Aqaba led to the incubation of dozens of start-ups in the Aqaba business incubator. 

He further emphasized the importance of regional cooperation and coordination through emerging initiatives, taking the opportunity to present WEF-CAP Project, which aims at combining the capitalization and expansion of tools and methodologies used for innovation commercialization with the capitalization of WEF NEXUS innovations in efficient practices for replication across EU-MPC, thus supporting sustainable and resilient agri-food sector production with improved energy and water efficiencies.

For more information you can visit the following links:

Here you can find the press release published in Arabic by the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority

Here you can find the press release published by The Royal Scientific Society 

Here you can watch the video of the event with the interview to Dr. Mohammed Al Jafari