Anwar Almojarkesh, like many students around the world, found getting up in the morning difficult. However, instead of hitting the snooze button, Anwar began to develop a solution, one that has led to him to a remarkable career as an entrepreneur, helped along the way by Qatar’s Stars of Science TV show.
When Syrian innovator Anwar was studying telecom engineering in Jordan, he found it difficult to wake up in the mornings. “I am a heavy sleeper, and when I was studying I often couldn’t wake up as I wouldn’t hear my alarm clock,” he says.
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When Anwar Almojarkesh – a former contestant on QF’s innovation TV show for the Arab world – woke up to the full potential of his idea, the result was an invention that helps people with hearing loss.
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His first solution was simple, and a little too effective. “I created an alarm clock with a motor inside it linked to a bottle of water. When the alarm went off, I would be splashed with water. However, the problem was I would wake up drenched.” If a great invention is down to a singular idea, it’s also down to countless iterations to improve its functionality, and Anwar soon came up with a version of the alarm clock that caused the pillow to vibrate, ensuring a mercifully dry wake up call.
Anwar then realized that he wasn’t the only one with the same problem, and that people with hearing loss can’t hear alarm clocks or a myriad of other sounds – from doorbells to crying babies. This led to an app called Braci, which analyses sounds in the environment and converts these to flashing lights or onscreen notifications, alerting the user to everything from fire alarms to home appliances to a child in distress.
The creation of that app set him on a long and winding entrepreneurial path, one which took him around Europe as he chased funding. He spent a year in an accelerator program in the Czech Republic, another year in Finland, and two years in Denmark, before – thanks to the T1 Exceptional Talent visa, only given to 200 people per year – he moved to the UK.
Now located in Birmingham, Braci employs six people and Anwar functions as both CEO and CTO. “You have to go where your market is,” says Anwar. “The deaf market in the UK is really big, with a lot of government support, so it made sense to come here.”
While Anwar’s route was circuitous, the end goal was never in doubt. “I was 100 per cent confident my idea would be a success,” he says. “We made a lot of changes to the product, but these were just different approaches to solve the same problem.”
And of course, a big boost along the way was his appearance in Season 5 of Qatar Foundation’s Stars of Science innovation TV show, where his assistive pillow impressed the judges. It was an eye-opening experience. “It improved both my technical and business skills and helped me understand the needs of the customer. It was also good to be able to compete with the other projects on the show, and ultimately it helped me raise investment.”
The show also proved invaluable in terms of proving his concept had legs. “Those who are thinking of applying to Stars of Science need to make sure that their idea is not already in the market, or has a patent; and they need to be ready for some tough questions.”
The element of competition was also a useful rehearsal for the real-world market. “There were 30 of us competing at the start,” he says. “Competition is a great thing for entrepreneurs, and in the show we were competing with each other for the best business plan, the best solutions, the best strategy. We learned a lot about the business side of things, and to get feedback from experts from Qatar Foundation was very important. It really was a comprehensive experience for every entrepreneur who took part.”
The future looks bright for Anwar’s company, with recent deals signed with railways and healthcare providers. “We want to be leaders in the non-speech sound classification market,” Anwar says. “We are already licensing our technology to big companies in the UK, such as rail lines – we are currently working with Network Rail in the UK to help monitor their overhead lines. So, our market has expanded a lot from just people with hearing loss; we now target health, safety, and security markets. The same solution can be used to tackle different markets.”
Anwar’s advice for other entrepreneurs looking to bring a product to fruition is simple: “Believe in your idea, do a massive amount of research before you start working on the prototype, and talk to end users so you understand their problems.”
Qatar Foundation
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