KUWAIT: Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (KIPIC) and Zain Innovation Center (ZINC) staff in a group photo at the Zain's main headquarters in Shuwaikh. - KUNA

KUWAIT: Zain, the leading digital service provider in Kuwait, hosted a group of employees from the Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (KIPIC), a subsidiary of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, in Zain Innovation Center (ZINC) at the company's main headquarters in Shuwaikh, during a panel discussion which the company shared its experience in the field of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

The company's hosting of KIPIC employees at its main headquarters in Shuwaikh came in line with its corporate sustainability strategy, which centers around the development of the education and innovation sector, especially about the development of areas of entrepreneurship, ultimately reflecting the role of private sector in supporting oil sector institutions to enhance their contributions to sustainable development plans.

Zain indicated that it held a panel of discussion session on the sidelines of the visit, in which the company reviewed its current experience and future directions in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship, which comes in line with the plans and the vision of "New Kuwait". And the need to involve technology, cooperation, education, and other economic and social strategies that contribute to spreading a culture of innovation in the business environment.

The company is one of the leading organizations that actively adopted young entrepreneurs, as Zain believes in the capabilities and potential of the youth, and in the ideas and innovations they have to offer. Because Zain relies, as part of its strategy, on addressing the youth's issues by investing in the future, the company has launched the Zain Innovation Center (ZINC), which is a leading incubator for entrepreneurs in Kuwait. This center aims at supporting and empowering the youth and their capabilities, as well as opening new horizons for startups.

ZINC represents an incubator for the youth's innovations, and currently encourages exceptional minds to think in an interactive environment, offers a modern and innovative workplace, presents a proper work environment for those who have aspiring ideas and visions, as well as develops and progresses ideas into real projects that can be executed and implemented.

For Zain, ZINC represents the prominent face of this stage. Ideas are always affected by the care they receive, and if global markets look for smart ideas, then private sector organizations in Kuwait are insistently heading towards these areas as well. For this, Zain believes that launching incubators will help discover new ideas and raise new innovations.

The idea behind launching the Zain Innovation Center (ZINC) came as a continuation of Zain's journey that started with entrepreneurs and remarkable people who own bright ideas, and began with the Zain Great Idea accelerator program, which currently continues within the tech and digital sectors.

The training programs offered by Zain and the sponsorships it is keen on in the fields of technology, various training grant programs, e-learning portals, and others, embody this strategic direction of the company's plans to enhance its areas of development, and sustainability.