Cairo, Egypt, 29 April 2012- Souq.com and the American University in Cairo's Entrepreneurs Society have teamed up to launch The Hit 2012, the first product innovation competition for the university's students, which gives participants the opportunity to win LE 50,000 to start up their business and own a commercial channel through an online store on Souq.com.

The concept of The Hit was developed by Souq.com and the Entrepreneurs' Society, under the support of Sherif Kamel, the Dean of the School of Business. Its aim is to raise student interest in entrepreneurship and innovation, by providing a platform for a practical learning experience. The process shows young Egyptians that with an innovative idea that is properly researched, they can create a product and develop a commercial model to sell it. Souq.com is giving the students real opportunities to go to market with their ideas.

"Our aim is to spread entrepreneurship awareness and foster an entrepreneurial spirit among AUC students and among the Egyptian youth," said Youssuf El Samma, CEO, Entrepreneurs' Society. "We chose to partner with Souq.com because through them students with innovative ideas can build business models for products that will get retailed online and will have real buyers in a matter of days. There are many wonderful ideas and concepts among students, who are the entrepreneurs and business leaders of the future. The Hit has encouraged these innovators to bring their ideas to life."

In collaboration with the Adham Centre for Television and Digital Journalism, each stage of The Hit 2012 was filmed and posted online as webisodes. Today, out of the 16 teams who pitched their ideas to a panel of expert judges, only 10 teams remain in the competition. These 10 have now received LE 1,000 each to build a prototype of their product and present it.

Prior to the prototypes presentations, Omar Sodoudi, general manager for Souq.com in Egypt, spent an entire day mentoring the teams in his office. "It's been such a journey, watching the ideas of these young entrepreneurs develop and get nurtured to the stage they've reached today. The most important thing for us is that all of these ideas end up on the market, not just the winning "Hit". The teams or the 'entrepreneurs' need to start expanding their thinking beyond the idea, but more into setting up a business operation, and how they're going to make money. We're offering them an online retail channel, but we also want to encourage them to learn more about all the possibilities of e-commerce."

The prototype presentations will be filmed on May 3rd and the videos posted on the website for the public to vote on. The voting results will determine the five finalists who will present their fully developed prototypes to the judges. In the final round, the online voters will get to choose the winner of The Hit, which will be announced in an awards ceremony at the American University in Cairo's New Campus on May 9th.

The Hit 2012 is supported by Souq.com, the Adham Centre for Television and Digital Journalism and KUWADICO.

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About TheHit
www.thehit2012.com

For further information please contact:
Mai Abaza
Publicist Inc.
01154453838
Mai.abaza@publicistinc.com