National Youth program for Skills Development - The Program

AL Shabab Scheme

Al Shabab Scheme is targeted at 18-29 year old Omanis. This is a two stage program – successful completion of stage one is prerequisite for entry into the selection process for stage two.

Participants Selection

An online questionnaire, assessment, and testing process will be applied, to select 1000 successful applicants onto Al Shabab Scheme - Stage One.

Stage One

This is 3-month stage in which the participant learns one of the three important specializations in the 4th Industrial Revolution era (digital marketing, data science, or programming) and that is through e-learning via the Udacity Platform, which includes online interactive sessions and application tasks. Successful participants will receive a Nanodegree at the end of the Stage.

Omani Youth Tech Ideathon

Each participant, who has completed the Stage One’s requirements, must present their idea of a technological project and work on developing it, and convince the judging panel during the "Omani Youth Tech Ideathon", which is organized in collaboration with Google, in order to be qualified for Al Shabab Scheme – Stage Two that includes 100 of the youth.

Stage Two

At this Stage, participants will move towards the practical side of their journey in the Program; as the Stage will be divided into three training modules distributed over 6 months within and outside the Sultanate. Participants will work on developing their technology based ideas to establish their startup projects on the ground, under the supervision and follow-up of the Program’s international partners.

Module One

An intensive training module focused on team-building and lasts for 7 days in the Sultanate, which consists of an intensive workshop (Bootcamp) for three days, carried out by the Program’s academic partners. It aims to understand the market needs and develop an action plan for the project they submitted in the Competition Stage and a business model for it; followed by a 4-day training camp with the “Outward Bound Oman” Institution, which aims to develop leadership and entrepreneurial skills, build teamwork and promote problem-solving, decision-making and creativity skills. After the end of the first week, this module includes a set of virtual group meetings and personal orientation sessions online with the participants, in preparation for the completion of the next module requirements.

Module Two

It lasts for two weeks outside the Sultanate in Singapore and Switzerland and carried out by the Program’s academic partners; as the participants work in the "Business Development Accelerators" to develop their technology based project ideas and prepare action plans, implementation plans, financing and marketing; and that is through working closely with experts and specialists in project development. Integration into the new innovative experiences provides the opportunity to explore international experiences, and that is through accessing and visiting a number of specialized institutions in the technology, innovation and business development fields in these countries; and visiting innovation and research centers and laboratories; in addition to holding a number of personal and group orientation sessions, and providing opportunities to interact with international students in these universities. After the participants’ return to the Sultanate, the participants will be prepared to present their projects to the investment authorities in the last module, through a set of virtual group meetings and personal orientation sessions online.

Module Three

In this module, participants work on implementing the startup technology based project on the ground, before presenting them to the investment authorities and businessmen; along with providing an opportunity to identify these projects through a specialized e-platform, and then graduate from the Program.

Program Partners