Given the chance to develop and showcase their talents, Ahmad and his team of young refugees triumphed in Jordan’s Enterprise Challenge national finals.

Seventeen-year-old Ahmad is a young innovator and Palestinian refugee living in Jordan. He used to think that entrepreneurship opportunities were out of reach for students from his background.

But the Enterprise Challenge programme has given Ahmad the chance to shine, with his team crowned national champions in the programme’s 2025 business pitch competition. They are now using their prize money to explore their award-winning business idea in real life.

‘The moment our team was announced as national winners, I realized that background doesn’t define ability – effort does,’ Ahmad explains.

Extending opportunities to underserved communities

Ahmad has a strong interest in business and technology, and attends a UN-run school for refugees. UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, educates over 113,000 students in Jordan, in over 160 schools. These provide essential education services, but they have limited resources and their students, being from refugee families, often face economic challenges.

The Enterprise Challenge programme gives school students across Jordan the chance to develop entrepreneurship skills through coaching, mentoring and an online simulation game. Teams of teenagers then develop and pitch their own business ideas in a national competition.

Delivered in Jordan by our partner INJAZ, the Enterprise Challenge programme has engaged over 38,000 young people there over the last decade – including almost 9,000 young refugees. The programme is generously funded by the Aga Khan Foundation and Cresent Petroleum and, since 2023, participants have been drawn equally from refugee and host communities.

Building the skills for success

When he first joined the programme, Ahmad was determined to show that he and his schoolmates had just as much creativity and drive as their counterparts from other schools with more resources.

‘When I joined INJAZ, I wanted to prove that students from UNRWA schools can dream big too,’ he explains. ‘I didn’t have much experience, but I had passion.’

The programme enabled Ahmad to develop business, technical and financial planning skills, learning how to identify real market needs, conduct feasibility studies, and develop functional prototypes for his team’s concept, ‘AutoGenius’ – a digital platform connecting customers with spare car parts providers. He also boosted his capabilities and confidence around public speaking, pitching and negotiating.

Drawing on these skills to make his pitch at the 2025 Enterprise Challenge national finals, Ahmad’s presentation impressed the judges and saw the team triumph. These same skills have since also served him well in discussions with donors and investors, as the team uses their prize money to explore their idea in real life.

Potential and prosperity

Ahmad is now keen to pave the way for other young refugees to succeed too, highlighting the importance of self-belief. ‘After winning, I wanted to help others experience what I did,’ Ahmad says, ‘to show my schoolmates that we all have the potential to innovate and make an impact.’

The World Bank puts Jordan’s youth unemployment rate at almost 40% – one of the highest in the world – and in a region which has seen decades of conflict, it also hosts one of the world’s largest refugee populations per capita. In a challenging context, determined young inventors and entrepreneurs like Ahmad will play a critical role in driving job creation and prosperity.