In 2014 Zoomaal already had two successful challenges on their crowdfunding platform. The first one being the Women Pioneers Challenge and the second one being the Must See Film Challenge. This third and last challenge of 2014 is focused on empowering coworking spaces in the MENA region. The challenge is open to established coworking spaces but also to spaces that haven’t started yet. You could be a coworking space in Iraq that needs to buy a 3D printer though you fall short due to a lack of funding. You could also be trying to bring your paper plans of a creative space in Tunisia to life but end up putting them on the shelf because funding is difficult.
The Collaborative Spaces Challenge offers a matched-funding of $50,000 in total to support the creation and growth of such spaces. The spaces will have the opportunity to run their crowdfunding campaign amidst a marketing hype, and get a chance to receive matched-funding of $50,000 to double the impact of the collected contributions.
Five Arab countries will qualify for the challenge according to the highest number of registered community members after a two-week registration deadline. So far, the five countries with the highest number of users unlocking the challenge are: Iraq with 2520, Sudan with 2456 registered users, Egypt with 1506 users, Algeria with 1014 and Morocco with 1014.
Go to www.menaspaces.org and unlock your county, the top 5 countries will be opened up for projects and in the new year the crowdfunding will be opened up for the selected projects in those countries. Are you up for the challenge?