• Admin
• Jan 26, 2026
• Women’s Entrepreneurship in Business

The Syrian Young Woman Who Gathered 77 Entrepreneurs from Across Syria in Homs

Alaa Al-Suwaid, a young Syrian graduate food engineer, launched her initiative to ignite the spirit of entrepreneurship in her war-torn homeland, bringing together entrepreneurs from six different Syrian cities to participate in the Startup Weekend event in Homs.

Alaa said: “I want to tell the whole world that Syria has people with ideas worth spreading.”

On a Wednesday afternoon during Ramadan in Syria, the streets of Homs appear calm, bearing the marks of a long war and painful experiences. But Alaa, with her cheerful and energetic spirit, offers a completely different tone: “People need to believe in what they can do and have the confidence to start new things.”

She led her team of 41 volunteers to organize Startup Weekend Homs, a global 54-hour event under the supervision of Techstars, gathering 77 ambitious entrepreneurs who traveled difficult and uncertain paths from different parts of Syria, from Latakia on the northern coast, Tartus, Aleppo, Hama, Deir Ezzor, all the way to the capital Damascus, to meet in the city located 51 km from the Lebanese border for the first event of its kind there.

This event is the first of its kind in Homs and provided an opportunity to meet 77 entrepreneurs from all over Syria, from the coast to the interior, to exchange experiences and learn about the culture of entrepreneurship, which is relatively new in the local community.

Homs, which endured a painful three-year siege between 2011 and 2014, is now in a rebuilding phase. Innovative youth like Alaa hope entrepreneurship will provide young people with the tools needed to rebuild a shattered economy. Alaa says: “Homs is now in a recovery phase. We have lost many facilities, infrastructure, and people, but the city is trying to live again.”

After organizing several youth-led events, including TEDx talks, Alaa aims to ignite a spark of change among Syrian youth to reinvent their future. She adds: “My goal is to give people opportunities through organizing events, but I realized we can do something bigger: encourage them to create startups and businesses. The term entrepreneurship is not common in our society, and many do not know it. Since there are no centers providing the necessary training and skills, I started thinking about organizing Startup Weekend to spread the culture of entrepreneurship in our community and encourage youth to launch projects that impact the economic situation.”