The Road to Riyadh

This past October has taken Saamer Mansoor to new places, even if he never left his house.  

Mansoor was selected out of thousands of applicants to become a delegate for Canada at the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance Summit, a global meeting of young entrepreneurs from all G20 members. But what went into him getting there? 

To start, he was born in Saudi Arabia. He cites his parents’ advice for a high school fundraising event as his first instance of doing entrepreneurship. 

“It was kind of like a lemonade stand, but it was much bigger than that. We made a thousand dollars in one night,” Mansoor said. 

Upon graduating, his marks led to several scholarship offers limited to where tuition would be affordable. Mansoor credits a friend for putting him on a different path. 

“When I was in high school, one of my friends told me ‘Hey, you have pretty good grades and you’re good at sports. You have a pretty good resume. Why don’t you apply to universities around the world, especially in the United States?’”

He mocks confusion to show what he thought of his friend’s suggestion. With his brother’s help, he applied to and was accepted by five American universities. His eventual choice, the University of Texas at Dallas, offered him a full-ride scholarship.  

Aside from that, Mansoor also said the quality of the school’s engineering program was another motivating factor. Forbes found 80 per cent of students major in the science, technology and business programs.

While studying there, he also volunteered with the University of Texas at Dallas’ UNICEF chapter. As of 2016, this chapter was one of the top ten highest donators in the United States to UNICEF. 

“They were really, really active. And these people were so loving, so motivated. They were just like family, and I didn’t have much family in Dallas.”

An avid basketball player, he skipped games to help with fundraisers. Mansoor recounted how these weekend events gave him opportunities to make new friends and raise awareness for global issues. 

After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, he moved on to start as an application developer. He held a variety of jobs in consulting firms.

Mansoor’s own company, The First Prototype, started in 2016. They have developed over 30 apps and have consulted up to six companies. Starting in Dallas, the business moved from Denver to Toronto before settling in Windsor. It has its roots from his time in university tinkering with coding and robotics. 

“I realize that I want to be an inventor, I want to build cool stuff and create things that have not been created before.” 

Finding out about the G20 YEA Summit itself was pure luck. Mansoor credits using social media to explore his interests with learning about the opportunity. 

“Events that surround anything to do with small businesses, entrepreneurship and the government, I usually subscribe to newsletters. Facebook Ads knows that I’m into that, so they popped an ad for me showing about ‘Hey, are you interested in applying to be a delegate?’”

The application process involves submitting a questionnaire and a video speaking about a certain topic. The Canadian delegation had a total of 48 entrepreneurs.  

As for the summit’s history, the idea formed at a 2008 meeting between members of G8 in Italy. Here, using entrepreneurship to handle global challenges was discussed. The initiative of the Youth Entrepreneurs Alliance was created, and the first summit was held in Toronto in 2010.  

This year’s event was held virtually from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and involved a wide variety of panels, networking and speaking engagements. Some of the speakers included Saudi trade commissioners and representatives of international trade organizations.  

Fellow delegate and WEtech Alliance CEO Yvonne Pilon said he was highly involved. 

“There were multiple messaging points and Saamer was always engaging with people. He got a lot of contacts that might not have even been part of the content of the summit,” Pilon said.

Pilon also interviewed Mansoor on her podcast after the summit. 

“You just can tell he brings passion and he really, really believes in entrepreneurship. He wants to be a big advocate for youth entrepreneurship,” she said.  

Coming out of the event, Mansoor had many insights and realized he had more help then he knew. 

“When you attend one of these events, you realize that the government wants you to succeed. If you have the ability to get to a certain level, they want to boost you to your max,” he said. 

There seems to be an answer to the question of what went into Saamer Mansoor getting to the G20 YEA Summit. Pilon mentioned it, and it appears while reflecting on his past work or discussing his future plans, when his eyes widen and a smile grows. The answer is passion.