For shoppers walking through Wafi mall in Dubai over the weekend, The Tale of the Two Cities may have seemed a strange choice for a store name.
But Sayeh Ettehadi, and a couple of her 12th-grade classmates from Emirates International School Jumeirah, named their business, in part, after Charles Dickens' famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Yet they also chose the shop name because of where their products were sourced from - shirts from Nepal and necklaces with blue morvarid and red aghigh stones from Iran, which Ms Ettehadi crafted herself and was selling for Dh200 (US$54.44) apiece.
The Tale of Two the Cities was one of more than 700 kiosks being operated by about 3,000 high school and university students for four days last week. The event, which ended on Saturday and is known as the Young Entrepreneur Competition, took up more than 100,000 square feet of retail space at Wafi. It is held annually by Dubai SME, an agency under the emirate's Department of Economic Development that aims to grow the small and medium enterprise sector.
"We're just getting into the 'independence world' - getting out from under parents," said Ms Ettehadi, who along with her two classmates spent Dh2,000 to purchase the products for their kiosk.
Their hope was to break even, although Ms Ettehadi said she was more interested in using the opportunity to learn about operating a business, while at the same time earning credit towards her diploma. "We get to calculate the prices [and] manage [the business] in order to get people interested," she said.
As with the stores surrounding them, students were selling various items and trying to stand out from their competitors.
Some, such as Hippitty Hop and Affordables, seemed to have focused on creating the right kinds of names to target their core demographic - young, cash-strapped shoppers. A couple of jewellery stands strung up bright pink or red boas to draw in the female clientele, while many others blasted out dance music, in part it seemed, to entertain kiosk managers during customer-free lulls.
Green Earth, managed by Salem Al Rameithi, 19, of Abu Dhabi, stood out for being one of the few kiosks not displaying sparkly mobile covers or T-shirts that featured characters from the popular mobile game Angry Birds. Instead, Mr Al Rameithi covered the inside of his stand with old newspapers as well as photos, while showcasing his handmade flower vases (Dh10) and pencil holders (Dh20), which were constructed from old art magazines, computer floppy disks and empty water bottles.
"Here you can learn … how to communicate with customers [and] how to make your booth interesting to customers," said Mr Al Rameithi, a first-year business student at the Higher Colleges of Technology.
He hopes to start a design factory that would use recycled materials, such as old cassette tapes that he had attached to the outside of a wallet that he was selling in Wafi.
Sibling teams of entrepreneurs were also working together over the weekend.
Mohammed Hussain, a 9th-grade student from Dubai, was helping man a kiosk for his sister, who had to liaise with a health products manufacturer in South Korea to source her goods. The result of that partnership was Magic Lily, a kiosk that sold items often more popular in Asia, including detox foot patches and a Dh300 anti-allergenic microfibre towel.
Neelam Ashraf, 20, entered the exhibition for the third year, and for the first time with her younger brother. Their kiosk - Mystique - sold products aimed at teenage males such as checkered hats, fedoras and gents' sunglasses, as well as puzzles for young boys.
Yet Ms Ashraf, who is studying accounting in Dubai, said she did not want to open her own business in the future. "I personally prefer the accounting field," she said. "But my younger brother, yes, he's going to be a businessman."
