It’s Valentine’s Day, so it’s no surprise passion is in the air. For the winners of the fifth cohort of the Intelak Incubator, the passion on display is all about finding new ways to enhance the aviation, travel and tourism industry.

Selected by judges from the Emirates Group, GE and Dubai Tourism, as well as the Dubai Technology Entrepreneur Centre (DTEC), the four winning startups were selected for their innovative ideas to drive efficiency in these sectors. They were chosen from 16 short-listed startups from around the world that were derived from a pool of 100 applicants.

The four winners of Intelak, the UAE’s aviation, travel and tourism-focused incubator, include Cargonow, which offers a solution for freight forwarders that face challenges navigating a complex and strongly fragmented air cargo market. Also winning is Hotel Data Cloud, which helps hotels win back control of the descriptive content on their booking channels.

The third and fourth winners are BONFLITE, an innovative digital retailing platform that combines the distribution channel and traveler knowledge of the airline with the operational expertise of the airport duty free operators to elevate the shopping experience for air travelers; and Avendy, a chatbot that answers travelers’ questions within 10 minutes with quality input and verification from local experts.

Each five-member team will receive AED 50,000 as seed funding, in addition to intensive mentoring and workshops from Intelak’s Principal Partners – GE, the Emirates Group, and Dubai Tourism (the Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing), as well as other experts from the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Dubai. The startups will have a home for the next several months at DTEC, the startup hub located in Dubai Silicon Oasis. Intelak’s three-month intensive incubator program will culminate with Cohort 5’s graduation and Demo Day in April.

A passion for entrepreneurship is also in the air today, during the second day of the 2019 STEP Conference in Dubai. Participants can join the Lean Design Challenge being hosted by Intelak at its booth, which includes lean design workshops. Mentors from the Emirates Group, GE and Dubai Tourism are on hand to provide young innovators with an opportunity to present and receive feedback on their ideas. With this feedback, participants could be strong contenders for Cohort 6, which is now open for submissions.

Meaning ‘taking off’ in Arabic, Intelak supports young entrepreneurs to become part of the innovative ecosystem in the UAE. Since 2016, Intelak has garnered over 1,000 applications; more than 80 teams have participated in the pre-incubation bootcamp; and 20 teams have received thousands of hours of mentoring from the Principal Partners.