AGSI Youth Microgrant
for Circularity
AGSI, in partnership with Sustain Labs Paris, gives ambitious 16–21-year-old students AED 500 to turn their circularity ideas into real, community-level solutions. With a focused sustainability and circularity micro-course, hands-on mentorship, and seed funding, young entrepreneurs spend their summer designing, testing, and implementing their ideas so their solutions today can grow, replicate, and scale for a circularity-driven sustainable future.
“Circularity demands new ways of thinking - and young people are already showing us what that future can look like. Their ideas are bold, imaginative, and unconstrained by legacy systems. When these ideas are supported with the right guidance, resources, and a chance to be tested in the real world, they grow into powerful solutions that can redefine how we use materials and manage our planet’s resources. Through this microgrant, we want to give young entrepreneurs the launchpad they need to build the circular systems of tomorrow.”
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- Asam Hussain, CEO, Arabian Gulf Steel Industries (AGSI)
Why Apply?
Start something real
Turn an idea into action.
Launch your first sustainability project with real funding and real outcomes.
Learn by building
Skills that go beyond the classroom.
Design solutions, manage a budget, work with stakeholders, and measure impact.
See your impact
From concept to community change.
Implement your idea on the ground and track what actually changes.
Lead the circular shift
Circularity needs new thinkers.
Your project helps keep resources in use and communities more sustainable.
Build your future
A project that speaks for you.
Create a strong portfolio story for university, scholarships, and careers.
Who can apply?
16 - 21 years
high school and undergraduate students in the UAE
Applicants must have a project concept related to material and resource circularity
How to apply?
Submit a short video (maximum 2 minutes) explaining:
The challenge you want to solve
Your proposed circularity solution
The impact it could have on your community
Students should submit their application by email:
Subject line: Your Name | Application for AGSI
Youth Microgrant for Circularity
What could your project look like? See these examples.
Community up-cycling workshop
transform discarding plastic into durable furniture for the community
Community sharing rack
create a platform for re-usable sports gear across neighbourhoods, reducing new-product demand
Materials-loop map
collaborate with local businesses to look at material flows, propose circular business models, sign local commitments and publish a community circular-blueprint
How it works
Students receive a microgrant of AED 500 to implement a sustainability project in their school, campus, or community.
Every big idea starts small, and every entrepreneur begins with their first seed fund. With the AGSI Youth Microgrant for Circularity, students receive AED 500 which acts as seed capital or the first step toward developing scalable, real-world sustainability solutions.
This capital helps bring sustainability ideas to life, whether that is a project that reduces waste in school or creates a new use for recycled materials.
This grant is a first investment in the young entrepreneur’s potential, and a chance for them to prove that their idea can make a measurable difference.
How it works
Students receive a microgrant of AED 500 to implement a sustainability project in their school, campus, or community.
Every big idea starts small, and every entrepreneur begins with their first seed fund. With the AGSI Youth Microgrant for Circularity, students receive AED 500 which acts as seed capital or the first step toward developing scalable, real-world sustainability solutions.
This capital helps bring sustainability ideas to life, whether that is a project that reduces waste in school or creates a new use for recycled materials.
This grant is a first investment in the young entrepreneur’s potential, and a chance for them to prove that their idea can make a measurable difference.
Students complete a 20-hour interactive course designed by experts at Sustain Labs Paris, covering key themes in sustainability, from circular design to systems thinking.
Delivered through an easy-to-use digital platform, each student receives a personal login, enabling them to learn at their own pace, anytime and anywhere; yet keeping each student on pace, the course is completed within a broad timeframe.
The course blends knowledge, creativity and practical insight to help students understand not just why sustainability and circularity matter but how to act on it.
The course includes:
Fundamentals of sustainability and climate change:
Explore the science, challenges, and opportunities driving global sustainability and circularity-driven action.
Deep dive into the theme of microgrant:
Under the AGSI Youth Microgrant for Circularity, focus on circular systems, and see how materials, systems and industries can be redesigned so that nothing goes to waste - the foundation of tomorrow’s circular economy.
Interactive case studies from the corporate and young entrepreneurs’ world:
Discover and analyse how global companies and young changemakers are making changes with powerful ideas in action.
Engaging reflection assignments and peer feedback:
Apply what you learn through creative exercises that deepen understanding and inspire original thinking, without the pressure of grades.
Each student attends three grant clinics with mentors who guide them on budgeting, project design, and implementation.
No great idea grows alone. That’s why every student attends three grant clinics with leaders across sustainability, business and innovation.
Building a budget and allocating their microgrant effectively.
Navigating real-world challenges like stakeholder engagement, communication and scale.
Designing their project, identifying their stakeholders and target market, and setting measurable goals
Mentors guide students step by step through:
Students walk away with a practical toolkit to drive change and a blueprint they can use for community implementation of their project along with building a blueprint for future ventures.
Putting to use the microgrant to drive their idea to action, students implement their project and see it in action.
This is where it all comes together. Armed with knowledge, funding and mentorship, students put their ideas into motion, making real impact in their schools, campuses, or communities.
Solve problems on the ground
See innovation come to life
Collaborate with stakeholders
Students experience first-hand what it means to:
Each student will document their circularity-driven impact through tangible outcomes, whether that is waste reduced, energy conserved or water saved, providing measurable evidence of impact and innovation at scale.
Every idea is powerful when its impact can be seen, felt, and measured. Students document their project outcomes and each project contributes to a larger movement of measurable, youth-led impact. This shows that small steps, when multiplied, can reshape the future.
Through this process, students do not just gain certificates or recognition but they build portfolios of real-world impact that can strengthen their university applications, future careers, and most importantly, their entrepreneurial journeys.
You launch your first venture:
Your chance to be an entrepreneur today and not wait for tomorrow.
You gain real skills:
You learn how to design solutions, build budgets, engage stakeholders and measure environmental impact.
You create measurable change:
See your idea in real life and not just as a concept, track results and share your impact.
Build your portfolio:
Documenting your project gives you a standout story for building your further education and career trajectory.
Be part of the solution:
Circularity matters and you can lead it. Your project helps your community and the planet.
AGSI Youth Microgrant for Circularity
About AGSI
Arabian Gulf Steel Industries (AGSI), a leading industrial company, is the UAE’s largest private steelmaker and steel recycler in the UAE. AGSI is transforming traditional steel manufacturing into a model of resource efficiency and waste-reduction. By embedding circularity into its operations through repurposing materials and re-using by-products, AGSI is setting real-world examples of sustainability in practice.
What does AGSI bring to the Youth Microgrants?
AGSI contributes practical industry experience to the AGSI Youth Microgrant for Circularity, drawing on its work in steel recycling and circular production. Through the programme, AGSI supports students by awarding each student a grant of AED 500 and connecting sustainability concepts to real industrial systems, showing how circular thinking can be applied at scale.
AGSI’s involvement reflects a broader commitment to education and green skills development, helping students understand how responsible resource use, material recovery, and circular design principles translate into real-world applications.
Be part of the next generation of builders
If you’re a student ready to build, a teacher who believes in hands-on learning, or an organisation with a mission to invest in youth innovation, this is your invitation.
Let’s turn early ideas into enduring impact.
