The United Arab Emirates’ first female producer Nayla Al Khaja has been honoured at the British Council’s International Young Interactive and Screen Entrepreneur Awards. 

Khaja, who runs Abu Dhabi and Dubai based production company D-SEVEN motion pictures was named the International Young Screen Entrepreneur 2010 at the awards, which took place at BAFTA in London on Oct 20. The producer/director, who was named Emirati Filmmaker at the Dubai Film Festival in 2007, is currently developing her first feature.

The International Young Interactive Entrepreneur award went to Anup Tapadia from India. Tapadia is the founder of TouchMagix, a next generation digital technology company which exports products to more than 20 countries and counts Nike and Nokia amongst its clients.

The two winners were chosen from a shortlist of 25-35 year-olds from Argentina, China, Colombia, Estonia, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Lebanon, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Syria, Turkey, UAE and Vietnam.