Editor’s note: Adam Klein is chief strategist at The American Underground in Durham.

DOHA, Qatar – Sometimes thinking small can lead to big results – at least that’s the premise behind The Smoffice, a project launched in Durham last spring and now an award finalist at the World Chambers Congress annual meeting in Doha, Qatar this week.

The Smoffice, spawned by the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Durham, Inc, was a national competition to give away the World’s Smallest Office in the front window of Beyu Caffe to one startup for six months.

The winning company received technical support, a downtown condo, and loads of good coffee in exchange for being in the fishbowl office on Main Street.

The Smoffice is a finalist for the Most Unconventional Economic Development Project category at the Chambers Federation meeting.

We are competing against initiatives from South Korea, Slovenia, Finland, and Germany and are the only U.S. city/state presenting. I am joining Casey Steinbacher of the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce and Matthew Coppedge of Downtown Durham, Inc. on the trip. Matthew and I co-founded the Smoffice while I was at the Chamber last year.

For those who don’t know Qatar, it’s a tiny and incredibly wealthy country (third wealthiest per capita in the world) off the coast of Saudi Arabia. In addition to being small, it’s incredibly hot in Doha (nearly 100 on Sunday!).

It also might be the least walkable place I’ve ever been. Matthew and I tried to get some money exchanged about 1/4 mile from our hotel and that was not an easy experience. There were almost no sidewalks and all the lanes of traffic were about six inches off your shoulder. When we took a cab to a museum later, we realized why no one walks – it was $5 USD for a three mile cab ride for the two of us!

Between cheap fuel (I presume) and hot weather, cars are the way Qataris travel.

You can see the Doha skyline in the photo with this post. It’s striking for a city of a million people.

We present our initiative on Wednesday morning (at roughly 4 a.m. EST) to a panel of judges and find out if we win on Thursday mid-day (at roughly 7 a.m. EST).

Our team is very excited to be here and cautiously optimistic about our chances. I’ll be writing for WRAL TechWire while in Doha and you can also keep up with the action on The Smoffice Twitter (@TheSmoffice) and Facebook accounts as well as the American Underground (@AmerUnderground).

(Editor’s note: The American Underground is operated by The American Tobacco Historic District which is part of Capitol Broadcasting, the parent of WRALTechWire.)