Details

When

April 14, 2014, 12:00 pm - March 29, 2024, 11:09 am

Where

The Middle East Institute
1761 N St NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20036 (Map)

The Middle East Institute is proud to host Sherif Kamel, dean of the School of Business at the American University in Cairo (AUC), for a discussion about how Egypt can transform its economy by supporting emerging business leaders and cultivating a nation-wide entrepreneurial ecosystem. Faced with a youth bulge and a shortage of jobs, Egypt urgently needs to build a business environment conducive to entrepreneurship, including developing technology platforms and innovative applications. Drawing upon his own experience building AUC's Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Dr. Kamel will examine the current state of entrepreneurship in Egypt and the challenges ahead.

Biographies:

Sherif Kamel is founding dean of the School of Business at the American University in Cairo (September 2009-present) and professor of management information systems.  He led a repositioning of the school by adopting a distinctive multiple-tier thematic approach that includes entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership and responsible business.  Kamel created the school’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the university’s Venture Lab investing in Egypt’s young promising entrepreneurs and future leaders through supporting start-ups, business plan competitions, bootcamps, and mentorship becoming Egypt’s leading educational partner in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.  He was associate dean for executive education (2008-2009) and director of the Management Center (2002-2008).  Before joining the university he was director of the Regional IT Institute (1992-2001) and training manager at the Cabinet of Egypt Information and Decision Support Center (1990-1992).  Kamel has a long and varied experience as an academic leader investing in human capital, building and managing executive development institutions addressing organizational transformation, governance, entrepreneurial, strategy and leadership issues.  He is the executive VP of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt; board member of the Egyptian American Enterprise Fund and the Association of African Business Schools.  He is a member of Egypt-US Business Council and Junior Achievement (Injaz Egypt).

Paul Salem (Moderator) is vice president for policy and research of The Middle East Institute, where he leads an initiative on Arab transitions. Prior to joining MEI, Salem was the founding director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon between 2006 and 2013, where he built a regional think tank distinguished by the quality of its policy research and high regional profile. From 1999 to 2006, he was director of the Fares Foundation and in 1989 founded and directed the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, Lebanon's leading public policy think tank.  In 2002, Salem served on the senior review committee for the United Nations Development Program's Arab Human Development Report. Salem writes regularly in the Arab and Western press and has been published in numerous journals and newspapers, including The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, and the Financial Times. Salem is the author of a number of books and reports on the Middle East, including Broken Orders: The Causes and Consequences of the Arab Uprisings (in Arabic, 2013); "Iraq's Tangled Foreign Relations" (2013), "Libya's Troubled Transition" (2012), "Can Lebanon Survive the Syrian Crisis?" (2012); and "The Arab State: Assisting or Obstructing Development" (2010).