CEI News

December 8, 2022 

AUC Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, School of Business strongly focuses on the empowerment of women entrepreneurs using the social innovation approach. CEI is particularly interested in supporting potential female entrepreneurs to help reduce the gender gap in the Egyptian entrepreneurship ecosystem. 

December 8, 2022 

The Business Plan Project, Pitchathon, is part of the Experiential Learning Entrepreneurship Program (ELEP) launched by the AUC School of Businesses Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) and the Business Association (BA). 

November 28, 2022

AUC Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, School of Business launched the Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) program.

September 29, 2022

AUC Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, School of Business hosted the USAID Scholar Students Annual Entrepreneurship Summit 2022 for the second time in a row. Customized as an engaging one-week (2-day sessions and 5-day reflection and assignments) virtual learning experience on Sept 16 and 23, 2022, U-SPARK aims to inspire and ignite new entrepreneurial learnings and attitudes among future leaders. 

October 17, 2022

As a part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, AUC Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, School of Business, and EYouth held a training to support Baheya women entrepreneurs in their entrepreneurial journey.

October 4, 2022

The American University in Cairo (AUC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Banque Misr to qualify and train women entrepreneurs and support them in establishing and scaling their small businesses. 

June 29, 2022

The Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the AUC School of Business, together with Etisalat Egypt and Alfa Medical Group, launched the third edition of the annual virtual business plan competition Hack22 this June. The competition aims at creating innovative technological solutions that inspire a more sustainable, accessible and resilient future for communities.

June 14, 2022

AUC Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, School of Business is thrilled to announce that its first milestone has been achieved; 1000+ women with different educational backgrounds from seven Egyptian governorates, who have ongoing businesses or with entrepreneurial ideas, successfully completed the training.

May 26, 2022

Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), Etisalat Misr, and Alfa medical Group AMG are launching the third edition of the annual virtual business plan competition HACK22 for national, regional, and international undergraduate university students of all majors.

March 29, 2022

AUC Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation was honored to join H.E. Ambassador Louis Dumas, Ambassador of Canada to Egypt as well as Ms. Christine Arab UN Women Country Representative, during the Canadian Ambassador's visit to the governorates of Beheira and Alexandria to meet the women entrepreneurs, who were part of the WEE-ES project.

March 16, 2022

Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation was honored to hold a roundtable discussion on March 16, 2022, which coincides with Egyptian Women's Day. The guests included the project partners, project beneficiaries, and established female entrepreneurs who supported the program as guest speakers and academic advisors to the project.

November 2021

CEI will familiarize the ecosystem stakeholders with the importance of mentoring programs, as well as, cooperate and coordinate in the delivery of the MIT VMS program - using the MIT licensed material. The partnership will support CEI to continue to train mentors on the principles and methodology of the MIT VMS Model through its Leadership Team, and mentors to expand its mentorship network.

October 2021

CEI successfully has trained more than 100 women entrepreneurs under the award of the UN Women program “Women Economic Empowerment Program – Entrepreneurship support”. The aim is to support women entrepreneurs to help reduce the gender gap in the Egyptian entrepreneurship ecosystem. Throughout 2 years, CEI will target 1000 female beneficiaries age 21 and above, who often lack specific skills that are relevant for starting their own businesses. The project will pay attention to targeting women from underprivileged and rural areas in 7 governorates.

May 2021

The American University in Cairo has been awarded the coordination and the delivery of Heya Raeda Program in 2021 by the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TEIC). The objective of the program is to reach out to female entrepreneurs and allow them to start their own projects with a focus on developing the logical side of business development, rather than a detailed theoretical approach, operating over 15 rounds, with each round extending 5 days long aiming to support 300 early-stage female entrepreneurs operating in the Communication and Information Technology sector.

March 2021

The Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), together with El-Khazindar Business Research and Case Center (KCC) and AUC Business Association of AUC School of Business launched for the third year the ICC focusing on a startup case. Since we recognize the value of such competitions to introduce students to the multifaceted challenges that startups face especially in developing countries upon the COVID - 19 pandemic; we are introducing the third edition of the ICC in 2021.

January 2021

The AUC Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, in partnership with Global Business School Network and Lancaster University, are bringing undergraduate students a unique opportunity to work closely with a Lancaster University’s Entrepreneur in Residence (#EIR), with extensive experience in the small-and-medium-sized businesses (#SMEs) world.

September 2020

CEI was awarded the UN Women's program “Women Economic Empowerment Program – Entrepreneurship support”. Under the program, CEI aims to support women entrepreneurs to help reduce the gender gap in the Egyptian entrepreneurship ecosystem. Throughout two years, CEI will target 1000 female beneficiaries age 21 and above, who often lack specific skills that are relevant for starting their own businesses. 

July, 2020

An online workshop that helps participants enhance their interpersonal skills, learn to work under time pressure and open up their minds to come up with innovative business solutions to a problem statement that is introduced on the day through a case study. Prior to the introduction of the case study that states the problem statement, participants are given knowledge on entrepreneurial concepts to aid them in producing their business solutions. 

June, 2020

The hackathon is a virtual sprint for teams to ideate, develop, and build solutions to given problems. HACK 19 is a three-day hackathon, targeting university students from the Middle East, that will focus on problems that are caused by the outbreak and the repercussions of the lockdown rather than looking for a medical cure to the virus.

April, 2020

The AUC Business Association (BA) in partnership with AUC School of Business, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), and El-Khazindar Business Research and Case Center (KCC) are launching an online one-day case competition. The one-day online case competition is a great way and thought-provoking method for students to identify challenges facing a business and develop a strategy, to address these key concerns in order to help businesses attain their goals.

February 2020

Chris Schroeder, the co-founder of Next Billion Ventures, entrepreneur advisor, and investor in interactive technologies and social communications, discussed his experiences during his entrepreneurial journey, including the shocking challenges and incomparable excitement of building something from nothing, and how he views the best entrepreneurs he meets today.

February 2020

In partnership with the Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at AUC's School of Business, two of AUC’s Graduate School of Education alumni Heba Fadeel and Aisha Khairat, founded and launched the UK's Social Enterprise Academy (SEA) in Egypt.

December 2019

From founding and exiting a multi-billion-dollar enterprise to becoming a seasoned global investor, attendees engaged in one-on-one conversations with Endeavor's global mentor Chris Rogers, partner at Lumia Capital, and learned all about the ins and outs of his scale-up journey, as well as his views on the state of the venture capital industry around the world.

October 2019

An event for undergraduate students willing to inaugurate an on-campus startup club of Entrepreneurship Ambassadors who were to elect their Entrepreneurship Leader (E-Leader) within the event, who would become the club's president. The day featured Omar Shoukry, founder and CEO, NAWAH Scientific. The role of the club members would be to liaise between the undergraduates, alumni, and the business world, and become campus catalysts for benefits including channelizing aspiring entrepreneurs into campus company programs or enabling them to join startup internships through the Startup Club Jobs Placement Program.

September 2019

Talk featuring internationally acclaimed speaker, best-selling author, faculty advisor at CalStateTeach, and co-founder of ReadBetterin67steps.com, Dranny Brassell. Brassell shared his journey as an entrepreneur, revealed the secrets of a successful leader, and discussed how motivation can bring back joy to the workplace.

June 2019

The ICSB Academy is a weeklong experience held in parallel to the ICSB Congress 2019 that took place in Cairo, at which the AUC School of Business was also the official academic partner. This highly successful pre-conference program brought students from around the world together for an intensive experience that challenges stimulates and builds entrepreneurial skills. Based on the philosophy that organizations, including businesses, exist to meet the needs of communities and societies, the Academy emphasized the triple bottom line: profit, people, and the planet. 

April 2019

Integrate, Capitalize, and Compete were the three keywords for the ICC. Organized by the AUC School of Business, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), El-Khazindar Business Research and Case Center (KCC), and the Business Association (BA), the competition brought together nine teams of students from all over the world to compete in solving a challenging business case centered on obstacles facing high growth entrepreneurial ventures.

April 2019

Social media talk featuring Salem Bassita, co-founder of Bassita and VeryNile, and Ashoka Fellow, McGill University and Mostafa Habib, project manager, Bassita, showcasing how one click can create a real change and that a share, like, comment, or even view, can evolve into a social impact.

March 2019

The event represented the culmination of the first cohort of the AWEC program and the launch of the AWEC Alumnae Network. AWEC, created by the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE) and supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation among others, is a one-of-a-kind, high-touch business, and management learning program. It centers around applied learning and collaborative experiences to guarantee immediate business impact and the creation of a pan-African network of entrepreneurs, experts, and allies.

March 2019

In collaboration with The AmCham Entrepreneurship and Innovation Committee (EIC), Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), Endeavor Egypt, and Mindsalike, the one-day event celebrated the “Egyptian Dream” and promoted Egyptian entrepreneurship by providing attendees with the opportunity to experience the entrepreneurial journey first-hand. This was achieved by showcasing the stories of accomplished entrepreneurs and highlighting the tools behind their success.

March 2019 

Gathering 120+ attendees from 15+ countries, including world-class business and industry leaders, investors, and some of the most promising entrepreneurs around the world, the ISP concluded with the selection of 15 high-impact entrepreneurs leading 12 companies from 9 markets to join Endeavor's global network.

March 2019

The Arab World Social Innovation Forum was the first global summit on social entrepreneurship held in the region since the Arab Spring. Over 700 attendees from the region and around the world, among them distinguished social entrepreneurs, leaders in the business and corporate sector, policymakers, and thought leaders, came together to ignite the local-to-global and cross-sector movement for social change.

February 2019

A presentation on the findings of the research report by Strategy and Middle East Ideation Center with contributions from Endeavor offices across Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. The research included the impact of scale-ups on Egypt’s economic growth, the main challenges faced by scale-ups, and ways to support the scale-ups ecosystem.

December 2018

The Local Selection Panel (LSP) is the phase in the Endeavor selection process at which Endeavor mentors interview candidates to decide whether or not they will proceed to the International Selection Panel (ISP), the final stage of selection.

November 2018

Talk featuring Patrick McGinnis, one of Endeavor's New York-based global mentors, venture capitalist, entrepreneur, public speaker, and author of “The 10% Entrepreneur” book. McGinnis discussed his guide to become an entrepreneur without quitting your job, as well as provided advice to investors, entrepreneurs, and fast-growing businesses. In addition, he explained how he came up with the idea of coining the term FOMO (fear of missing out).

March 2018

The panel discussion was held for an audience of 60 Harvard Business School MBA students and featured Sherif Kamel, Dean, AUC School of Business, Hisham El-Khazindar, AUC trustee, member of the School of Business Strategic Advisory board, and co-founder and managing director, Qalaa Holdings, Ahmed Zahran, CEO and co-founder, KarmSolar, Ayman Ismail, former director, Center for Entrepreneurship and director of the AUC Venture Lab, and Abdelhameed Sharara, founder and CEO, RiseUp. 

November 2017

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is an annual assessment of the national level of entrepreneurial activity in multiple, diverse countries. GEM is now the largest ongoing study of entrepreneurial dynamics in the world.

2017 

During the year, 6 prominent international and high-growth entrepreneurs were hosted to share their experiences, journeys, and knowledge with students and entrepreneurs to enhance awareness on the entrepreneurial process from idea to launch and sustainability.

April 2017

The Mobile App Launchpad Program (MAL), launched by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) and Google, celebrated the graduation of the last cohort (cohort E) of mobile application developers and honored three groups for their mobile innovation and entrepreneurship with cash prizes. The program was launched to help Egypt’s talent pool excel in mobile app innovation and entrepreneurship. MAL targeted fresh graduates and university students in order to advance their academic knowledge through practical experience to design and launch their own mobile applications.

February 2017

The MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Startup Competition (ASC) is a yearly competition initiated by the MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab since 2006. This annual competition is designed to empower entrepreneurs and foster an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in the Arab Region. ASC pits entrepreneurs in three different tracks: ideas, startups, and social entrepreneurship tracks.

October 2016

Created by Sheraa, a launch pad for aspiring young entrepreneurs in the UAE, at the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center, along with the Center for Entrepreneurship at the American University in Cairo (AUC) School of Business, Darwazah Center for Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at the American University of Beirut (AUB), and startAD from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), the collaborators launched “Shabakah”, aimed to unleash the entrepreneurial power through joining leading universities of the region in a bid to combine forces with their entrepreneurship programs.

October 2016

The event featured guest speaker HRH Princess Basma Bint Saud, followed by a panel including Maya Morsi, president, National Council for Women, Jorg Schimmel, deputy country director officer in charge, UN Women Egypt, Ahmed El Alfi, founder and chairman, The GrEEK Campus, and Maha El-Shinnawy, director, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Program. The topic was chosen in acknowledgment that 2017 was the “The Year of the Woman” in Egypt and to celebrate women entrepreneurs and their capabilities.

April 2016

The fireside chat featured guest speaker Mudassir Sheikha, founder and managing director of Careem, Karim Hussein, CEO and co-founder, D-Kimia, and was moderated by Dina H. Sherif, former director of the Center for Entrepreneurship. The discussion explored why the sharing economy can no longer be ignored in the region and looked into how Careem became one of the fastest-growing businesses in the region, raising capital from one of the largest private equity firms in the world. 

December 2015

Roundtable featuring Fadi Ghandour, chair, Wamda, Christopher Schroeder, venture investor and author, and Maher Hakim, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Carnegie Mellon University, Qatar. The roundtable included discussions around the members of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, namely: startups, support entities, and the government, discussing their exact roles in the process of launching a startup, and the challenges that exist in the cycle of communication among the three, along with internal challenges in their operations.

September 2015

AUC School of Business launched the Center for Entrepreneurship alongside leading members of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the region, including investors, mentors, entrepreneurs, and AUC faculty and students. Formerly known as the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program, which was established in 2010, the Center was established to support the growth and evolution of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt and the Arab region with a focus on promoting education and research. 

June 2013 

The AUC Venture Lab (V-Lab) at AUC School of Business announced the finalists of the V-Lab Challenge. The winning teams were to be incubated in the newly created AUC V-Lab, which was launched on the same day, becoming the first university-based incubator in Egypt.

The AUC V-Lab aims to enable start-ups to capitalize on AUC’s world-class facilities and knowledge base, connect innovative start-ups with AUC’s alumni network, and foster a thriving ecosystem of innovation, education, and business. The mission of the lab is to commercialize technologies and innovations developed by Egypt-based start-ups into commercially viable ventures, where the companies will contribute to economic growth and job creation.

April-September 2013

The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program (now CEI), in cooperation with Intel, announced the inaugural AUC Venture Lab Challenge (V-Lab Challenge), aiming to recruit high-potential, creative teams with innovative ideas and fast track the winning companies to the newly created business incubator at the heart of the AUC New Cairo campus – the AUC Venture Lab, and to the Intel Business Challenge Middle East and North Africa 2013 Finals in Abu Dhabi.