On June 18, AUC Venture Lab hosted its first V-Lab Summit at AUC Tahrir Square campus, a full-day event filled with expert knowledge, networking opportunities and the latest in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. The event featured valuable panels and inspiring one-on-one discussions as well as exclusive workshops and startup pitches during the spring 2022 Demo Day.

Celebrating outstanding entrepreneurs: The AUC Venture Lab Award

The V-Lab Summit seized the opportunity to celebrate outstanding and impactful entrepreneurs through the AUC Venture Lab Award. The spring 2022 AUC Venture Lab Award for outstanding entrepreneurial endeavors and efforts in supporting the ecosystem was received by Ahmed Zahran, CEO and co-founder at KarmSolar, and the KarmSolar team. This was followed by a fireside chat with Zahran and Ayman Ismail, associate professor, Abdul Latif Jameel Endowed chair of entrepreneurship at AUC School of Business and founding director of AUC Venture Lab, discussing the growth and innovation of KarmSolar and its impact on the environment.

Exclusive workshops and networking opportunities

The event hosted a range of business workshops delivered by the V-Lab team as well as guest speakers tackling “Surviving with Innovation by Evidence-based Entrepreneurship” with Expert, Startup Advisor and Innovation Consultant Hani Naguib, “Delivering Value in Products that Can Really Sell” with AUC Venture Lab Acceleration Manager Yasmine Nagaty and Senior Program Coordinator Verina Rizkallah, and “Investments 101 for Entrepreneurs” with AUC Angels’ Investment Associate Mohamed Ihab.

As part of the networking opportunities offered for startups during the summit was a session with three leading experts in the Venture Capital (VC) world: Basil Moftah, general partner of NClude, Rafeh Saleh, founding partner of Cubit Ventures and Tamer Azer, partner at Shorooq Partners. Some of the V-Lab’s rising graduates and alumni engaged with the experts in a safe setting of feedback and advice, where each startup addressed some of its staggering challenges and how to solve them, in addition to discussing investment strategies and scaling support.

Thought provoking panel discussions and fireside chats

Business insights, growth opportunities and firsthand advice arose from the first panel of the day under the title “Building Investable Startups” featuring Ahmed Ashour, co-founder and CEO of Pylon, Enas Siam, co-founder and COO of Flextock, Hossam Taher, co-founder, CEO and head of product at Orcas, and Hussein Momtaz, co-founder and CEO of Koinz and moderated by Mohamed Rahmy.

This was followed by another fireside chat titled “Can Startups Save the Planet” with Sarah El Battouty, UNFCCC ambassador and founder of ECOnsult and MuBun Sustainable Furniture. Along with moderator Yasmine Nagaty, acceleration manager at AUC Venture Lab, El Battouty talked about the different policies and opportunities in the green economy space and how startup innovation could impact the environment.

The third fireside chat titled “Enabling Scalable Startups” was with none other than Mirna Arif, general manager of Microsoft Egypt. The discussion, moderated by AUC Venture Lab’s Associate Director Lina Zalat, tackled how corporations perceive opportunities and risk in startups and how their resources can pave the way for startups’ growth, as well as the disruptive ideas and agility that entrepreneurs bring to the corporate space.

During the last fireside chat of the day titled “Digitizing Payments for SMEs”, Islam Shawky, co-founder and CEO of PayMob and Basil Moftah, general partner at Nclude discussed with moderator Ayman Ismail PayMob’s mission to digitize payments for SMEs by offering easy-to-use and customer-centric solutions. The speakers took a deep dive into PayMob’s journey with their latest investor NClude and how they tapped the fintech market and the story of their latest investment round.

In the panel discussion titled “Fintech Opportunities and Trends”, some of the leading faces of the ecosystem brought some valuable insights – between payments, infrastructure, savings, financing and regulations. They talked about how startups disrupt what used to be traditional spaces and the kind of impact and support startups can provide for unbanked segments with financial tools and financial inclusion. The panel included Ahmed Mahmoud Abdeen, founder of ElGameya, Fatma El Shenawy, co-founder and CSO of Khazna, Saeed Talaat, co-founder and CEO of KlickIt and Walid Hassouna, founder and CEO of ValU, along with Mohamed Hamza, open innovation program manager of Banque Misr.

The last panel of the night was titled “Investing in Uncertain Times” and hosted some of Egypt’s leading investors including Ameer Sherif, partner at Khawarizmi Ventures, Eslam Gomaa Darwish, founding general partner at Nclude, Rafeh Saleh, founding partner at Cubit Ventures, Wael Nafee, partner at Raed Ventures. Moderated by Amr El Abd, consultant at the World Bank, the panel dug deep into the investment scene and the rising trends amidst the global challenges, and shed the light on challenges startups face in the investment scene and how investors assess startups and decide on investing in them.

Spring ‘22 V-Lab Demo Day

For the first time, the Spring ’22 Demo Day was incorporated as part of the V-Lab Summit. Following Dean Sherif Kamel’s opening remarks, Haytham El Maayergi, group chief operating and transformation officer of Arab African International Bank (AAIB), the V-Lab Startup Acceleator’s corporate leadership co-founder, delivered a keynote address.

After a short introduction on the V-Lab’s work over the past years in helping entrepreneurs seek new grounds for innovations and opportunities by Ismail, Wessam El Beih, country director Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon at DROSOS FOUNDATION, delivered a keynote speech celebrating the longstanding partnership between DROSOS FOUNDATION and AUC Venture Lab.

The Arab African International Bank Cycle 18 cohort featured 13 startups covering the industries of e-commerce, healthtech, digital, sustainability and logistics. The founders pitched their innovations live in front of a wide array of ecosystem stakeholders including VCs, angel investors, corporate executives and banking experts. The AUC Venture Lab Startup Accelerator is supported by Corporate Leadership Co-Founder the Arab African International Bank, DROSOS FOUNDATION, Mountain View and Hivos.

To introduce the spring ‘22 cohort of the AUC Venture Lab Fintech Accelerator, Amin Khairy, head of financial inclusion and strategic partnerships at the Commercial International Bank (CIB Egypt), delivered a keynote speech highlighting the bank’s strong role in supporting the Fintech Accelerator throughout the years.

Representing the Fintech Accelerator’s partner, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Menan Omar, economic development practitioner at the World Bank, also delivered a keynote speech launching the spring ’22 Fintech cohort’s Demo Day pitches. Omar highlighted IFC’s support for the Fintech Accelerator, empowering founders on their entrepreneurial journey.

The spring ’22 Fintech Cycle included five startups: Technopolitan, SWFT, BNFT, Wyrd and Receety, whose founders dazzled the audience with their tech solutions in prop-tech, payments and savings, lending, financial inclusion, consumer and micro-finance and sustainability. The Fintech Accelerator is powered by CIB Egypt and is in partnership with IFC and Mastercard.

Did you miss the V-Lab Summit? Watch the full event here.

“I urge all of you to engrave this moment into your memories for you are witnessing the rise of many stars, class of Fall 2021, together we can inspire galaxies of greatness for generations to come,” stated Mayson Hatem, graduating class representative, as a final remark during her speech at the Fall 2021 AUC School of Business commencement, where 51 graduates and 125 undergraduates received their diplomas.

Each individual in the class of Fall 2021 has embarked on their own distinct journey filled with challenges and difficulties as well as moments of triumph and breakthrough. Yet, this journey is the catalyst that began shaping them into the change agents they ought to be in the business world and in society at large. 

Unique challenges faced by the graduating class

Every university student can attest to the challenging nature of navigating through one’s university years. However, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the past few years has exacerbated these complexities and difficulties that students must go through in order to successfully graduate. From adjusting to online learning to trying to manage one’s own anxiety and mental well-being amid a worldwide pandemic and the multiplicity of challenges in between. 

Dean Sherif Kamel, showed his appreciation and admiration for the graduates’ ability to adapt to these changes and push through stating: “To graduate from university is an accomplishment in its own right, but to graduate while spending two years of the university experience during a pandemic is a challenge and passing it deserves a solid round of applause.” 

No student from this graduating class expected or planned around the possible rise of a pandemic. Similarly, most of the initial plans we come up with at the beginning of our university journey do not fall through the way we envisioned, but one still manages to create successes and personal development for themselves regardless. Hatem touched on this during her speech highlighting: “Most things do not go according to plan but that was undoubtedly the best thing that happened to me here.” She further added: “I grew wiser and more mature, and I came to better understand the aims I was willing to reach and the battles I was willing to fight and with that mindset, growth opportunities came to present themselves before me every single day.”

At times, a student’s hardest academic or personal challenge during university is also a student’s biggest opportunity for growth, development, and self-reflection or self-exploration. Now more than ever, it is evident that this rapidly evolving world and fluctuating global economy entails the forefront of challenges and opportunities for any fresh graduate. 

“You are the lucky ones because you have experienced numerous market trends at the same time, this helps you understand the entire spectrum of challenges you can face, in a short period of time,” highlighted Fadi Ghandour, co-founder of Aramex and executive chairman of Wamda Group, on the subject of challenges. He continued: “This is the time for you to act because, within these challenges, opportunities lie, because challenges are, by definition, opportunities. This is the time for you to be innovative and entrepreneurial individuals.” 

The leaders of tomorrow 

The graduates of AUC School of Business are believed to uphold principles such as courage, leadership, and compassion and strive for excellence in all aspects of their personal and professional lives eventually leading to them adopting leadership roles and spearheading change in a diverse array of fields. 

Hatem stressed on this matter stating: “In four years, AUC has shaped us into balanced well-rounded individuals,” she continued: “between the craziness of one’s work life and the warmth of one’s social life as well as the fast pace of the professional aspects and the grounding that accompanies the personal ones, there was a lesson throughout it all.” 

“We regularly asked a lot of you as students and learners during your journey at the university, now we ask of you as graduates even more,” emphasized Dean Kamel, expressing his high expectations for the graduating class. He further added that: “[We ask you] To accept the responsibility of leadership and to exemplify the kind of courage, compassion, and creativity we foster in our students and celebrate in our alumni.” 

Final remarks

In summary, a graduation is a symbolic event marking the end of a longstanding university journey that is filled with trials, especially for the class of Fall 2021 having gone through a global ongoing pandemic. Graduation is the celebration of overcoming those trials and a celebration of shaping oneself into a much more accomplished, forward-thinking, confident, and agile self that is equipped to take on life’s challenges and make the School proud by impacting one's surrounding business and social environments. 

To expand its work and strengthen its collaboration with government entities on evidence-based policymaking, The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Middle East and North Africa (J-PAL MENA at AUC) launched the Egypt Impact Lab (EIL) in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Planning and Economic Development. EIL aims to improve the lives of those within the Egyptian community who are impoverished, by promoting a culture of evidence-based decision and policymaking within social organizations and the Egyptian government. Some of the EIL’s main areas of focus will include social protection, which constitutes the alleviation of poverty, family development, and female empowerment in the Egyptian community.

J-PAL MENA, based at the AUC School of Business is primarily devoted to conducting randomized controlled trials and rigorous research in the MENA region in order to provide policymakers with the necessary findings on which they could base their policymaking process and thus enact effective, evidence-based policies. In addition, J-PAL aims to train social and non-profit organizations on the ability to collect and utilize well-founded data. This would help ensure these entities allocate their limited resources to the right initiatives that yield the highest levels of positive social impact.

During the launch event, held at the AUC New Cairo Campus on March 17, 2022, several keynote speakers, as well as esteemed panel guests, expressed the importance of supporting EIL’s work and shared several insights relating to the social initiatives that are currently being implemented in Egypt.

The importance of evidence-based policymaking

The speakers agreed that to have policies that produce the best possible results, they must have a rigorously tested basis. Ahmad Dallal, president of The American University in Cairo, illustrated how EIL aligns with this principle by stating:

“Today marks an important step in moving towards informed policy in Egypt. The Egypt Impact Lab will be taking the work done by J-PAL MENA further and we hope we can become an example for other countries seeking to promote policy innovation and effectiveness.”

In similar regard, Abhijit Banerjee, Nobel laureate and director of J-PAL, explained how J-PAL’s work is most fruitful when governments recognize the importance of basing policies on evidence.

“When governments sense that critical decisions would be made better if they were informed by evidence-based policy, that is when our partnership would be the most useful and effective,” Banerjee stated.

H.E. Nevine El Kabbaj, Minister of Social Solidarity, also expanded on this conversation. “I consider the lack of timely, reliable data and evidence as a major obstacle towards developing adequate policy responses,” said El Kabbaj. This implies the necessity of basing policies on considerable evidence.

Speaking on behalf of H.E. Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El Said, Ahmed Kamali, Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development, highlighted that “the importance of evidence-based policy emanates from the actual purpose of public policy: to assess citizen’s needs, efficiently improve living standards and deliver a bright future for upcoming generations.” He further elaborated: “This necessitates drawing upon a wide breadth of systematic evidence and conducting rational analysis to enhance government effectiveness and impact.”

Collaborative efforts leading to magnified social impact

Active collaboration between entities can cause synergistic problem-solving and increased effectiveness for all parties. This was emphasized by H.E. El Said as she explained that one of the main roles of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development is to help coordinate and facilitate interactions and partnerships between nonprofit and social organizations so that organizations have alignment in terms of goals, which in turn, as she illustrated, causes the positive societal impact to be much larger due to these partnerships.

George Richards, director of Community Jameel, a global non-profit organization advocating for  scientific advancement in order to address relevant challenges faced by global communities, also shed light on this topic by stating that “partnership is absolutely critical,” adding that “[referring to the keynote speakers, panelists, and guests] I believe that this community of practice is one that spreads between the arms of the Egyptian government and institutions like J-PAL, AUC, and other partners such as the UNICEF.”

He also elaborated that

“This community of practice builds links of strength between one another and creates an overall environment, which generates even more evidence [as opposed to each entity on its own] and drives an increased emphasis on the importance of evidence at the heart of policymaking.”

In summary,  EIL aims to promote a culture of collaboration between entities and its launch will propagate evidence-based policymaking practices within the Egyptian government as well as non-profit organizations.

To watch the full launch event, click here.

In recent times, there has been a growing body of concern towards global environmental and social crises such as climate change and loss of job security due to COVID-19. This has consequently led to an increased emphasis and pressure placed on businesses globally to commit to sustainable and ethical business practices that primarily align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

This subject matter was tackled throughout the fifth roundtable of the 2022 AUC Business Forum held on March 16, 2022, under the title “Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration: A Catalyst for Inclusive Sustainable Development”. The roundtable was moderated by Ahmed Abdel Meguid, associate professor of accounting at the AUC School of Business, and featured six esteemed guests well-versed in the topic of discussion.

Sustainability is an essential part of modern-day business operations

Upholding sustainability within one’s business can aid in gaining a level of competitive advantage and leveraging. This was emphasized by Ayman Ismail, partner, chairman, and CEO of Mountain View Egypt and chairman of the board of UN Global Compact Network Egypt. “From a current business perspective, moving towards sustainable practices and being green is a foundational issue and businesses do not have the luxury to choose whether to employ them or not”, emphasized Ismail adding: “We are lowering our competitive advantage as businesses if we choose not to adopt a strong sustainability agenda.”

Emily Waita, Africa public affairs director of Coca-Cola Africa, Kenya, demonstrated how crucial it is for businesses to adopt sustainable practices in order to increase their chances of acquiring funding from investors. Accordingly, Waita stressed that “if organizations are not ready to embrace sustainable development goals, or otherwise demonstrate that they are ESG (environmental, social and governance) savvy, they will miss out on numerous opportunities for financing as investors are now more inclined to invest towards sustainable ventures.”

Producing future sustainability-inclined business leaders

Several of the roundtable speakers illustrated the importance of instilling a sense of CSR and environmental responsibility in students through business schools’ curricula. Jon Foster-Pedley, dean and director of Henley Business School Africa, South Africa, even went as far as to say that “responsible business schools now have to be activist business schools [towards sustainability], even risking their own destruction for the sake of a much greater possibility in the future.”

Dima Jamali, dean of the College of Business Administration, University of Sharjah, UAE, stated that “business schools have a key role to play in nurturing the culture of responsibility among students, who represent a body of future leaders.” She continued: “We have a big responsibility on our shoulders because we need to create a different breed of leaders who passionately embrace and understand sustainability and would be seeking to make a difference in the business environment in that regard”.

Collaboration yields more sustainability-related progress

Cooperation between different entities helps to direct and expand the efforts taken towards sustainability. “Collaboration and partnership is key because progress does not occur if each entity is acting alone, thus, if we can bring different players to work together and coalesce their efforts, the more we have an increased chance of making progress [in the area of sustainability],” reinforced Jamali.

Ismail also touched on this when he asserted that “no organization can create a truly significant impact alone, they can only create a significant impact if they collaborate.”

Limitations of ESG and greenwashing

Laila Iskander, former Minister of State for Environment Affairs and founder of CID Consulting stressed that abiding by current ESG standards is not a true indicator of sustainability.

“Companies can have reports highlighting their application of all the ESG standards in their businesses, but in reality, they are still negatively impacting and destroying environments,” she stated. This is what Iskander described as greenwashing. “For instance, many oil transporting and mining companies, that have caused global disasters, have been financed by banks that have passed the ESG standards,” she explained.

To conclude, the main points tackled in this roundtable included the necessity of upholding sustainability within one’s business in today’s world, the responsibility that business schools around the globe have to promote a sustainability-oriented mindset amongst students, and the need for collaboration to achieve that. Finally, the greenwashing phenomenon was highlighted and this illustrates the need for corporations to go above and beyond and take further action to be truly sustainable and green.

To watch the full roundtable, click here.

Nowadays, floods, droughts, and other devastating natural disasters are becoming more common and severe around the world, as evident by the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Over the last few years, the global discourse about climate change and its effects on communities, livelihoods, and enterprises has grown in intensity and urgency.

The fourth roundtable of the AUC Business Forum held on March 15 under the title "Just Transition for Africa: The Role of Business Schools" discussed environmental issues and challenges facing the African continent while analyzing related issues of social justice and energy poverty. The speakers explained key priorities for Africa at the upcoming COP27, including climate mitigation and adaptation strategies, and delved into the meaning of “just transition” emphasizing how climate action in Africa is not only about the transition from an economy based on fossil fuels to the so-called ‘net-zero’ economy or low carbon economy. The session was moderated by Ali Awni, professor of practice and director of the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy, Civic Engagement and Responsible Business at the AUC School of Business, and featured a number of international experts working within the continent.

Resilient Economies

In this regard, Saliem Fakir, chief executive of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, shed light on the factors that must be taken into consideration in order for resilient economies to develop. “To build resilient economies, we have to think of the sectors that rely on natural resources, so that we are able to enhance investment in them”. In making this statement, he was implying that economies should reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and become more flexible in order to decarbonize.

He went on to say that it is our responsibility to improve and establish this vision and to stress this narrative. Spending more money on energy access and infrastructure, as well as a strong focus on global integration rather than just regional integration, can help achieve this. Furthermore, he underlined that “we must determine how to change the architecture from global finance to green and climate goals”. However, none of these energy changes can take place without widespread social approval.

Egypt’s transformation agenda

According to Youssef Nassef, Director of the African Climate Foundation, the future level of funding as of 2025 includes several components and exercises. He stated that currently, “climate and sustainability issues are symptoms of an underlying flaw of how we have been doing business since the industrial revolution.” He added: “This is why I encourage thinking fundamentally of moving the world to a new place.”

For starters, the future level of funding incorporates the adaptation and loss damage agenda. This includes looking into optimization exercises through which disastrous risks can be reduced. There also needs to be a legitimate component of continued support in order for this agenda to work. Nassef emphasized this by stating that “the least developed countries majority are in Africa and need a specific type of support” when dealing with external shocks.

The strongest component of all regarding this agenda is the youth component, Nassef continued, which will be present at the upcoming COP conference. Youths will be expected to make strong advancements as well as identify and seize opportunities that would allow for more prosperity.

Prosperity and wellbeing

Jacqueline McGlade, Professor in international public policy and governance at Strathmore University Business School, Kenya, and professor of sustainable development and resilience, University College London, UK, discussed the matters of prosperity and wellbeing with a strong emphasis on local resilience. According to McGlade, prosperity is to really understand how we feel meaningful lives and is about our hope for the future. She then connected this to local resilience by explaining how there are so many ways in which it has been potentially overlooked, meaning that the central focus was almost always on global resilience.

The main point here was that it is not just about the money but it is also about the creativity and innovation to solve the problem. This sets the stage for the idea of building resilience on an ethical basis. In other words, the idea of the well-being economy is “to really think about how we can pursue human and ecological wellbeing instead of material wealth” declared McGlade.

After grasping these concepts, one would wonder how we might truly develop the information that will help us become more resilient. McGlade responded to this by stating that the answer is not found solely in books or academic research institutions and that we must consider constructing a bridge between theories and measurement frameworks. Essentially, the future of a just transition is about how we employ co-production and co-design terminologies, as well as experiential and hands-on learning.

From net-zero to net-positive

To wrap up the discussion, Roze Phillips, executive director, Gordon Institute of Business Science, touched upon how “just transition is not an end in itself, it is a means to achieve transformed wealth”. The first step in doing so is rethinking what kind of knowledge needs to be infused into this debate on climate change. This involves casting a wider scope on what we call transformative justice: from net-zero to net-positive.

Phillips elaborated on this matter by stating that to solve the future, we have to solve today's issues. “We will create the future – one that consists of collective ownership and control of our energy systems,” said Phillips, elaborating: “What we don’t need is upscaling, we need to have a learning and all-inclusive mindset and encourage participation”. Forming this net-positive transformed world is fundamentally the type of world that partnerships will have a wide focus on.

Other points that were discussed in the roundtable included what is unique about African countries and the implications of just transition for the private sector, including investors, alternative climate finance, and market and regulatory mechanisms. Ultimately, the main takeaway of this insightful conversation was the role of African universities and business schools in contributing to climate action and a just transition for Africa.

To watch the full roundtable, click here.

In 2007 the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) was launched by the United Nations Global Compact. It has, over the years, become the most prominent, well-established bridging entity between the United Nations and business schools around the world. PRME’s main goal is to promote a culture of sustainability and the embodiment of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in business and management-related educational institutions. This is an effort to produce a caliber of younger leaders from around the world who value and uphold a sustainability-oriented mindset, aiding them in ushering in a new wave of sustainable business practices into the corporate world.

On March 15, 2022, during the third roundtable of the 2022 AUC Business Forum, the launch of the PRME Chapter Africa was announced. The chapter aims to further advance PRME’s missions in the African continent on a more local and regional level in terms of collaborating with business schools in Africa to encourage an increased emphasis on responsible management education in academia. PRME Chapter Africa is currently the newest of the 15 PRME chapters around the world.

The third roundtable was moderated by Sherwet Elwan Ibrahim, associate professor and director of the MBA and Executive MBA Programs at the AUC School of Business and the vice chair of PRME Chapter Africa’s Founding Committee. A welcome note was given by Dean of AUC School of Business, Sherif Kamel, followed by some opening remarks on the launch by speakers Mette Morsing, head PRME secretariat, and Morris Mthombeni, board member of the PRME Global Chapter Council. Thereafter, the roundtable featured an esteemed group of experts from a diverse array of African countries.

PRME Chapter Africa’s alignment with the School’s principles

During the launch event, Dean Kamel highlighted the school’s shift towards a more sustainable and responsible business orientation by stating that “in 2009, we restructured the School to be centered around three major themes, namely entrepreneurship, responsible business, and economic development. These elements have been guiding our strategic directions and priorities over the past decade.” He further added: “This is why, as you can imagine, our teaching, research, and services offered for the AUC community uphold those three elements that include responsible business.”

Furthermore, Kamel also underscored the longstanding partnership of the School with PRME. “We have had a long history with PRME which dates back to October 2011, when the School hosted the first PRME MENA regional forum. This forum was well-attended and kick-started our collaboration with PRME, mainly through the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy, Civic Engagement and Responsible Business, the main developmental arm of the School,” emphasized Kamel.

Fostering sustainability-oriented mindsets

Morsing illustrated what she believed should be the three main aspects – the so-called “three S’s” – that should be considered when planning for the future of PRME and its community. “The first is “society”. We need to create business students with the kind of mindset that puts society at the center of the stakeholder model rather than the corporation,” explained Morsing.

The second is “success”. Morsing highlighted that “When I observe many of the strategy textbooks that I own, I find that the language used is very attack-based and ‘winning’ oriented. We should change this language to a more co-creational oriented one that creates a different more partnership-inclined mindset within business students.”

In addition, Mthombeni also elaborated on this point by mentioning that “business schools have been built on the notion of competition. However, I believe they should be focused more on justice and inclusivity, and try to replace this notion of competition with one of collaboration.” He reasserted: “All business schools in the continent need to view each other as collaborators rather than competitors.”

The last is “skill sets”, as Morsing explained: “It’s the responsibility of educators to develop skill sets in students to solve business problems and address them, not only from a financial point of view, but also considering other factors such as which investments are considered green or can improve human rights.”

Aims of PRME Chapter Africa

Sammy Bonsu, chair of PRME Chapter Africa’s Founding Committee and director of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration illustrated some of the main goals of creating PRME Chapter Africa. “One of our main goals was to develop a governance structure and a scheme based on specific guiding principles [of sustainability and collaboration] which we hope to entrench into and throughout the African continent,” he stated, adding: “We were also trying to establish strategic relationships.”

Noting the need for collaboration, Ibrahim stated: “One of the strategic priorities of the chapter is establishing closer links with PRME UN Global Compact’s local networks in different regions across the continent and to provide support for these networks in terms of driving ambition and action towards the UN’s SDGs.” She further elaborated: “We [referring to PRME Chapter Africa] have many ideas on how to engage in joint activities with students and promote sustainability-related dialogues between business leaders and academia.”

In short, the Chapter’s mission coincides with the School’s goals and priorities which entails producing sustainably conscious market leaders. Furthermore, the Chapter aims to instill the SDGs into businesses’ operation and decision-making all over the continent and help provide African-based businesses with the assistance and infrastructure to do so.

Click here to watch the full roundtable.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has placed high pressure on members of the learning and development industry to adopt new, more effective modes and methods of training that fit the current business landscape. There has also been an increased need, from the corporate side, for individualized executive education that tackles the development of skills more practically.

This constitutes the key themes discussed throughout the second roundtable of the 2022 AUC Business Forum held on March 14, 2022, under the title “The Future of Corporate Learning and Development”. The roundtable was moderated by Ghada Howaidy, associate dean for Executive Education at the AUC School of Business. The roundtable featured five experts in the Human Resources field who are thought leaders in the area of learning and development.

The need for practice-oriented training

Executive education and on-the-job employee training must move away from the typical inapplicable, sometimes irrelevant, textbook knowledge and lean more towards building competencies applicable to the workplace.

Mohamed Kesseba, senior director of Executive Education Programs at AUC School of Business, spoke on this matter. “There is a consensus, between corporations, about the need for education that focuses on closing the theory-practice gap. All corporations across the board are concerned with executive education that includes practical applications relevant to specific industries of operation, local markets, and the needs of the organizations on an individual level,” emphasized Kesseba.

Human Resources Director at Hassan Allam Properties, Hanan Moselhy, also shared her insights on this matter.“A lot of training nowadays tackles topics such as leadership and agility but unfortunately in a very superficial, textbook-oriented way,”  she highlighted.

She later added: “In many human resource departments, learning and development is about training from a purely operational perspective which is quite disconnected from a business's actual needs.”

Moselhy additionally emphasized the importance of training needs assessment (TNA), a process by which corporations aim to identify current and specific training needs within their workforce in order to provide more practical and company-tailored pieces of training that address relevant competencies.

Furthermore, George Sedky, a chief human resource officer at Ghabbour Group, reinforced Moselhy’s remarks. Sedky stated: “Many training providers do not create practical tailored solutions for the corporations. They often use, ‘one-size fits all’ training that is highly theory-oriented.” He continued: “Instead they should provide training that is relevant, fits the specific needs of each corporation, and is up-to-date based on each industry’s newest trends.”

The importance of utilizing hybrid learning modes

The pandemic posited that many corporations had to conduct their executive training through online mediums, this presented both a challenge and an opportunity for companies worldwide. Emad Nasr, chair of the Human Resources Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt and human resource director at Lecico Egypt, stated that: “Due to pandemic-related concerns, companies had to reduce face-to-face training and replace them with virtual training. Executive trainers and Human Resource managers are all currently being guided towards the use of blended learning and hybrid training.”

He further added: “While I do not believe in solely virtual training, some level of utilizing virtual training has proved to be cost-efficient, practical and are convenient as you can attend them at any given place thus, we now must use blended learning to capture the benefits of both online and offline training.”

Tom Ryan, an independent consultant based in the United Kingdom, mentioned the benefits of the utilization of blended learning. “I am currently involved in delivering a self-directed [online] learning program and some of the assignments given to participants involve actionable steps, for example, towards departmental collaboration. I think with a blended self-directed program like this one, individuals are able to conduct their daily business practices without disruption, thus, allowing them to immediately apply what they have learned in a practical manner,” underscored Ryan.

He further elaborated on the weaknesses of utilizing online learning alone without practical application. “What makes training interesting for executives and employees is when they have gone through what they learned in a very practical way and have applied the concepts they learned to leverage their business practices, on the other hand, merely watching hours of online instructional videos in a passive manner is quite sub-optimal,” he stated.

In summary, it is crucial for corporations to provide practically applicable trainings and to deemphasize the fixation on theoretical approaches to learning and development. Furthermore, corporations must employ the use of both online and offline training methodologies in conjunction in order to leverage training capabilities and impact.

Click here to watch the full roundtable discussion.

In recent years, there has been a significant point of inflection in the Egyptian entrepreneurial ecosystem specifically in terms of increased venture capital investment, especially in the deep technology-related, early seed-stage start-ups. Nevertheless, the entrepreneurial deep technology space in Egypt is still operating at the nascent level and requires a lot more maturity. Start-up valuation, establishing proper criteria for start-up selection, and recognizing the prospects of start-up exits are all critical matters considered by investors and venture capitalists.

These are some of the key issues addressed in the first roundtable of the 2022 AUC Business Forum held on March 14, 2022, entitled “Investing in Tech Startups: The Road Ahead”. This roundtable was moderated by Ayman Ismail, Adul Latif Jameel endowed chair of entrepreneurship, founding director of AUC Venture Lab, and associate professor at AUC School of Business. The roundtable featured a diverse panel of experts in the start-up funding and investment field.

The reasoning behind the increased valuation of start-ups

As Ismail explained, many traditional business owners are dumbfounded when start-up companies with little-to-no profits and negative cash flows get valuated at much higher levels than their well-established, profitable businesses.

Chairman and Co-Founder of Sawari Ventures and Founder of Flat6Labs Ahmed Alfi illustrated his thoughts on this matter: “Investing in a well-established industrial company will never give you this level of return on investment as early stage startups. This is why valuations of start-ups are usually higher.” He added: “When one invests small amounts of capital in an early stage of a business venture, it will eventually grow to 200 or more times one’s initial capital investment. When investing at later stages of a start-up venture, one should expect to make around five to ten times one’s initial investment.”

Alfi further elaborated: “Another reason for the growth in valuations is that the talent pool that is participating as management in startups and high growth companies is tremendously stronger than it previously was.”

Basil Moftah, a general partner at Global Ventures, also shared his thoughts on this matter. “The question of valuation relates to how much return an investor expects and we [referring to venture capitalists] target incredibly high returns. Egypt is not digitized enough, therefore, a lot of opportunities in the fintech area exist,” highlighted Moftah, adding: “Digitizing processes in Egypt serves as a business opportunity with huge potential of growth and substantial returns.”

Investment analysis and criteria for the selection process of investors

Investing large sums of money into new businesses is accompanied by considerable risk. Therefore, for investors, it is important to conduct a thorough selection process when comparing investment options.

“In the selection process, we look at early product-market fit and there needs to be a good indication of that. As investors, we like companies that are solving an acute problem that is addressing the masses and a real need in the country,” explained Rafeh Saleh, founding partner at Cubit Ventures. “We need to see actual customer validation towards the business idea,” he continued.

Moftah also illustrated factors venture capitalists consider when investing in new business ventures. “It’s important to see what type of help the entrepreneur needs and whether we [referring to venture capital] have the bandwidth to take this project on and the skills and capabilities to aid the entrepreneurs in their journey. If we are not doing that, then we are setting false expectations for entrepreneurs.”

Moftah also highlighted another point, which entails the importance of considering the need for a level of profitability, not only the potential growth of start-up ventures, as some businesses continue growing without showing any signs of profitability and continue to have bad unit economics, which would be a loss for investors who injected capital into those businesses.

Prospects of start-up venture exits

Many start-up founders’ main goal is to create and grow businesses to eventually cash this business venture out by selling its ownership, this is formally known as an exit. Shehab Marzban, CEO and founder of DFin Holding and Camel Ventures, discussed exit possibilities in the Egyptian entrepreneurial ecosystem. “I believe the majority of exits in the local market will come mainly from strategic acquisitions, mainly from conventional players in the Egyptian market,” said Marzban “However, very substantial exits will probably need to be more on a regional or global scale, as in these cases the local market might not be able to absorb the exits,” he added.

On a similar note, Chief Investment Officer at AUC and Founder and Managing Partner at Lotus Capital Amal Enan expressed her perspective on exit prospects. “It excites me to see the role that both local and international corporations in Egypt are starting to play in helping business ventures exit.” She reiterated: “I think corporates are increasingly starting to become good exit vehicles for businesses as they provide diverse exit avenues.”

Other topics discussed in the roundtable included the change in the deep tech space in Egypt, challenges of female entrepreneurship and sustainability-related entrepreneurial concerns. To summarize, start-ups are valued based on their reward-potentiality, several aspects must be considered by investors who choose new ventures to inject capital into and the prospect of start-up exits in Egypt has improved.

Click here to watch the full roundtable discussion.