MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab Region // Law and Entrepreneurship // Blog Network // University of Notre Dame

The MIT Enterprise Forum provides young entrepreneurs and small business owners with an opportunity to display their projects in an annual competition and possibly receive a cash prize to help grow their businesses. Interestingly, the Forum’s Pan Arab region has been getting increasingly more applications and entries. In terms of Saudi Arabia, it seems that as the country begins to diversify its economy, its entrepreneurs are having no trouble starting things themselves. In fact six Saudi teams were made it to last year’s final round. I think this shows that what governments may sometimes perceive as problems, i.e. having to diversify the economy because oil prices are unstable, the people often times see as opportunities. It would be interesting to study whether or not entrepreneurs in other countries do fit the archetypal image of the young entrepreneur as most of these projects seem to be headed by people in their 20s or 30s.

http://www.mitefarab.org/

http://saudigazette.com.sa/saudi-arabia/six-saudi-teams-mit-competition-finals/

2 thoughts on “MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab Region”

I found this to be very fascinating! What struck me was the fact that the team they have testing out this chair seemed to be from the area in Africa where they are looking to use it – in other words, they are actually involving the people who will be using the product to see what their needs are. As we have talked about, this is something that is not often done, yet it remains one of the most critical aspects in developing a product such as this.

Interesting to read the statistic that “40% of idea-stage projects launched after the competition.” I think that figure is actually quite high, considering the difficulties of the “implementation” stage. In Tim Brown’s design thinking article, he discusses that innovators will often “loop back through” the inspiration and ideation stages a number of times, “as ideas are refined and new directions taken.” It’s a feat to even attempt to implement a project—as it means the idea is refined enough and funded enough to go forward—let alone to successfully implement. Thanks for the article! I also agree with Avery that involving the people for whom the product is designed to affect is a simple, yet critical, way to both increase likelihood of success as well as make the best social change.

Avery on February 13, 2017 at 9:19 pm said:

I found this to be very fascinating! What struck me was the fact that the team they have testing out this chair seemed to be from the area in Africa where they are looking to use it – in other words, they are actually involving the people who will be using the product to see what their needs are. As we have talked about, this is something that is not often done, yet it remains one of the most critical aspects in developing a product such as this.
Christina on February 21, 2017 at 11:57 am said:

Interesting to read the statistic that “40% of idea-stage projects launched after the competition.” I think that figure is actually quite high, considering the difficulties of the “implementation” stage. In Tim Brown’s design thinking article, he discusses that innovators will often “loop back through” the inspiration and ideation stages a number of times, “as ideas are refined and new directions taken.” It’s a feat to even attempt to implement a project—as it means the idea is refined enough and funded enough to go forward—let alone to successfully implement. Thanks for the article! I also agree with Avery that involving the people for whom the product is designed to affect is a simple, yet critical, way to both increase likelihood of success as well as make the best social change.