“Saudi Arabia continues to successfully diversify and build its economy to create opportunities for its citizens,” said Saudi Ambassador to the United States Adel A. Al-Jubeir. “Only three years ago, the Kingdom was ranked 38th in the IFC/World Bank report. We aim to soon crack the top-10.”

The IFC notes that Saudi Arabia has made “great strides” in improving its regulatory environment, implementing more than a dozen reforms in the last few years.

Read what makes Saudi Arabia a good place to start a business.

GEW Jordan, co-hosted by Endeavor Jordan and Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, is part of a global event being organized in 100 countries around the world. For one week, millions of young people around the world join a growing movement of entrepreneurs, to generate new ideas and to seek better ways of doing things.

“Endeavor is a global supporter of GEW, and we are proud to be co-hosting the event this year in Jordan. We believe that local entrepreneurs are initiating private sector development in our country, and we would like to take this opportunity to educate our youth that entrepreneurs do not only change industries, but also create value-added jobs that are necessary for any growing economy.” Said Carmen Saad, Endeavor Jordan’s Managing Director.
In addition to academic activities and field-based programs, GEW activities will include conferences and training courses. The calendar also includes field visits to several schools and universities to engage the young generation in voicing their ideas, while listening to some success stories.

Read more here.

More than 1,200 entrepreneurs, innovators, business leaders, finance providers and creative professionals from across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA) region and beyond will gather in Dubai for a “Celebration of Entrepreneurship” on November 8-9, 2010. This announcement was made today by Abraaj CapitalAbraaj Capital and Fadi Ghandour, Member of the AbraajAbraaj Board of Directors and Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Aramex. The Celebration is aimed at creating an enabling environment for entrepreneurship by empowering, inspiring and connecting entrepreneurs, who are catalysts for the growth of small and medium enterprise across MENASA.

The SME sector currently accounts for more than 70 per cent of the region’s employment but generates less than 30 per cent of its GDP, thus offering significant growth opportunities. The event is expected to cultivate the existing spirit of enterprise by energising entrepreneurs at the grassroots and creating an environment that is conducive for a thriving entrepreneurial culture – deemed essential to address the region’s employment and demographic challenges.

A number of announcements are expected to be made at the Celebration, including the formal launch of Riyada Enterprise Development (RED), a US$500 million investment platform exclusively dedicated to supporting SMEs across the region. The firm will also unveil Wamda, a comprehensive interactive online portal dedicated to the region’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, where entrepreneurs, innovators, mentors and other stakeholders come together to facilitate entrepreneurship in the MENASA region.

The Celebration of Entrepreneurship will take place on November 8-9, 2010, at the Madinat Jumeirah Conference Centre in Dubai, UAE.

Big Idea Start-up Challenge 2010 is a business plan competition open to all Institute students in UAE. As part of this initiative to nurture young talent, Big Idea has invited aspiring student entrepreneurs and Mentor Institutes to be part of the Big Idea Start-up Challenge 2010

While the students will present Business Start-up Plan, Institutes will highlight the Innovative practices and methodology implemented in nurturing entrepreneurship skills in students and compete for the ‘Big Idea Mentor Challenge 2010’

The competition is structured to provide students with an exposure to the entrepreneurial community, adds Reena Banerjee, Co-founder & Idea Director at Big Idea.

The Start-up Challenge 2010 will be judged by a distinguished panel that include Satyajeet Roy- Head of Commercial Banking, Citibank, Khalid Al Jowder – Chairman of Al Jowder Group & Winner of Young Entrepreneur Award from Mohammad Bin Rashid Establishment (MBRE), Amir Farah & Rabih Brair – Managing Partners at Tandem Venture Capital.

Big Idea has partnered with Tandem Venture Capital to set up an Incubation Lab where the shortlisted ideas will be mentored, guided & simulated to make it robust and financially viable before being presented to industry specific venture Capitalists, states Nidhi , Co-founder and Idea Director, Big Idea.

Students from University of Wollongong Dubai, HULT International Business School, BITS Pilani, Heriot-Watt University, Murdoch University, University of Waterloo, Institute of Management Technology, SP Jain Centre of Management, etc are looking forward to this innovative platform and will be competing for the top honors.

Good Ideas always seem obvious…but afterwards. Big Idea (bigidea.ae) has been conceptualized by two ambitious and creative minds – Reena & Nidhi, who set out to do something unique – provide a platform to Ideators & Innovators who want to pursue their dreams and make it a reality.

More here.

See more here.

The State Department’s Office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) is pleased to announce the signing of two new Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with the governments of Bahrain and Oman to promote entrepreneurship in the Middle East and expand trade opportunities for America’s small businesses.

The MOUs are the result of a shared vision between the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and MEPI to support economic development, with a special focus on the unique needs of women small business owners, and to provide technical assistance in the Middle East and North Africa. Both agreements lay out broad frameworks of mutual engagement and support between the SBA and the governments of Oman and Bahrain, and will be followed by detailed plans of action that will result in direct and impactful change for small and medium-sized enterprises in these countries.

MEPI creates vibrant partnerships between the U.S. and the citizens of the Middle East and North Africa to foster development of pluralistic, participatory, and prosperous societies throughout the region. MEPI works with local and international non-governmental organizations, the private sector, academic institutions and governments to expand political participation, strengthen civil society and the rule of law, empower women and youth, create educational opportunities, and foster economic growth. To learn more, please visit www.mepi.state.gov.

The center aims at national development and planned to be the regions’ corner stone for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship advancement. The QRCE targets university students, researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and others. According to PSUT’s development plan, the next step will be the establishment of a business school to be linked to the center.

Working closely with local and international organizations; the QRCE will focus on issues such as: capacity building, consulting, counseling and developing the local “Entrepreneurial Personality & Spirit”. Furthermore, the QRCE will actively work on extending the intellectual wealth of Jordan while maintaining strong links with the business community in general.

More information on: http://qrce.org

In 2004, SYEA decided on four areas of work: helping young people to overcome psychological obstacles (fear of failure, the sense of an absence of opportunity, pressure from family and peers, and other prevailing beliefs); providing information and experience to young people desiring to set up businesses; providing an supporting entrepreneurial network of entrepreneurs who succeeded in setting up businesses and who are able to provide emerging entrepreneurs with advice; and finally, providing sources of funding whether through partnerships or through security loans to banks, or entrepreneurial competitions conclude with the offering of prizes. SYEA has a group of major programs implemented through various projects and activities.

In other words, YEP is a membership based non-profit, non-governmental Palestinian organization, whose mandate is to promote entrepreneurship and support young entrepreneurs, especially those with scarce resources. YEP aims to enhance the active participation, involvement and contribution of young people to the growth and advance of the Palestinian economy and society through the establishment and development of small and medium enterprises in a variety of settings.

The blog covers interesting subjects from the following countries: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates.

I was initially attracted by the “Young Arab Leaders Launches Entrepreneurship Initiative”. The ‘Entrepreneurship Initiative’ aims to nurture innovation among young, small and medium entrepreneurs in the region and provide them opportunities for training mentoring and networking. Through the programme, they will learn from the experiences of other start-up and early-stage companies in the region and receive mentorship from YAL members.

“A Pilot Programme will be launched soon as the initial phase of the entrepreneurship initiative; During this phase, select entrepreneurs would be going through the outreach, assessment, training and access to funding of the ‘Entrepreneurship’ programme to prove the adaptability and compatibility of the initiatives’ strategy and working model to diverse scenarios. Entrepreneurs will be selected from diverse sectors in three pilot countries – UAE, Egypt and Jordan.”

The best way to check the quality and diversity of the information is browsing down from the homepage. Right now they are talking about trust in Arabian startups, Travel Yolk, Travel Industry Online Recruitment Portal, and have an Interview With Questler Founder Razan Khatib.

Interesting. Also found out that the biggest challenge for an IT start-up in the Arabian countries is funding and Inmature advertising market.

Here we go, http://www.startuparabia.com/

Also found out that the first issue of the Arabic edition of the well known monthly magazine Entrepreneur is  published starting the beginning of June for the MENA region.

Johara Aletaishan, Chairperson of the new magazine, said:
“The aim of our new magazine is to promote the entrepreneurship culture among youth in the MENA region.

Neil Perlman, President of Entrepreneur Media Inc. – said :
“Entrepreneurial leaders drive economic success for themselves and their respective communities, and we’re pleased the first issue of Entrepreneur – MENA will carry this message to the region’s Arabic language countries. It’s invaluable for us to have the magazine’s message translated by Sawahel Al-Jazeera Ltd. to support young leaders in their entrepreneurial pursuits.”

Source of the article about the Entrepreneur magazine here.