Queen Rania Centre for Entrepreneurship (QRCE) announced the launch of the second phase of its strategic plan for the years 2010-2015, which will focus more on supporting various and the growing needs of Jordanian Technology Entrepreneurs.

Farhan Kalaldeh, QRCE Executive Director said: “QRCE will be moving to the second phase of its strategic plan. Our focus now is on launching a new initiative that includes four programs and over 12 fully integrated components that will help to create a technology ecosystem to support innovation in Jordan.”

Kalaldeh illustrated that the upcoming stage will focus on four key areas: Networking Program to help Jordanian Technology Entrepreneurs exchange experience and knowledge; a Program to create more awareness on potential opportunities in technology startups and recognize innovative and outstanding technology business ideas and startups; an Investment Program to help Jordanian Technology Entrepreneurs seeking funding for their startups at seed and early stages, in addition to a Capacity Building and Support Program to provide Jordanian Technology Entrepreneurs with specialized training, mentoring and support services to help them establish, fund and manage their companies.

“During the past few years, by organizing National Competitions, Workshops and Conferences and Events, QRCE managed to promote the entrepreneurial culture in Jordan through the support and partnerships with organizations such as KAFD, KADDB, NAFES, PSUT, Orange, Google, USAID/SABEQ, YEA, RJ, Endeavour and many others.” Kalaldeh noted.

He added: “The efforts started in 2005 by QRCE and other organizations are now paying off, we have more and more University students and faculty members participating in competitions and training programs, more startups are established every year, a new generation of entrepreneurs is emerging.”

It is worth mentioning that Farhan Kalaldeh was recently appointed as the Executive Director for QRCE. Prior to that, he was the Excellence Manager and Project Manager at Economic Zones World (EZW) and Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) in UAE. Before that, Kalaldeh was the “Investing In Technology” Program Manager at the Arab Science and Technology Foundation (ASTF) and was responsible for initiating and managing ASTF programs aimed at developing Technology Entrepreneurship in MENA region. Kalaldeh started his career by working with several Technology Startups in Jordan.

To think that a singular effort would create Jordan’s ecosystem for entrepreneurship makes for an unreliable model. Real change will only come from the seamless integration of all the stakeholders working for entrepreneurs. Bilal Hijjawi sheds light on the work of two of Jordan’s most effective entrepreneurship support bodies.

“The few existing efforts focused on building an ecosystem for entrepreneurship in Jordan are great, but each of them will create what I’ve started to call a ‘mini-ecosystem’,” said Farhan Kalaldeh, who took the reins as Executive Director of Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE) last month.

“Entrepreneurship starts with education; continues with reforming legislation and policies; then government support and R&D grants are needed; then it’s incubators, venture capital and angel investing and last it requires mature stock markets that appreciate technology,” added Kalaldeh; whose organization is part of a larger cluster engaging technology and entrepreneurship. The QRCE is keenly focused on technology commercialization and empowering entrepreneurship in Jordan and the region.

Established in 2004, QRCE operates under the El Hassan Business Park banner, which was launched by the El Hassan Science City. The Business Park also includes under its umbrella the business incubator iPARK, QRCE and Intellectual Property Commercialization Office (IPCO).

In 1991, Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT) was established as the academic arm of El Hassan Science City. Over the years the university grew into an academic powerhouse that many today dub the Stanford of Jordan in recognition of its no-nonsense approach to technology and entrepreneurship.

This impressive technology cluster includes as well the Higher Council for Science and Technology, and the Royal Scientific Society. El Hassan Science City (EHSC) has all these organizations on its board to set strategies and policies with the sole purpose of integrating services that support entrepreneurs, creating the closest thing to an ecosystem that Jordan has ever had.

Ironically, the two players within this cluster, namely the iPark incubator and the QRCE, which had the most proven impact on entrepreneurs, have produced the least media buzz. But the evidence of their hard work has been astonishing.

“Our resources had come from government so we needed no publicity to raise funds. Whatever publicity we did was to target our stakeholders to the deal-flow for our incubator,” said Omar Hamarneh, Former Director of the iPARK Business Incubator and current CEO of El Hassan Business Park.

Most of Jordan’s who’s who in tech ventures graduated from iPark. NetAdvantage (NetAd), one of the Middle East’s largest online media networks and Jeeran.com, the world’s largest host for Arabic blogs were incubated at the iPark. Even Catalyst Private Equity and Riyada Ventures, two regional companies managing venture funds in hundreds of millions today had their first offices at the iPark.

Quirkat, the first to develop an original Arabic language massive multiplayer strategy game (ArabianLords) was also incubated at the iPark. Mixed Dimensions is another success story that is set to graduate soon from iPark (read the full story in this month’s issue). International companies, including KindiSoft, were also incubated at iPark.

“We’ve produced more than 40 successful ventures that now operate across Jordan and the Arab region,” Hamarneh told Venture. “Collectively, these companies hire today over a thousand highly skilled Jordanians and Arabs in the region.” The success of iPark has brought Jordanian venture capital firms a healthy deal flow of early stage ventures and SMEs.

However, added Hamarneh, “Our efforts as a cluster are not only gauged by success stories. It’s about exposing thousands of university students and young people to the concept of entrepreneurship, which allows them to make choices, experience the market and learn from obstacles.”

Kalaldeh, himself a former student of PSUT and cofounder of a former iPark startup, says QRCE will now be moving to the 2nd phase of its strategic plan. “Our focus now is on launching a new initiative that includes four programs and a dozen fully integrated components that will help create a technology ecosystem to support innovation in Jordan. El Hassan Science City will be the centre of this empowered ecosystem.”

Amman – Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship will represent Jordan at the Global Entrepreneurship Week GEW in Dubai, joining leaders in entrepreneurship from 88 countries.

The Congress serves as the forum for sharing best practices from around the world and to develop new ideas, as the assembly presents a real opportunity to examine the futuristic horizons for the sector and provide support for the entrepreneurship spirit in different sectors in society.

“Our participation crowns the good results we saw from the Jordan Entrepreneurship Week, during which several regionally and internationally recognized individuals and organizations participated, notably Red Huffman founder and CEO of LinkedIn and Joichi Ito CEO of Creative Commons and Twitter consultant, and others from the Arab region.” said Al Nazer – Jordans representative in GEW congress.

The Congress operates as a sharing forum for new ideas and best practices from around the globe. It also aims assembling current and future leaders behind the GEW movement who can connect during the GEW.

It is worth mentioning that governmental organizations, academic establishments, and non-profit organizations participate in the GEW to engage students, educators, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and others to assist them in adopting a culture of entrepreneurship and employ it to serve society.

DART, the Student Entrepreneurship Society, concluded in collaboration with Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, the training program that was held at Princess Sumaya University for Technology. The training program titled “Unleash the Entrepreneur” aims at developing the entrepreneurial spirit among participating students, increasing their awareness on entrepreneurship and managerial work, locally and regionally. The intensive course was attended by over 50 students from the Jordanian University, the Hashemite University, Princess Sumaya University for Technology, and Jordan University for Science and Technology. During the 4-day long program, trainers shed the light on key topics and major issues chiefly on personal development and entrepreneurial skills growth. The training program comprised courses titled “External Relations Management”, “Event Management”, “Unleash the Entrepreneur in You”, “Social Media Training”, as well as a course on Soft Skills which outlined communication and presentation skills. Remarkably, DART Student Entrepreneurship Society is an initiative by Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship that aims at bridging the gap between academia and the business and industrial worlds by actively holding specialized sessions and workshops to reflect the needs of the labor market.

Global Entrepreneurship Week, an international initiative observed in over 80 countries annually, concluded Sunday, November 22. For the first time, the event was held in Jordan and featured a slate of panels, trainings, speakers and activities in which 400 local, Arab and international entrepreneurs and business leaders took part.

The goal of Global Entrepreneurship Week is to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity, and to encourage entrepreneurship around the globe. The organizers in Jordan focused especially on positioning the country as a regional hub of innovation and the leader in entrepreneurial activity.

The week, which began with a launch reception and speaker line-up on Sunday, November 15, was organized by Creative Commons, Endeavor Jordan, the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE), and the Young Entrepreneurs Association, and was coordinated globally by the Kauffman Foundation.

Key-note speakers at the launch included Silicon Valley stars Reid Hoffman, the founder and CEO of LinkedIn, Joi Ito, an activist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, CEO of Creative Commons and an adviser to Twitter, and Mitchell Baker, the Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation, launcher of the Firefox web-browser. The entrepreneurs shared their perspectives with their audience, focusing on the importance of open-ness, collaboration, risk-taking and embracing failure as keys to successful entrepreneurship.

Also taking the podium were Sami Shalabi, founder of Zingku, which was later acquired by Google, and Habib Haddad, a co-founder of Yamli.com, an Arabic-language search engine. From Jordan, speakers included CEOs, business leaders, investors and innovators involved in entrepreneurship in the Kingdom and the region.

Organizers sought to spotlight Jordan’s nascent culture of entrepreneurship, highlight individual success stories and draw up an action plan to grow the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Jordan.

The week’s agenda was diverse, featuring learning opportunities like a training on November 17th led by Mary Elizabeth Diab, who coached 185 participants on the techniques of networking. On the 22nd, Dr Wissam Rabadi led “Entrepreneurship 101,” a curricula developed by Intel Education and the University of California at Berkeley.

Two days during the week were dedicated to “Afkar, yes we can!” a series of interactive creative thinking sessions conducted by DART, a student entrepreneurship community based at Princess Sumaya University for Technology. The DART team visited 10 schools in Amman, Ma’an and Zarqa with the aim of stimulating students to take on entrepreneurship in their future.

A panel discussion was held on Saturday focused on the achievements made by women entrepreneurs in Jordan. Success stories were shared with 50 attendees, which highlighted the role women business leaders play in socio-economic development.

At the conclusion of Global Entrepreneurship Week, Tijaritna, an entrepreneurs’ marketplace featuring handmade and home-baked products and treats, was held at City Mall on Sunday, November 22.

Organizers voiced appreciation for the sponsors of the week, including Aramex, Société Générale Bank and Friedrich Naumann Foundation, in addition to other supporters; USAID, King Abdullah Fund for Development, Zain, Orange, IV Holding, Royal Jordanian as the official carrier, Rotana Radio, Energy FM, OC and Venture magazines.

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About the Organizers:

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that works to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing. Creative Commons provides easy to use legal tools to give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work.

Endeavor is a global non-profit that breaks down barriers that prevent emerging-market entrepreneurs from reaching their high-impact potential. Endeavor screens hundreds of next-generation entrepreneurs, ultimately selecting those who demonstrate the leadership, creativity, and entrepreneurial qualities to build high-growth, successful companies. Once selected, Endeavor Entrepreneurs benefit from services tailored to help them develop their businesses, plan for growth, and attract financing. Endeavor Jordan launched in 2009 to support high-impact entrepreneurship in Jordan.

The Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization which works towards improving national development and aims to be the region’s cornerstone for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship advancement. The QRCE hosts the Google Award for the Best Online Business in Jordan, in addition to the Queen Rania Entrepreneurship Competition.

The Young Entrepreneurs’ Association was established in November 1998 as a non-governmental, non-profit organization. The membership-based YEA plays a leadership role in supporting young entrepreneurs in today’s increasingly competitive global market. YEA aims at supporting entrepreneurial opportunities through enhancing the entrepreneurial spirit, growing the number of entrepreneurs in Jordan, and improving the business environment.

Jordan will participate in Global Entrepreneurship Week taking place November 16-22, 2009 with a slate of activities focusing on entrepreneurs at all stages of growth and featuring leading entrepreneurs from around the world, the region and the Kingdom.

The Week, beginning with a launch reception in Amman on Sunday, November 15, is organized by Creative Commons, Endeavor Jordan, the Young Entrepreneurs Association, and the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE).

According to the organizers, the launch event is designed to spotlight Jordan’s nascent culture of entrepreneurship, celebrate success stories, and “develop an action plan on how to position Jordan as the entrepreneurial hub of the region through live voting on key questions developed by international experts”.

“This effort falls under the organizers’ contribution to translating into reality the vision of His Majesty King Abdullah for Jordan’s economic development,” said Mohamad Khawaja of the QRCE.

Speakers include inspiring world-class entrepreneurs such as Joi Ito, a Japanese activist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist; Silicon Valley luminaries Reid Hoffman, the founder and CEO of LinkedIn, and Mitchell Baker, Chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation, launcher of the Firefox web-browser; and Arab business innovators such as Habib Haddad and Sami Shalabi, the tech gurus behind YallaStartUp.org.

From Jordan, Ghassan Nuqul from the Nuqul Group, Maher Kaddoura, from Huron Consulting Group and founder of Hikmat Road Safety, and Sabri Hakim from Talasim will be sharing their experiences with an audience that will include CEOs, high-impact entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors, entrepreneurs, innovators and team leaders.

The Global Entrepreneurship Week calendar, available to view at www.unleashingideas.org/jordan, features on November 16th a Global Entrepreneurs Forum, which brings together the business community to hear from and network with five outstanding international entrepreneurs. A Speed Networking Session on November 17 will be an educational event teaching 100-200 professionals to network effectively with each other. On the 21st, a panel discussion featuring successful Jordanian businesswomen will address the aspirations of women entrepreneurs and the particular challenges they encounter. Another educational opportunity, Entrepreneurship 101 will be offered by UC Berkeley trainer Dr Wissam Rabadi on November 22nd. All of these events will be held at Princess Sumaya University of Technology.

The 18th and 19th will be dedicated to “Afkar, yes we can!” a series of interactive creative thinking sessions at schools in Amman, Irbid, Ma’an and Zarqa for students to enhance their problem-solving techniques in order to break down the obstacles facing young leaders.

The week of activities concludes with Tijaritna, an entrepreneurs’ marketplace featuring handmade and home-baked products and treats, all day at City Mall on Sunday, November 22nd.

About the Organizers:

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that works to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing. Creative Commons provides easy to use legal tools to give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work.

Endeavor is a global non-profit that breaks down barriers that prevent emerging-market entrepreneurs from reaching their high-impact potential. Endeavor screens hundreds of next-generation entrepreneurs, ultimately selecting those who demonstrate the leadership, creativity, and entrepreneurial qualities to build high-growth, successful companies. Once selected, Endeavor Entrepreneurs benefit from services tailored to help them develop their businesses, plan for growth, and attract financing. Endeavor Jordan launched in 2009 to support high-impact entrepreneurship in Jordan.

The Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization which works towards improving national development and aims to be the region’s cornerstone for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship advancement. The QRCE hosts the Google Award for the Best Online Business in Jordan, in addition to the Queen Rania Entrepreneurship Competition.

The Young Entrepreneurs’ Association was established in November 1998 as a non-governmental, non-profit organization. The membership-based YEA plays a leadership role in supporting young entrepreneurs in today’s increasingly competitive global market. YEA aims at supporting entrepreneurial opportunities through enhancing the entrepreneurial spirit, growing the number of entrepreneurs in Jordan, and improving the business environment.

The Licensing Executives Society – Arab Countries (LES-AC) and Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE) have recently signed an agreement in the Jordanian capital city Amman, to hold training courses to raise awareness and train young school leaders, their teachers and leaders of Arab universities in the field of intellectual property rights and its importance in supporting innovation and creativity.

The agreement signed by Rinad al-Nubani, the director of LES-AC and Engineer Mohammad Khawaja, QRCE executive Director stressed the importance of cooperation in conducting specialized training sessions particularly in the field of protecting property rights in order to spread awareness on this right among citizens in the age group of 12-25 years old.

For her part, al-Nubani has expressed her pleasure to work with QRCE and praised the center’s efforts and its programmes aiming at enhancing the development of knowledge economy in the region, notably the technology investment programme which seek to raise the level of awareness on intellectual property management.

Khawaja stressed the importance of investing in the new generations as a strategic development alternative in order to build a creative generation aware of its responsibilities towards its society. He added that LES-AC is a strategic partner of the center and LES-AC is the first Arab specialized regional network in the field of licensing and technology transfer.

AMMAN — Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Assintel – Italian Association of ICT companies, under which both parties will be cooperating to enhance ties between the two countries in the information and communications technology field.

The MoU, which was signed on the sidelines of Jordan-Italian Business Forum held in Milan recently, stipulates that both sides provide training opportunities for their respective members, arrange visits of trade missions and organize trade fairs and promotion campaigns in order to proximate industrialists and investors in Jordan and Italy.

QRCE’s Executive Director Mohammad Khawaja, who signed the agreement on behalf of the Jordanian side, said the MoU underlines the importance of efforts planned by both sides to contribute to better trade ties among members of the two organizations.

He added: “This agreement falls within the vision of His Majesty King Abdullah to boost Jordan’s status on the advanced world’s ICT map”.

Khawaja indicated that through cooperation with Assintel and Milan Chamber of Commerce, QRCE seeks to connect Jordanian startups and SMEs with their Italian counterparts with a view to create joint business opportunities that benefit both sides, which, he said, emphasized the importance of investment promotion within the proper technical frameworks and periodic exchange of literature on relevant laws and regulations in force in both countries.

He noted that among the deal’s provisions is one stipulating that “both parties shall organize meetings whenever deemed necessary in order to discuss matters of mutual interest and to prepare programs for future activities”.

Participating in the business forum, QRCE representatives made a presentation offering the center’s expertise in the field of TRIZ-based systematic innovation programs, highlighting the role these programs can play in boosting initiative and employ it in the organization and management of Italian companies.

The center has previously taken part in a variety of such events in Italy, where participants were acquainted with QRCE’s support of entrepreneurship at the local and international levels.

QRCE Team

The participation of Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE) in GITEX 2009, which was held in Dubai recently, was crowned with an array of successes, especially since the center seized the opportunity to promote its TRIZ-based systematic innovation programs, which QRCE launched to train entrepreneurs working in the ITC sector.

The specialized program seeks to arm trainees with basic problem analysis and solving techniques inspired by international programs in the field.

Commenting on the outcome of the participation in the ICT exhibition, QRCE’s Executive Director Mohammad Khawaja said: “Our participation in this premium annual event was a success. We, for the first time, had the opportunity to meet this great number of our target beneficiaries, including ICT companies and several Arab and international centers concerned with this type of courses. They showed interest to open channels of communication with us and to copy our experience in such advanced training in the countries where they operate.”

He added: “We managed through the Jordanian pavilion at GITEX to promote our innovation programs, which are designed to stimulate the growth of knowledge-based economy and to reach a higher level of competitiveness through applying systematic innovation standards to R&D and business management”.

For his part, head of systematic innovation programs at QRCE, Hassan Natcheh, said: “Innovation is no longer a matter of arbitrary thinking, but rather a full-fledged modern science based on tested techniques and know-how that can be acquired through training by researchers, technology specialists and entrepreneurs. The aim is to accelerate the innovative production process, ending with improving the living standards of the community and achieve sustainable development”.

The TRIZ manager added that the courses organized by his section feature a comprehensive concept of systematic innovation as an effective means of solving problems that face the process of producing and developing state-of-the-art products and services through learning from previous case studies and stories of success.

It is worth noting that due to the high turnout on TRIZ courses, QRCE established early this year a special section specialized in training the targeted categories in the business administration and ICT sectors. The move is part of the center’s strategy to qualify entrepreneurs and job seekers from Jordan and the region.

QRCE’s mission is to develop technology entrepreneurship in Jordan and regional countries through focus on issues such as: capacity building, consulting, counseling and developing the local “Entrepreneurial Personality and Spirit” and knowledge-based economy.

The center runs several local and international programs including Queen Rania Entrepreneurship Competition, Connect Jordan, Technology Commercialization Program and DART, the students’ entrepreneurship society on Princess Sumaya University for Technology campus.

Bidaya

10 Angel investors have attended the pitching presentations of preselected startups as part of the first match-making event for the newly launched investors network “Bedaya”. The entrepreneurs were given 20 minutes to present their project and explain why they were willing to welcome external investors in their company. They were then facing a 20 minutes question time from the business angels who were interested in better understanding their concept, their business development strategy, their market and most importantly, what the money they could invest would be using at.

The Bedaya network has been launched in a special event last May under the patronage of HRH Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan at El Hassan Science City. The launch has attracted over 30 prominent Jordanian investors, business leaders and others representing organizations that cultivate economic growth. The founding institutions of the Bedaya are: the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, the iPark business incubator and the Arab Science and Technology Foundation. Noteworthy, It has been supported by the European program Medibtikar.
As part of the members of the network is Dr. Usama Fayyad – the X-board member of Yahoo and world class serial entrepreneur- who has emphasized on the necessity of establishing such network, by saying: “This is the right time to establish such network due to the huge need for startup funding in this part of the world”.

The impetus of the creation of Bedaya is to offer national financing vehicles for innovative business start-ups as part of the El Hassan Science City’s mandate to foster knowledge-based enterprises with a promising potential for growth. The network will offer investments for early stage start-ups with a focus on science and technology.

The process starts by selecting entrepreneurs who are looking for funding and presenting the most ready ones every two months during pitching sessions to an audience of business angels. Business angels are private individual willing to investing their own money into high growth potential starting companies. But business angels do not offer only money to the entrepreneurs. Since these investors are usually successful entrepreneurs themselves, they will bring their experience and personal business network to the companies they invest in, which is an invaluable asset and success guarantee for the entrepreneur.
Before pitching to investors, the entrepreneurs have received special full-day training and coaching by Mr. Nelson Grey, a seasonal expert on business angel investments. He stressed on the importance of designing such infrastructure in Jordan in order to pave the way for a strong knowledge-based economy.
The next Bedaya pitching session is planned to happen during October. Interested business angel investors and entrepreneurs are welcome to contact the network to participate.