Incubating the future

As the 6th MENA Incubator Workshop comes together in Damascus to share the experiences of the region’s business incubators, the organizers discuss how creating a haven for young entrepreneurs to establish their businesses in controlled conditions can affect the region’s growth and development.

 “I would like to express my joy at the number of those interested in supporting entrepreneurship and development in Syria and across the world,” said Rakan Razouk in his opening speech for the 6th MENA Incubator Workshop.

 “We are all joined by a common goal: to encourage regional cooperation among the local incubators, and therefore encouraging innovation and enterprise as the basis for long-term growth and economic development.

” Over the past three years, infoDev, a member organization of the World Bank, and the MENA Incubator Network have held workshops across the region to promote the spread of business incubators, encourage cooperation among the newly established incubators, and to spread awareness of the potential incubation has to offer.

 “Incubators aim at encouraging entrepreneurs to propose innovative business ideas,” explains Razouk.

 “The incubator offers material resources and experienced professionals to help build up the plan and bring the entrepreneurs ideas from theory to practice.

” Cooperation and the exchange of experience are emphasized at the workshops, with a focus on the improvement of the incubators and business development in the region.

 “MENA incubators are fairly new, only 3 - 4 years experience, and networking as a concept is also very new in MENA,” says Omer Oz, network coordinator of MENA and manager of the Bahrain Business Incubator Center, offering 22 years of his own experience in incubators to the workshop.

 “Although it’s too early to comment on progress right now, I can deinitely say there is an interest and willingness for the program.

” The Syrian Computer Society, the main organizer of the workshop in Syria, developed its own incubator, dealing with information and communication technology (ICT).

 The incubator helps Syrian youths who want to set up ICT companies, and to follow this model Ellen Olafsen, the operations oficer of infoDev of business development requires an environment that enables new startups.

 “The incubator is approximately two years old, and the full capacity is 18 companies,” says Razouk.

 “Currently, three companies have undergone the process and are now independent of the incubator, surviving on their own with their own product.

 Eight are still in the process.

” Around 60% of incubators in the MENA region are ICT based, but there are some innovations cropping up even in this domain.

 “We are in the process of diversifying,” says Oz.

 “More youth, women-based, agricultural, and mix use incubators are appearing.

” Indeed, the last two days of the workshop were focused on establishing and deining the activities of these work groups within infoDev’s global network.

 infoDev is an organization of international donor agencies promoting the use of ICT for development, with one of its missions promoting ICT entrepreneurship.

 It started the MENA incubator workshop with help from the region to share experiences with other incubators and to improve their own experiences.

 FW: Magazine sat down with operations oficer Ellen Olafsen, to discuss infoDev’s role regionally and internationally, and how ICT incubators help develop the regions resources.

 In some cases, it seems like infoDev encourages a move from tangible to virtual industries.

 Is this an accurate picture? With the ability to communicate quickly, the necessity of developing information technology becomes more easily understood.

 If you are in Damascus and you make suits, if you don’t have access to information on your demographics, how can you make a product? You also use these technologies to make contacts, observe the competition, and study new fashions.

 The process becomes much more seamless and quick, and the results of information technology become more tangible.

 One of infoDev’s goals is to use ICT to reduce poverty around the globe.

 Could you explain how that works? Having access to communication and information technology could potentially help a farmer in a rural community decide which market he wants to sell in to maximize his proits.

 Social and health beneits could be more accessible to those with the right technology.

 It also opens up new applications to starting business as well, as you don’t need a lot of resources to start an ICT business, nor do you need to invest millions to get started.

 A lot of youths are interested in ICT naturally, so get them thinking, and it can deinitely be an income-generating opportunity for youths.

 Understanding that incubators in the region are very new, any comment on the progress they have achieved so far in the region? The MENA region is very diverse, which is why quantifying how the incubators are doing is very dificult.

 The Gulf is so wealthy due to their oil resources, whereas Yemen and Mauritania have no such opportunities, which makes a generalization on MENA so dificult.

 An advantage is MENA’s young labor force, but setting-up costs for businesses in MENA are very high, they are trumped only by those of the Sahara.

 How we can solve this, and how we can get MENA to change are questions that networks like MENA Incubators can answer.

 What projects are you and infoDev involved in at present? Right now, I manage initiative grant projects for business incubators, and I help strengthen incubators by creating a variety of networks, such as MENA, Africa, and Eastern European networks.

 There is also the global network, which helps 130 incubators in 70 different countries.

 This provides a very good opportunity for these incubators to learn different practices for different settings and models.