StrateSphere and Dar Al-Hekma University Form Partnership to Build Entrepreneurship Program
StrateSphere and Dar Al-Hekma University, a prestigious women’s college in Jeddah, have teamed to build the student entrepreneurship program under the Venture Highway brand, a portfolio company of StrateSphere. Venture Highway has already developed and delivered two condensed Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking courses for credit, taught by Kevin Gadd and Victor Salama, that were extremely successful, and another one is scheduled for the Fall of 2017.
The feedback from students and administrators at Dar Al-Hekma about the first two courses was outstanding. The courses are extremely experiential and give students not only extensive knowledge about a broad range of entrepreneurial concepts and processes, but also hands on experience. Students work in teams on their own business idea, and work through the process of building and testing a business model.
The courses end with a final event, called the White Space Event, at which students present their business ideas in a trade show format to an audience of faculty, community members and leaders, and other students. The events for the first two courses were a huge success, with a large number of attendees who were very impressed with the nature of the event, and the ideas and creativity of the students. Dr. Inass Ali, Dean of Hekma School of Business & Law, stated that “this entrepreneurship course was indeed a transformation for the students in just 10 days! Watching the students pitch by the end of the course in such confidence and persuasion was impressive. Sometimes creativity needs to be elicited and the instructors of the course successfully did so. Dar Al-Hekma University is committed to providing diverse and engaging modes of transfer of knowledge and hence is looking forward to a sustainable relationship with StrateSphere.”
StrateSphere is looking forward to continuing and expanding the program with Dar Al Hekma, culminating in the development of an entrepreneurship center where students can work with mentors to continue to develop their ideas and launch their businesses.
“StrateSphere is committed to inspiring and educating young entrepreneurs in collaboration with local partners around the world, and we are pleased to have been able to offer our cutting-edge blended learning entrepreneurship course in partnership with Dar Al-Hekma University”, stated Tariq Farwana, StrateSphere’s Founder and Managing Partner.