Brief Description
The Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport (AASTMT) supports the principles of entrepreneurial education and enhancing competitiveness and sustainability not only among the Egyptian economy but also within the broader Arab economy.
AASTMT established its Entrepreneurship Center “AASTEC” in 2015, with the objective of empowering youth to drive the realization of sustainable economic growth in the region. The Center works to be the regional hub that empowers youth and supports startups and businesses throughout the Arab region and Africa. The aim of the “Entrepreneurship, innovation, and Industry Support Policy” is to support creativity and innovation as one of AASTMT's top priorities.
Also, the policy targeting the expansion of long-distance education programs and professional training, for AAST students and entrepreneurs, mobilizes the outputs of scientific research, linking it to the challenges that exist in various economic and industrial sectors, and recommends innovative solutions that support different industries.
AASTMT sector-focused incubators aim to create a base of innovators, developers, and entrepreneurs who develop competitive prototypes and applications that support industry localization and replace imports.
Scope
AASTMT seeks through its “Entrepreneurship, innovation, and industry support policy” to support its various entities to invest in its students, professors, and researchers; linking them to the market needs with the aim of creating quality jobs that contribute to sustainable economic development in the Arab region and Egypt.
This policy applies to all academic and non-academic staff employed by the Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport including all faculties, divisions, and departments. The geographical coverage of the policy covers all AASTMT campuses in Egypt and the Arab region.
Aims of the Policy
The policy aims at achieving sustainability of the academic and practical excellence of the Arab Academy, supporting entrepreneurial education and best use of the academic research and the physical and human resources at AAST to connect with industry needs and challenges. The policy aims to spread the entrepreneurship culture, not only for AASTians but also for entrepreneurs and Arab and local communities, the aim is to enhance competitiveness and sustainability, boosting employability, and job creation in the Arab and Egyptian Economy.
Introduction
AASTMT established its Entrepreneurship Center in 2015, with the objective of empowering youth to drive the realization of sustainable economic growth in the region. The Center works to be the regional hub that empowers youth and supports startups and businesses throughout the Arab region and Africa, with the aim to build a generation of youth entrepreneurs and change agents to positively impact the social and economic conditions of Arab economies by enabling environment for growth, which stimulates innovative initiatives and private business functioning through utilizing the resources of the Arab Academy and its extended network.
AAST Entrepreneur Center “AAST EC” prepared a clear strategy for supporting Egyptian, and Arab startups, entrepreneurs, and university students, through its different programs, that serve not only the AAST Community: undergraduate, postgraduate, and Alumni, but also, the youth, entrepreneurs, and startups in Egypt and the region.
The strategy aims at building & connecting a healthy ecosystem for entrepreneurship in the Arab, and African regions and the Egyptian governorates and local communities with the promising youth to help establish a robust region and Egypt’s development. Also, the policy developed aimed to support the efforts of the Arab Academy towards transforming into an entrepreneurial university, for that reason AAST established a specialized academy to support startups namely “AAST Startups School”.
AAST EC launched its sector-focused incubators at AAST EC, considered the first of its kind in the region that aims at building and connecting entrepreneurial ecosystems in the leading economic sectors, specifically the supply chain and logistic incubator, Mashreq tourism incubator, and MASAR Agribusiness incubator and recently the incubator for people with disability (Good Will Incubator), in addition to a national entrepreneurship competition named (Egypt Rally competition).
A recent program was launched namely “Rally Accelerate” which focused on operating startups in five industrial sectors, it’s a fully advanced program that focuses on registered startups who are eager to develop and grow their startups, reaching scalability and international expansion where the winners have awarded international visit to European and German ecosystems to better gain the required knowledge, in addition to the opportunity to pitch and showcase of their startups in front of many investors, VCs, business leaders in international summits.
Specialized programs directed to students and fresh graduates (AAST Youth incubator and AAST’s Grade to Business program also meet the founder’s initiative), all these programs aim at better engagement of students with AASTMT staff and management to boost innovation and entrepreneurial culture and supporting students to develop their own projects in the market.
Engagement of AASTMT staff from different faculties, departments, and campuses is also crucial for efficient connection with the students to mentor and coach their innovative ideas and link to the industry needs.
Policy Statement
The Entrepreneurship, innovation, and industry support policy is responsible for supporting the efforts of the Arab Academy towards transforming into an entrepreneurial university and becoming the regional hub that empowers youth, pushing startups and businesses throughout Egypt and the Arab region, achieving sustainability of the academic and practical excellence, through the support of creativity and innovation; the continuous development, in cooperation with different international, regional and local partners. Also, the transfer of know-how, technical and scientific support in cooperation with top-notch universities, for the latest updates in the academic sciences and best practices in industry is the key to success.
The Entrepreneurship, innovation, and industry support policy supports innovation and links to industry, through:
Objectives
Implementation and desired outcomes
In general terms, the Entrepreneurship, innovation, and industry support policy, aims at scaling its programs nationally, regionally, and internationally with the objective to support the enablers of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, on one side, and on the other side to create more opportunities for startups and potential entrepreneurs, with clear linkage of industry support, AAST EC policy is to do that through supporting entrepreneurship enablers in addition to providing direct support to startups.
Specific actions to be taken in both the medium and long term, first: the medium-term actions and related outcomes:
Second: the long-term actions and outcomes:
Economic development in Egypt: our sector-focused incubators are addressing critical sectors that have a direct impact on economic growth like tourism and supply chain, those industries are making a significant contribution to the Egyptian economy, and there is still a great opportunity for disruption.
Performance indicators
The following are examples of Performance indicators:
Internal Monitoring and Auditing
Monitoring is undertaken according to the logical framework, and the technical, and financial reports produced under the above-mentioned outputs, as well as the frequency of project management meetings.
