The lack of knowledge and experience has always been a main factor for the failures of young startups. Joining, or even creating a market, is tough for many experienced players, so it’s not hard to imagine the difficulties younger entrepreneurs have.
Mentorship and practice runs are some of the most important things that young entrepreneurs can do, and whom better to gleam information and experience from than one of the country’s premier economic hubs?
In a bid to create the new generation of young entrepreneurs, and help curb unemployment, Cairo University’s Faculty of Economics and Political Science (FEPS) aims to become “a hub for entrepreneurial best practices in the Egyptian Public Universities” through their new business incubator.
This year marks FEPS’s 2nd cycle of their business incubator, located at Cairo University. As the first incubator created by a local public university, FEPS’s BI has a lot of eyes on it.
The Program
The incubator has 3 programs, a pre-incubator bootcamp, and includes expert mentorship from 40+ experienced mentors.
The programs are separated into an awareness program, the incubation program and a business clinic for established startups.
The awareness program provides sessions with distinguished local entrepreneurs, aiming to raise awareness about entrepreneurship, related concepts and best practices. Some of the previous sessions have included Rania Ayman of Entreprenelle, and Tarek El Nazer of popular bakery TBS.
The incubation program focuses on 2 cycles, each lasting between 4-6 months. Through the incubation cycle, coaching and mentorship sessions participants are provided council and guidance. These sessions include business fundamentals, marketing support, market research, financial management, and networking.
Participants are able to develop their plans and strategies at a provided workspace, most likely provided by community partner AlMaqarr Coworking Space.
The program also provides a seed fund for all participating startups; funding can reach up to 50K EGP.
FEPS’s BI is partnered with EGBank, INJAZ Egypt, IBM, the German University in Cairo (GUC) under the Imagine Project, the Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany, USAID’s Strengthening Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (SEED) project.
The pre-incubator bootcamp is a 3-week intensive workshop offered to the undergraduate students, aimed at encouraging and supporting students to come up with their business ideas and formulate their business plans.
Although still new, the incubator does have a lot of connections and experience supporting it, making it a great start for many young startups and entrepreneurs.
There is only a handful of days for young entrepreneurs to join in on the incubator, click here if you’re interested.