Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dr. Tarek Kamel held talks yesterday with Ms. Lorraine Hariton, Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the US Department of State and Mr. Steven Koltai, Senior Advisor for Commercial Affairs at the department’s Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs.
Mr. Koltai is responsible for designing and implementing the Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) at the US State Department.
The meeting - held in the presence of US Ambassador to Egypt Ms. Margret Scobey, First Deputy to CIT Minister Dr. Hoda Baraka and ELCC Director Mr. Yasser Kazem - conferred the Egyptian-US partnership in disseminating a culture of entrepreneurship, business leadership and technological innovation adopted by the US Administration.
The US officials' visit goes in line with the initiative the US President Barack Obama had announced in Cairo in June 2009. President Obama expressed his intention to hold a summit to disseminate the culture of business leadership, entrepreneurship and technological innovation in the Muslim World.
President Obama also announced the foundation of a fund for supporting technological development in Muslim dominated countries. Such a fund will contribute to providing new ideas to the market in order to generate more job opportunities.
In addition, he called for establishing centers of excellence in Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia as well as assigning science delegates to cooperate in programs for developing new power resources and green information and communication technology (ICT).
Last February, Mr. Kazem along with senior officials from Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) met with Mr. Koltai to discuss Egypt's participation in the US Administration initiative.
Egypt was selected, among 12 other countries, as the first country to carry out the initiative.
The selection came after the US Administration sensed the readiness, cooperation and support of the Egyptian Government.
Realizing the importance of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills in building and sustaining a viable economy, the ELCC focused its efforts to developing a national entrepreneurship education program to harness the existing potential in nurturing local talent and develop the next wave of leaders and innovators who will create jobs and value for society and empower others to create a better future.
The program embarks on expert content from Cisco Entrepreneur Institute and utilizes innovative e-learning solutions to increase access, improve performance and reduce cost of delivery. It has exerted viable impact on the society by rolling-out entrepreneurship training to thousands of entrepreneurs and SMEs using the Center’s wide-reach national delivery network of over 700 e-Learning delivery centers.
About Cisco Entrepreneur Institute
Cisco Entrepreneur Institute is a collaboration between Cisco and a growing network of partners including renowned educational institutes, local governments and business organizations to help communities and nations harness the power of entrepreneurship for economic and social prosperity. The Institute develops entrepreneurs by providing entrepreneur-specific content; a mentoring network; a resource center where entrepreneurs can find sound business advice and services and Internet business solutions for SMEs.