Dubai: Raising awareness levels among a new generation of entrepreneurs in the Arab world is the biggest challenge facing the business community in this part of the world, according to Adel Al Shared, vice-chairman of the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation.
Al Shared was addressing a panel discussion on entrepreneurship opportunities in difficult economic times during the the third annual Global Entrepreneurship Conference (GEC) at the Dubai Men's College last week. The conference was organised by the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School.
"A major challenge in the Arab world is awareness," Al Shared said. "The challenge is not a lack of funding or skills. It's the lack of awareness about entrepreneurship programmes for human development."
Al Shared said what is needed is an open channel of communication with the younger generation.
"Through conferences like this we can raise the awareness of the younger generation to not depend entirely on classic career paths," he said.
"The role of an entrepreneur is of persistent optimism, which is the key trait in certain difficult times," said Daniel Schwartz, author of Future of finance: how private equity and venture capital will shape the global economy.
"The venture capital world is in trouble these days but the question is, are these troubles cyclical or fundamental?" asked Schwartz, who is also CEO of Qiosk.com, a website providing online news feeds from major news publications.
Comparing the roles of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, he said: "Entrepreneurs are the people who make things happen and venture capitalists are the ones who fund their dreams."
Schwartz said budding entrepreneurs should learn from the current recession and seize the opportunity it presents to do what they want. "Your costs are down, people are available, which gives you a chance to build what you want," he said.
However the abundance of wealth of the region is both a blessing and a curse in such times, said Shiv Khemka, vice-chairman of the SUN group, India.
"The blessing of a wealthy country is the ability to build infrastructures, schools, universities and social welfare systems for all the young people," he said.
"However, the curse is that the fire in the belly needed in the youth to drive them to create and compete, is hard to find."
Khemka is also a principal investor and private equity fund manager.
Khemka said he believes the way forward for young entrepreneurs in the region is to expand their horizons.
"The thing for them to do now is to go out to Africa and Asia and try to start things there," he said. "In those environments where there is a grind, it will create the entrepreneurial rigour necessary for success. Those markets also have a huge scope for future growth."
Running alongside the second Kauffman Global Entrepreneurship Congress, the GEC welcomed speakers Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman foundation, and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, to address business leaders and students on the importance of entrepreneurship and the role it plays in an economy.
"New firms are an enormous power to create jobs," said Schramm. "Almost all the jobs in the US are created by firms less than five years old."
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