Magda Shahin* sees Egypt as a natural choice for kick-starting Obama's global entrepreneurship drive, but success will require strenuous public-private cooperation Entrepreneurs will lead the "new beginning" between the US and Muslim majority countries, and Egypt will be the testing ground. Our country has been a prominent player in the entrepreneurship story since June 2009 when, at Cairo University, US President Barack Obama announced plans to hold a Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship. In April 2010, Egypt sent the largest delegation of any country attending the summit, and left as the host for a pilot project of the US's new Global Entrepreneurship Programme (GEP). We thus have opportunity to define the entrepreneurial model for the Islamic world, and to showcase our most innovative citizens on the global stage. All of this is well and good, but if Egypt wants to become a leader in entrepreneurship we must guarantee that entrepreneurs are provided with an adequate enabling environment and resources to achieve and sustain an impact. Granting them such support will hinge on a new cooperative fabric for our private and public sectors, to leverage and serve their mutual strengths and interests. A thriving entrepreneurial environment requires many players, but without private and public sector leaders working in tandem, a partnership to own and drive the initiative, we will fall short of growing and sustaining our entrepreneurial potential. Over the past year, entrepreneurship has become fashionable, a new language of communication. There was a time when Egypt's businessmen were mandated to drive our growth and development. However, President Obama's summit formalised entrepreneurs as the new locomotives of progress. While many entrepreneurs have profitable ventures, they are trademarked by their use of creativity and innovation to generate big financial and/or social impacts. An entrepreneur, to quote economist Jean-Baptiste Say, "shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity". These innovators can create small and medium-sized enterprises as well as large scale, global businesses (for example, Bill Gates, perhaps the most globally renowned entrepreneur), and Egypt is indeed fortunate to have been chosen to help usher in a new entrepreneurial age. A society led by these agents of change is inspiring, but how can we build it? We have a year until the next summit, to be held in Turkey, where we will present our entrepreneurial model, but we still need a godfather, a primary agent of the initiative to truly create an entrepreneurial model in Egypt. Yes, Egypt is a natural choice for kick-starting the Global Entrepreneurship Programme. It has the core ingredients needed for an entrepreneurial society -- an active private sector, a young, large and educated population and a steadily improving business climate that the World Bank has named a top business reformer in three of the last four years. We also have many NGOs and universities that have committed to fostering entrepreneurship as well. However, to create Egypt's entrepreneurial ecosystem, the public and private sectors must grab the reigns. In light of the GEP, Egypt's private sector has the responsibility to drive innovation, risk-taking and new momentum into the economy through supporting entrepreneurship. We have a contingent of very successful businessmen who must help carry the load of entrepreneurial change in our country. They can provide the logistics for entrepreneurs such as mentoring and networks, which can pay enormous dividends. The private sector can also work with universities to encourage risk-taking amongst young people, serving as ambassadors of entrepreneurship. A new paradigm of private sector involvement is indeed needed, yet private businesses alone will not do the trick. For entrepreneurship to take full flight in Egypt, the public sector must also realise it has a stake in this process. Entrepreneurship increases economic opportunities and can advance human welfare, thus a sound entrepreneurial ecosystem is a crucial public service that will not happen without thorough government support. To thrive, entrepreneurs require an enabling legal framework and specific regulations supporting and encouraging entrepreneurship. Partnerships between private and public leaders can help diffuse the entrepreneurial message throughout Egypt and the two must see the mutual benefits in collaborating. For example, public-private partnership can create a knowledge-sharing portal, an online platform where entrepreneurs can share information, present ideas and plant the seeds of collaboration. If Egypt wants to become a model for entrepreneurship it must also embrace public-private collaboration. Entrepreneurs can change societies and economies, yet without the guardians of these areas leading the process, we will not attain the needed environment. These ideas are by no means the sole components of a successful entrepreneurial society, but they are vital to Egypt capitalising on this historic opportunity. * The writer is director of the Trade Related Assistance Centre of the American Chamber of Commerce.
