FIFTEEN Egyptian entrepreneurs were invited to the US Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship hosted in Washington DC with more than 250 delegates, mostly from Muslim communities, from over 50 countries around the world. The summit, which ended Tuesday, is considered an attempt to forge ties between business leaders and entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities the world over. The Egyptian delegation included prominent figures like Helmy Abouleish, vice-chairman and managing director of Sekem Group in Egypt, and Mohamed El-Sawy, founder of Al-Sawy Culture Wheel. The summit delegates represented various specialisations, including education, non-profit community development, and business entrepreneurship. In his speech to the summit, President Barack said he pledged to "forge a new partnership, not simply between governments, but also between people on the issues that matter most in their daily lives -- in your lives." He said "we will bring business and social entrepreneurs from Muslim countries, and send American counterparts to learn from your countries," he said. "We are forging new partnerships in which high-tech leaders from Silicon Valley will share their expertise in virtual capital, mentorships, technology incubators, with partners in the Middle East, in Turkey and Southeast Asia," he said. highlighted that trade between the United States and Muslim-majority countries has grown. "But all this trade, combined, is still only about the same as our trade with one country -- Mexico. So there's so much more we can do together, in partnership, to foster opportunity and prosperity in all our countries." added that the Global Technology and Innovation Fund would potentially mobilise more than $2 billion in private capital to promote investment in Muslim countries' entrepreneurship. A second entrepreneurship summit will be held in Turkey next year. The summit was first announced at 's much- anticipated speech in Cairo last year. US Ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scobey, speaking at an event organised by the US Embassy in Cairo to mark the summit, said that Egypt has a great number of NGOs and academic programmes actively engaged in entrepreneurship. She added that the summit aims to build a network of entrepreneurs and bolster the momentum of Egypt-US relations in this field. Speaking at the same event, a group of Egyptian entrepreneurs underlined the importance of education and training. "Unless there is a businessman or entrepreneur in the family, the youth do not know how to begin their own business. Ask any middle school youngster about his future, most answers will be an engineer or a doctor," Dina El-Mofty, executive director of Injaz Egypt, an organisation that bridges the gap between education and the private sector, said, adding "These professions are great, but after a long education [youngsters] realise the harsh reality of existing surplus in these specialisations." Reported by Ahmed Abu Ghazala
