Study Abroad Blog Group 1 - International Entrepreneurship Focusing on Egypt and Dubai

Today was our last day in Dubai. Germaine spent his morning at the beach and Aimee, Stephen, and I went to the Mall of the Emirates, which is the largest mall in the world. Stephen hit the slopes in Ski Dubai, an indoor ski resort within the mall. That's right, Dubai has everything, including snow in the desert! Aimee and I shopped with Lee and Fazana to pick up a few souvenirs. The mall had many of the same stores that we have in the US, but also had some Arabic stores. As we walked through the mall, I noticed how diverse the shoppers were, with people from all over the world shopping on their weekend. You could easily mistake this mall for any mall in the US until it was time for prayer. We heard arabic prayers over the speakers and many of the Arabic stores closed until prayer was over.

Then we went back to the hotel to meet our study abroad group and all of us went on a city tour of Dubai. Our first stop on the tour was the Jumeria Mosque, which is the largest mosque in Dubai, holding 1,200 people. Unfortunately because this was their day of worship we were unable to tour the inside of the mosque, but a we endured the afternoon heat to snap a few photos outside.

We also toured the Dubai Museum, which depicts the history of Dubai. Dubai began as a major pearl, fish, and gold exporter to India and Europe until oil was discovered in the 1960's. This discovery lead to massive economic and political growth for Dubai. The city continued to grow through the 1970's, 1980's, and into the 1990's. Once Sheikh Mohammed took office he began to transform the city in order to diversify Dubai, as his region will run out of oil by 2013. And he isn't done yet! The Palm, Festival City, Health City, the World, Dubai Sports City, Dubailand, and Burj Dubai are all coming soon.

Our next adventure was crossing the creek on an Abra taxi ride. We all enjoyed a peaceful ride across the creek as we were able to once again see the beautiful Dubai skyline. After we crossed the river, we went to the spice and gold souqs, which are outdoor markets. The markets reminded me of Egypt, with a lot of people bustling through the alleys and aggressive vendors trying to get your attention. This didn't prevent Stephen from searching high and low for some more jeans! Unfortunately we didn't find any men's jean stores, but Aimee found a pair of jeans, along with pearl earrings.

Now we are in the Dubai airport preparing for our flight to Amsterdam and then to Atlanta. All of us are tired from our full day as we embark on our journey home, but we are all looking forward to seeing our families and sleeping in our own beds! As I sit here in the airport, I feel like our initial flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam was a lifetime ago. The past two weeks I have learned so much about entrepreneurship, business and culture in Egypt and Dubai. Although this may sound cliche, I feel that I will return to Atlanta as a different person.

Today began with an interview at Health Care City, which is one of Dubai's Free Zones. Free Zones are designated areas for property and business ownership without Emirati sponsorship. Although Free Zones exist, a large majority of properties are owned by the government. Our group interviewed entrepreneur Darryn Heast whose company, MedCells, partners with British based corporation Future Health. As an agent for Future Health, MedCells collects blood and stem cells from umbilical cords. The cells are collected and stored in the United Kingdom. These cells serve as life-lines for future use upon diagnosis of diseases such as Thalassemia, and Sickle Cell Anemia. In the UAE (United Arab Emirates) there have been 240 different genetic disorders identified. Moreover, 1 in every 217 UAE citizens will have a stem cell transplant in their lifetime. Another interesting part of Heast’s business was that he required his customers to sign contracts in accordance to UK law; the processing and storage of the stem cells occur after MedCells ships them to the UK. Upon completion of the interview, we asked Heast to give us insight in regards to entrepreneurship in Dubai. He stressed the importance of starting a business that correlates well with your personal knowledge instead of just starting a business because you're interested in it (what we call "lifestyle entrepreneurship"). After speaking with Heast, I realized that stem cell research is an important resource for future health care.

Once we finished at MedCells, Christa, Aimee, and I traveled to Booz Allen Hamilton, a Financial Firm. Stephen decided to visit his company King & Spalding's office, here in Dubai. Due to slightly misleading information, we arrived at Booz Allen Hamilton an hour prior to our scheduled engagement. Once the meeting began I was astonished to learn so many different things in regards to financing. Booz Allen employs over 300 people at their firm in Dubai. The company offers plans to help businesses establish a customer base. They surpass competitors by offering approximately 30 percent initial rate of return. One of their leading competitors in Dubai is McKinsey Financial firm. When asked about some of their challenges, they mentioned inflation and qualification of persons to receive there help. Also, they mentioned the lack of women and qualified persons in the industry.

Later in the afternoon we all attended a seminar at a local college. The college was composed of many different universities. It was a unique experience to interact with local students. We participated in many different activities that demonstrated leadership and self determination. They also served an appetizing lunch complete with cappuccino that gave me an extreme energy boost. Once we finished eating, we participated in a very useful and informing Q and A session.

That night we all decided to visit the local club scene. A few of the undergraduates and I went out to the Dubai Marina Bay Hotel. The hotel is composed of about five different clubs. The night life was amazing, and the people were great. Stephen, Aimee and Christa went to the Meridian Hotel which had a very popular bar, Barasti, on the beach. They described it as really hot, but very crowded with young professionals and tourists and overal a great sample of Dubai nightlife. We ended the night around 3 a.m., and prepared for our final day in Dubai.

We had a small group this morning. Two teams had entrepreneur interviews and a few slept in sick. We started the morning with a trip to the UPS-UAE distribution center. The warehouse was not climate controlled so we stood in the 105 degree warehouse melting while we talked to Brett Kelvert the Operations Manager and Brent Melvin- the Business Development Manager. They were really accommodating for us and took the group into the smaller air conditioned offices a couple of times when people started to swoon. One of the interesting things that we learned from a business perspective is the trouble that UPS has in delivering in Dubai. There are no street names or addresses. They can only deliver by a landline phone number (Not a P.O. Box) and that's how packages are sorted. It's impressive how they altered their service to serve their market. Also delivery is drastically affected by all the construction in Dubai and delivery is REALLY inefficient. At 180,000 shipments a month, it's a pretty big headache for them, but they're doing their best to make it work. They have both vans and bicycles delivering. (I can't imagine cycling around this city. He described it as the reverse of windchill, where the hot dry air just sucks the moisture right out of your skin as you cycle.) They are also constantly expanding their operation to meet the boom in Dubai. There were 40 loops a few months ago, 45 now and there will be 50 by July to meet the delivery demands. The biggest problem is that the geography changes so fast here. Your drivers use GPS tracking systems and they'll be delivering a package to the Palm Jumeria (artificially created island) and the GPS system tells them they're driving in the middle of the ocean! Crazy. Well despite the heat in the warehouse, we learned a lot about the UPS operation here. Brett and Brent treated us well and had refreshments for us at the end in their air-conditioned reception room and we really appreciated their time with us.

From there, we hopped in the bus and drove off to one of the highlights of our trip. Lunch at the Burj Al Arab hotel, the only 7 star hotel in the world. Lunch was "suit and tie", and the other groups met up with us at the gate. We're a good looking class. We clean up well. We entered the lobby to be met by an attendant pouring rose water on our hands. Gold leaf decor everywhere. It was a pretty amazing atrium. There were aquariums, tile mosaics, lights, magic, stars, and God showed up. (You get the point). Designer clothing and jewelry boutiques in the lobby where I tried on a 67,000 Dirham watch ($18,241 USD) and we mingled in the lobby for a spell before we went to lunch. Lunch was amazing although I wonder about the $350.00USD/person price tag. Still we all had a blast and I think we took more pictures here than at the pyramids in Egypt.

The evening activities were incredible; we went on a Desert Safari. It was VERY touristy, but efficient in that we squeezed in a sample of all stereotypical Arabian tourist activities in a single evening. The whole class got picked up in air-conditioned SUVs (thank God) and we drove out to the remote desert. (When you think you've driven too far, you're almost there). The first hour was off-road sand dune driving. It was incredible and the whole SUV was sliding around like on an icy road. A few times we thought it was going to flip over, but it was a blast. We stopped in at a camel farm for a photo op and then continued driving to the "camp" for our evening of partying. There was camel riding, "sand boarding" (think snowboarding in an oven), henna tattooing (yes. we all did), eating, drinking , belly dancing (yes. we all did. Got some great video of Christa shakin' her thing), and relaxing under the desert moon. We went home full, tattooed and happy.

Today was our first day to sleep in! Yeah! The few extra hours will help everyone in the class, whether for sleep or patience.

Our group went in search of an entrepreneur this morning and found out a few things about Dubai. First of all, everyone is friendly even if they don’t know what you are saying. Next we found out that a lot of business owners do not work until 7 pm, which is probably when the store closes. Also, most of the owners are silent and do not participate in day to day activities. We came to the conclusion that it is harder to find business owners in Dubai that are an active part of their stores. We ran out of time, grabbed lunch and met the class for our next adventure.

The class met at 1:00 to go to Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC). The trip over was very exciting for me. I got to see a lot of the buildings that I have been seeing on the internet and TV; such as the Emirates Towers, World Trade Centre, the making of the Burj Dubai, and some hotels.

At the DIFC we met Dr. Zeinab, or "Dr. Z", the director of research for the investments department. She has only worked there for 3 months, but has done a lot with them so far, including, meeting with 3 academia groups in the past month. Dr. Z moved to Dubai in 1998 from Washington D.C. Some things Dr. Z told us that really made an impact on us were: “I wouldn’t have wished a better place to raise my 3 daughters.” and “I got the American dream and then found a better dream.” This, I thought, gave a very strong statement about Dubai.

Okay, back to DIFC. Dubai has based most of their projects on a cluster model. This means that they have little community-like areas for different sectors. For example, e-Dubai is the technology sector, DIFC is the financial sector, and so on. It is a city within a city. They have their own courts, their own laws, their own Governor. Hawkamah is their centre for corporate governance. They look at things through a client perspective and try to make life easier and similar to the West. They are trying to not create a new environment for people to get used to.

The center is 110 acres and they are planning on finishing it in 2-3 years time and to employ 65-67 thousand people. They are trying to make the center a lifestyle for people; they have housing, restaurants, school and of course work.

Some of the people who talked with us were: Mr. Abdallah (Managing director), Shaikha Al Marri and Sarah Kamal (DIFX People), Ahmed Vasel (Insurance segment area of focus), and Natalie Nakad (Young Arab Leaders).

Tonight, a group of 11 of us took an adventure to Jumeirah Beach Park and had dinner there. By the time we got to the beach, the sun had set and security didn't let us walk up to the water, but we at least walked on the sand and saw the Persian Gulf. After dinner, we went to the hotel and Stephen went out with some of the students to a nightclub called "360" next to the Burj Al Arab where we're having lunch tomorrow. He said the club was amazing and was a round terrance restaurant out on the harbour joined by a small walkway. We'll probably go there again on Thursday night to see it as a group.

Our first work day in Dubai. It was as hot as Luxor and we were wearing business clothes. We started the day late because the bus was an hour late picking us up at the hotel and went to our first tour at The Apple International School. As we walked into the school I noticed sand drifts against the curbs and the wind blowing sand down the street like I would see snow blowing down the street in winter back in Winnipeg. It was actually hard to breathe because of the dry air and the dust. The school was owned by a young entrepreneur Nabil Lahir who owned two schools and a construction company. Interesting combination. The school was actually an extension of his family's business in India in classic "opportunity entrepreneurship". His grandfather ran schools in India for 45 years and they decided in 1994 to open a school in the growing Dubai market. They used capital from the schools in India to start the school in Dubai where many expatriates were moving. The school's general manager Mr. Pradeepkumar also joined us and explained that the school has years of experience in this market and has a reputation for high quality education to help distinguish it from competitors. Marketing is minimal since their reputation spreads mostly by word of mouth and there is a waiting list for children to attend the school. At prices of 525 Dirham to 810 Dirham per month tuition ( $140 to $220 USD), we were surprised at how inexpensive private school tuition was compared to America. I'm sure a lot of my friends are reading this with raised eyebrows. The school's principal Mrs. Maitra joined us to comment on the education system in the middle east as well. She said that a rewarding part of her job was to see the multicultural class rooms and commented that to have global achievement, cultural diversity is essential. She did acknowledge the importance of being sensitive to the cultural diversity which can sometimes result in charged discussions with parents and conflicts between students. The challenge they have in Dubai is the very active presence of the Ministry of Education. The MoE needs to approve everything, such as teacher requirements, curriculum, hiring, etc which really slows down any changes at the school. There is also a lot more red tape to set up a school in Dubai than in Cairo and the successful entrepreneur will know what to do and when to do it. We were very impressed by the wealth of the school compared to the school we saw in Cairo last Friday in the recycling neighbourhood (e.g. bus fleet, swimming pool). It was a really nice place.

From the school, Nabil took us to his construction company office and spoke about the construction side of his family's business. The business originally encompassed smaller projects that included repairs and maintenance. For example building the schools that his family owned. Recently they have started working on larger projects in Dubai and have created a new building company to distinguish the new projects from the old construction company. They hire many of their workers locally and also recruit some from India and sponsor their work visas for 3 year contracts. We were surprised at the rising costs they are faced with. Diesel gas has jumped from 15 Dirham to 17.5 Dirham per liter in the last couple of weeks. A bag of cement has gone from 17 Dirham to 37 Dirham in the last few months. Wow!! How can you function with that kind of uncertainty? When the provide a bid on a tender, the bid is only good for 2 weeks because the prices can increase so quickly. He believes that you need to be passionate and ambitions and make the right decision at the right time. In his opinion, the construction boom in Dubai is set to last another 10 years so there'll be enough opportunity for his company.

After the meeting, we returned to the hotel and had a second meeting with a young real estate entrepreneur, Mr. Fadi Alnwilati Almasri of GS Real Estate. He spoke to us for almost 2 hours and blew us all away. He started his business less than two years ago with $12,000 startup capital and a handful of sales people to work various aspects of real estate (brokerage, agency, management and leasing). This was enough to cover 2 months rent, 2 sales staff and 1 office boy. He knew that he'd either succeed or fail in the first two months. Competition is fierce with 2800 companies doing the same thing as him. Selling real estate for the property developers isn't easy, but with an average of 5% commission, it's certainly attractive. The company started being successful by selling 12 floors in an office tower being built by Damac. In the last year the company has grown FAST. He says "too fast" and we agree. There are now 52 employees and offices in Syria, Lebanon and new divisions in tourism, interior design and software development that are all related to the original company. He says that he is having challenges right now with communications, marketing and management because of the fast growth but he enjoys it and will continue to work through it until it becomes smoother even if that means continuing his 20 hour work days everyday (including weekends). Still after selling $400 million USD worth of property in less than two years, he's certainly doing something right. The key he says is to know the demographic of your market. He is an extremely knowledgeable and wise business man and the key to his success is to stay calm. "You need to stay calm. If you get nervous or upset, you're not going to make the correct decisions when you're solving problems." He continued to talk to us about Arab culture, Islamic banking and gave us such incredible knowledge, experience and wisdom that we were floored to find out ...he was 24. He has as knowledgeable and wise, if not more, than many silver-haired CEOs I've met. This meeting was totally inspiring and was one of the highlights of my trip.

We took it easy afterwards and worked in our rooms until about 7pm when the sun was setting and then I ventured out with Lee and Tonia for dinner. It was still hot (100F) and dry, but the direct sun was gone and there was a dry desert breeze that still blew sand down the streets. We caught a bite to eat and went for a little walk around the neighbourhood before going back to the hotel. There were a lot of people out and about and we remarked at how clean the streets were. We stocked up on bottled water at the corner store and enjoyed a quiet evening in the hotel after our long travel day yesterday.

Today began similar to the rest. Everyone had a set time to meet at the bus. Surprisingly, everyone was on time. A few days earlier we traveled from Cairo to Luxor, in search of more history and entrepreneurship. Today we are headed to Dubai, the land of extraordinary buildings, and many different entrepreneurs. Stephen scheduled a meeting with one of the most successful entrepreneurs in all of Egypt. The only dilemma was that the meeting was during our layover in Cairo.

Once we landed in Cairo our tour guide helped us find a taxi, it was about 2:00 p.m. at that time, and we had to be back at the airport by 5:00 p.m. We calculated that we had about 2 hours to travel to and from our destination, and about an hour to interview the entrepreneur, which left us no time to spare. We experienced our first delay while waiting for the taxi. A two-minute wait, turned into a 15-minute delay. The taxi finally arrived and our tour guide explained to him where our destination was, and the amount of time we had to complete our journey.

On our way there the taxi driver earned the name, Turbo Taxi. As the sub-human taxi driver weaved in and out of traffic, at speeds three times as fast as the other drivers, we felt that we were going to either get there in record timing, or collide with cars and/or pedestrians. Fortunately, we made it to the address safely, however; it was the wrong address. At that time I realized that an adventure was in our near future. The time was around 2:45 p.m. I felt that the interview was not going to happen considering we were four foreigners traveling with a taxi driver that only knew few English words, “thank you,” and “tip please.”

For the next hour, we traveled around downtown Cairo in search of the correct location, frantically asking as many pedestrians possible. The Canadian Embassy was our contact and was trying to contact us to help as well. Finally, as we all surrendered to the fact that we were not going to make it to the entrepreneur in time, Stephen called and delivered the bad news to the office of the entrepreneur. As the conversation came to an end the taxi driver interrupted by pointing in the direction of the correct building, which he had finally found. We all decided to go and introduce ourselves, and collect as much information as possible despite the fact that Stephen had cancelled 30 seconds earlier.

As the interview began, Emad Abdel Rahman mentioned that his company was the biggest importer of Canadian goods in Egypt. He and his brother inherited the business in 1987. They import seafood, dairy products, maple syrup, and other products. They supply companies also found in the states, such as, Fuddruckers, and Ruby Tuesdays. When asked about his biggest challenges, he mentioned the difficulty he faced trying to find financing. He also talked about how difficult it was to find ways to grow.

This was our last interview for Egypt, and I found that a lot of the same issues seemed to hinder the majority of the businesses. I found the issue of raising capital to be a major problem in Egypt. Many of the entrepreneurs stated that the government is working hard to help correct this problem. I feel that this is something that must happen for Egypt to become a competitive country in regards to wealth.

So we started off our morning touring Luxor with a 6:00 a.m. meeting time to head off to the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut’s tomb and a papyrus store.

At the Valley of the Kings we saw the tombs of King Rameses I, III and IV. Stephen and Dewanna also went into King Tut’s tomb. The other tombs were closed for restoration. They were all very different, yet had the same setups. The drawings and hieroglyphics on the walls and ceilings of the tombs were amazing. It blows me away that these tombs have endured so many years and you can still read, or for most of us see, the drawings. The mountains that surrounded the tombs were also incredible. By the time we were done it was only about 9 a.m. and was already about 90 degrees outside (at least).

We got back on the bus, cooled off on the air conditioning, refilled our systems with water and listened to Stephen become our new guide. He told us about the focus of our next stop, Hatshepsut, and how she ran her Kingdom like we would consider running a business. By the time we stopped and got back out of the bus, it was the hottest we have seen here in Egypt and not even noon! Hatshepsut’s temple (Al-Deir Al-Bahari) was very nicely put right near the base of a mountain that gave the temple even more splendor.

On our way home our guide, Hassan, took us by a papyrus museum and store. Many of us bought papyrus paper to bring home to our families and friends. By the time we were done it was too hot to continue touring, so we headed back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep, swimming, or whatever one wished.

We headed back out at 4 p.m. to see Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple. The Karnak Temple was so large that it covered 60 acres! And this was only their place of worship. I can only image what their palaces looked like. Luxor Temple, on the other hand, was much smaller. Through the years it has had a mosque built on it and one of the “chambers” covered in Roman paintings. Lee noticed that USAID, the government agency we met earlier in the week, contributed to the restoration of those paintings.

For any of you who were wondering, yes, there were lots of vendors (people trying to make a living off of tourists like us) out today. I do have to say that the vendors were in a more controlled area so that they weren’t as bad as at the pyramids. And yes, we did contribute once again more than our fair share to the Egyptian economy and their tourism sector by buying a lot of “treasures.” So, overall today was a very enjoyable and relaxing day for us.

Today was literally one of the most memorable days of my life. Our class began our morning by meeting with Dr. Laila Iskandar Kamel, the Founder and Managing Director of Community and Institutional Development Group and Ezzat Naem Gundy, the Executive Director of the Spirit of Youth NGO. When I was arranging the meeting and Dr. Iskandar suggested we meet at the bus stop by the Citadel, I was confused. I thought, “Why couldn’t we just meet directly at the recycling center?” When we arrived at the bus stop, Dr. Iskandar was waiting for us in her car and our tour bus followed her. We pulled up to, as Jim called it, a dump. Then our bus driver stopped and told us that he would not drive any further because he felt that the roads were too narrow for the bus, so we had to walk. So our whole class got out of the bus and began walking on a dirt road in our business clothes. I imagined that my classmates were thinking, “What the hell has Christa gotten us into?" If they did think that, I wouldn’t blame them, because I was thinking the same thing!

As we followed Dr. Iskandar, I realized that we were not in a dump, but rather a community where people lived. My heart sank. Just then, Dr. Iskandar led us to a very small school where we saw a handful of children working outside with block puzzles just like the ones I have bought my niece and nephew. It was here that Dr. Iskandar and Mr. Naem provided us with a background of their two organizations and how they are working together to improve the community. They explained how this school educates and employs these very poor children. It is a strange concept to us westerners, but it really works.

An example of this is a situation where a few big multinationals were upset that their shampoo bottles were being reused, filled with knock off products, and then being resold to the public. Dr. Iskandar and Mr. Naem created a program together where the garbage collectors recycle empty containers in return for educational funding from the companies wanting to protect their brand image. As the boys sort the garbage and learn the difference between Head and Shoulders and Pert, they improve their motor skills, reading, and learn multiplication. The center recycles 80% of the waste, which is the highest in the world. The organization even sells the organic waste to a compost plant that then receives money from carbon trading. Dr. Iskandar, just like many of the entrepreneurs we have met, stressed the importance of having good partners and creating a sound business based on understanding the market and your customers. Dr. Iskandar told us that these poor children know about marketing… and they don’t have their MBA’s!

As we toured the school, we saw firsthand a health and safety, computer, and even a Montessori section of the school. The school is educating the children to one day become recycling owners. Our grand finale was a musical performance by a group of boys. As I watched a boy tapping an empty Coke bottle to the rhythm of the music, I realized I had tears in my eyes.

Dr. Iskandar continued our tour throughout the community. Our group had the opportunity to pile in a microbus. A microbus is basically a minivan with as many seats as humanly possible; I think we had about 20 people in our van. Stephen noticed that as we drove and passed people in the street, they were not downtrodden or sad. Rather, they were waiving to us and had smiles on their faces. They are proud to be recyclers.

Our last stop was a building where girls use textile scraps to make products like bags, blankets, and pillow cases that they sell. Dr. Iskandar explained that the boys are responsible for recycling and the girls are responsible for the textiles. Because the girls never know what colors or how much material they will receive from their vendors, they must learn how to multiply in order to change the designs quickly and also manage their inventory. As the girls work and go to school, they become empowered. Dr. Iskandar said that they also teach reproductive health to the women and many are choosing not to circumcise their daughters.

As I reflect on my experience, I am fascinated at how the entire community welcomed our group into their neighborhood with open arms. Dr. Iskandar, Mr. Naem, and all of the people in their community are amazing individuals and I feel very fortunate and privileged to have spent a few hours with them today. Their passion, dedication, savvy business sense, and ability to find creative solutions make them amazing entrepreneurs as well.

After our meeting with Dr. Iskandar and Mr. Naem, we killed some time by shopping in Cairo until we headed to the airport to fly to Luxor. A few of us picked up some souvenirs, but Stephen was very disappointed that he did not see any jean stores!

We’re now in Luxor and tomorrow we’re off to see the Valley of the Kings. We have a 6 a.m. start to try and avoid the heat, although I’m not sure if that possible, since it was 100° when we arrived tonight at 8 p.m.

Wow! Today was another busy day for our us. Aimee and Germaine were both feeling much better, so our team was back in full force. Our first meeting was with Dr. Joseph Ryan, Jr., the Associate Mission Director for Policy and Private Sector for USAID. Aimee and Germaine were able to experience the intense security like Stephen and I had at the US Embassy the day before. It only took 45 minutes this time to get in. At least we felt really safe! We learned that USAID is part of the State Department that is invited by governments to assist organizations whether they are governmental or entrepreneurial, in low to mid- income countries in technical, financial, and balance of payment areas. (Basically they help improve the climate to do business). For example, in Egypt they helped improve the customs process by 1) designing an IT system that improved their processes and 2) reducing the number of custom agents at the ports. A few of us commented how great it was to learn first hand about the great U.S. government projects, but we never thought we would learn about our own government in Cairo!

Next we had lunch with Mohamed Radwan, Managing Director of Platinum Partners, a leading entrepreneur in the region. It's hard to put it all into such a small blog! Our whole class was amazed at how much we learned from Mr. Radwan in just a few minutes. In his opinion, the infrastructure in Dubai is much better for entrepreneurship because it takes only a few hours to get a business license in Dubai, compared to the one week to three months that it takes to get a similar license in Egypt. However, the operational cost of running a business is much cheaper in Egypt compared to Dubai. Also, he said that Dubai is primarily a service-based economy and Egypt is a consumer-based market. Dubai is known for being a “suitcase country”, or “golden cage with no spirit”, meaning that businesspeople go to Dubai to perform their business and then leave. Many are speculating if the growth in Dubai is sustainable and no one knows for sure. For that reason, many businesspeople have a backup plan, lease rather than buy their real estate, and set up small, if any, manufacturing plants for easy exit.

Mr. Radwan discussed how most businesses are financed in Egypt. He provided four common methods for funding, from the most popular to the least:
The entrepreneur saved money
The entrepreneur came from a wealthy family
The entrepreneur inherited a business from another family member and is diversifying the business
The entrepreneur boot strapped the business

There is help for entrepreneurs. The IMC is an organization will help local Egyptian entrepreneurs and pay 80% of approved expenses such as setting up a website, attending conferences, write a business plan, and hire consultants to start a business. Their biggest challenge – finding qualified businesses to spend their money on!

Then we drove to the Social Fund for Development to meet with Hanaa El Hilaly once again and three successful entrepreneurs that received assistance from the organization. The stories were unbelievably inspiring. These entrepreneurs started their businesses with as little as $10USD capital investment and have grown to internationally recognizable businesses. Some common themes that we heard from these individuals were that credibility, commitment, passion, ability to change failures into successes, and good relations with employees are keys to success. I was impressed with not only their commitment and determination through difficult and life changing events, but their loyalty to the Social Fund for Development. This organization is truly changing people’s lives one local entrepreneur at a time. It's estimated that the SFD has helped about 800,000 people so far, truly changing the culture.

We ended the day by meeting Dr. Magda Iskandar, founder of the Care With Love organization. We were pretty tired, but this meeting was incredible. Dr. Iskandar started a home health care system to accomplish two objectives:

1) Enabling individuals with health needs to stay in the comfort of their homes
2) Creating new jobs opportunities for young people

The Care with Love organization also has a partnership with Friends of Children with Cancer organization. Together they created a halfway house to teach nutrition to mothers and care for children with cancer..

Dr. Iskander personified everything that we have learned so far. Some examples are working in something you are passionate about and have experience in, identifying a niche market, the importance of partnerships, comprehensively training and supporting employees, having a competitive advantage over other competitors, selling a premium service, and thinking creatively. She took us on a tour of her facility and the entire class was awestruck by her passion and humility. We showered her with appreciation and praise and her first response was to explain how critical her team has been to her success. Dr. Magda, all of her employees, and volunteers are an inspiration to all that come into contact these organizations. I felt that it was a perfect way to end a long, but very educational and inspiring day.

As were all boarding the bus, Stephen ducked into a jeans store on the sidewalk and bought 2 pair of jeans in 10 minutes for $50. How efficient! It was funny that the salesclerk added a tip into the price for his "help" finding the right size for him. We ended the evening relaxing and doing group work at the hotel and getting ready for tomorrow.

Germaine and Aimee stayed home sick today, so it was just Christa and I for the day. We started by going to the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt (AmCham). Our first two speakers Mr. Mohamed El Kalla and Ms. Hanaa El Hilaly talked about education programs and the Social Development Fund to create jobs and promote entrepreneurship in Egypt. Ms. El Hilaly was very dynamic and talked about the new "one stop shops"; offices that have all the government agencies under one roof to make it easy to start a business in one location. These offices shave the start up red tape from months to days. Quoting Whitney Houston "I believe the children are future." (seriously), she told us about education programs in grade schools to destigmatize independent business ownership in Egyptian culture. I didnít know it was so frowned on.

We were honored to have the Executive Director, Mr. Hisham Fahny talk to us about AmCham and their mission. I was surprised that up until very recently it was illegal to default on a loan and with no Chapter 11 protection, you could go to jail if your business failed. Ergot, the BIG social stigma associated with being an entrepreneur in Egypt. Thatís why theyíre trying to change the attitudes. I was also surprised to find out how few properties are registered in Egypt so people can avoid paying property tax. He was a very entertaining speaker too, showing off his British education and hangover accent.

After AmCham, we went to the American University in Cairo and met with Dr. Sharif in the management department who talked about the increasing university entrepreneurship program. Then from there we went to the U.S. Embassy where we spent just as much time going through security as we did meeting with Christina Sharkey who spoke to us about importing U.S. products to Egypt. It was very interesting to hear the differences between her talk and Ms. El Hilaly, for example the ease/difficulty of importing goods at Egyptian ports.

Wow. Busy day. We still had to eat though and Aimeeís friend Yasmeen invited us to go to a lounge with her friends that night. We took a taxi (held together with scotch tape) in rush hour to downtown. It is called rush hour because it took us a full hour. Traffic crawled in the heat, pedestrians were walking on the highway passing us. A boy was walking car to car selling bunches of mint, the minty exhaust fumes were sickening and for our entertainment (thanks to Aimee) the driver folded down the sun visor video screen to play a video of circa 1970ís belly dancers at full volume. Yep. I almost had a stroke.

We arrived at Bora Bora lounge and everyone was ready to go home, but within minutes Yasmeen and her friends had us laughing, eating, smoking a hooka and belly dancing to Egyptian music. We stayed a lot longer than we expected lounging on sofas 10 feet from the Nile and asking Iman and Salma the singers names of every song. By the end of the evening, we were driving home smiling thinking about how surreal the evening was.

Today was a very interesting day. The day began early and ended late. It allowed me to take advantage of all the things Egypt had to offer, the good and the bad. The exciting day started with a tour of the Memphis Museum, from there we traveled to Saqqara, one of the oldest man made structures in the world (5000 years old). Next, we visited the famous Giza Pyramids. Throughout, this journey we experienced many different entrepreneurs.

Memphis was the ancient capital of the old Kingdom of Egypt. In the past Memphis was one of the most elegant places in egypt. Today, elegant wouldn't be the word I would use to describe the city. However, Memphis is home to the statue of Ramses II. Ramses was king during 1300 b.c. He lived to be 93 years of age, which is unusual considering that the average man lived to his early 40's. He also had about 200 children. While visiting the statue I experienced many different entrepreneurs. It was interesting because many of the entrepreneurs seemed to be opportunity entrepreneurs opposed to necessity entrepreneurs. They were dressed fairly nice and didn't allow you to barter with them as much as some of the others. A place where bartering was a lot easier was at the Giza Pyramids.

While at Giza I experienced one of the World's Seven Wonders. The Great Pyramid was an amazing site to see. It's hard to imagine the hard work and brilliance it took to create something as large and precise, as the pyramids and the Sphinx. The pyramids are the last of the World's Seven Wonders. According to common perception, they were built with the help of great armies of slaves. Interesting enough, our tour guide mentioned that the pyramids were built by spiritual Egyptians who believed that building the pyramids would provide blessings for them and their families. The pyramids were meant to be tombs for the pharaohs to help preserve their royal bodies. They were monuments to the pharaoh's greatness, filled with great treasures for the afterlife.

My experience with entrepreneurship here was different from the experience I had in Memphis. Here at the Giza Pyramids the entrepreneurs range form the age of 6 to about 50. It was interesting to experience the marketing ability of the young children. Opposite from Memphis, the entrepreneurs here seemed to be more necessity than opportunity entrepreneurs. It was really an eye opener to see such young children out on the streets trying to sell postcards in hopes of making a couple of pounds (the Egyptian currency) to help provide for their families. It made me re-evaluate all of the things I take for granted.

Today was a very busy day. We started out going to IBM Egypt (thanks to Bonita) and the day ended with a very peaceful ride on the Nile in a faluka (Egyptian boat).

At IBM we listened to 3 different speakers who told us about Egypt, IBM, how they work together, and general Middle Eastern business practices. They generously served us a great lunch, and we returned to the hotel. The rest of the class had an hour until they all went to the Khan El Khalili bazzar, which is a market. Our group, on the other hand, got a taxi and went to visit our Egyptian entrepreneur, Hesham Al Sharkawy.

Mr. Hesham was very friendly towards us, and we want to thank him for his hospitality and time. He started out 20 years ago doing imports and exports; about 5 years ago Mr. Hesham changed his focus to oil and gas pipes and valves. Working with many large petroleum companies has started to stabilize his business. Mr. Hesham chose these industries because they were where he had prior experience. Since he started Arab Enterprises so many years ago, he was able to start quickly. In-between then and now it became harder to start a business, but now it is becoming easier again, much easier.

The worst and best things about being an entrepreneur: Mr. Hesham’s worst part, like most people, is the downs – the times when you just have to push through persevere. His best aspect is working for himself and the satisfaction he receives from becoming an accomplished business owner.

Some main things we learned from Mr. Hesham were first and foremost to love what you do and succeed in it. Secondly, being an entrepreneur is hard work, but it is the passion one has for his or her work that motivates that individual to do well. The hardest part is to stay in business, not starting a business. These were very wise words from a very wise man.

After meeting Mr. Hesham our group met up with the class in the market. The class then met Dr. Stewart for dinner and a faluka ride on the Nile River. It was a relaxing end to a long day.

While we were less than thrilled with our rooms last night, Siva spoke with the hotel and the staff moved all 27 of us into bigger, nicer, and bug free rooms.

Today was our first full day in Cairo. We slept in and went to the Museum of Antiquities in the afternoon. This museum displays the greatest pharaonic treasures in the world. The first display we saw was the Rosetta stone in the entrance of the museum. Our guide, Hassan, explained that the stone was found in Alexandria. The stone was a thank you note. from the residents of Rosetta to the Ptolemetic people for treating them well when they invaded their city. The stone was in three languages:
1. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics (religious scroll)
2. Script hieroglyphics
3. Greek

The significance of the artifact is that this was the first archeological evidence that could be translated because it was also in Greek. This was the "Helen Keller" moment of Egyptology.

We spent the rest of the afternoon looking at amazing exhibits from the Valley of the Kings. We learned that tombs and funerals are the main artifacts of Egyptology because those were built in the desert and made out of stone. There was little left of the ancient cities because, Egyptians lived close to the Nile and built their houses out of mud bricks, since it was cooler than of stone. Unfortunately, the Nile was prone to flooding and many mud brick buildings have long been destroyed.

As we walked from the museum back to our tour bus, we experienced necessity entrepreneurship firsthand. There were several vendors selling "papyrus" prints. Many of our classmates bought several of these prints as souvenirs for their friends and family. Once we got on the bus, our tour guide informed us that these prints were actually fake papyrus prints and were made out of banana paper. Our guide explained that he did not forewarn us because if he did these vendors would get very upset and these Egyptians need to earn a living as well. These vendors are necessity entrepreneurs because they have few other options to earn a living and support their families.

After the museum we met up with Aimee's friend, Yasmeen and her boyfriend, Mohammed. They took us to an authentic Egyptian restaurant, Abou El Sid, in the Dandy Mall. Yasmeen and Mohammed negotiated a reasonable taxi fare to and from the restaurant. When we entered into the mall I will admit I was surprised that I had to put my purse through a metal detector. The restaurant was very brightly decorated with gold, red, and blue walls and pictures of famous Egyptians in the 20th century on the walls. We ordered seven different entrees so that we could all try a little bit of everything. I think that all of us were very surprised that we liked the Egyptian cuisine so much! So much for losing weight this trip:)

Our group was so thankful that Yasmeen and Mohammed took time out of their busy day to spend several hours with us and give us a small insight into their Egyptian culture. We had a wonderful evening and are looking forward to learning more while we are in Cairo.

We're off! We met up at the airport mid afternoon. Stephen was the last of our team to arrive because he, Lee and Linda had a flat tire on the connector en route to the airport. We were impressed on KLM with their service especially the free drinks (ironic going on a trip to a muslim country). We landed at Shiphol airport around 8am and since we had a 12 hour layover, (and in spite of the rain) some people went into Amsterdam for the day, but Stephen went to the Hague since he's been to Amsterdam before. Our flight to Cairo was only 4 hours ,but seemed really long since we were so tired.

We arrived in Cairo around 2am and our tour guides were there holding a sign "GUS study tour" we raised an eyebrow but they showed us VERY quickly that they were amazing. They took our entire class through the passport line without waiting, our luggage came off the plane and they loaded it all onto our bus in a heartbeat and then it was a 45 minute drive to the hotel. We checked into our rooms around 4am (after the most spaced out group photo you've ever seen). The rooms were a little less than what we expected, but we were too tired to make an issue of it at the time and called it a night.

I remember when my parents opened my first bank account for me as a child and I struggled to understand what banking was all about. I just didn't get it. Granted I was in grade school but it took me years to figure out the subtleties. Now I stumbled across Islamic banking and I thought it would be worth giving a little exposure to it here.

Islamic banking describes a system of banking or banking activity that complies with Islamic Sharia rules and is guided by Islamic economics. This system really was formally developed in the late 20th century, and there are three general features that I thought were interesting. 1) the sharing of priofit and loss, 2) prohibiting the collection and payment of interest, (called riba) and 3) forbidding investement in businesses that are haraam or impermissible (such as businesses that sell alcohol or pork, or businesses that produce media such as gossip columns or pornography, which are contrary to Islamic values). Permissible businesses are called "Halal". Islamic banks and banking institutions have Shariah advisory committees/consultants to act as advisors and to ensure that the operations of the bank comply with Shariah principles. Other banking transactions exist such as profit sharing (Mudharabah), safekeeping (Wadiah), joint venture (Musharakah), cost plus (Murabahah) and leasing (Ijarah), Islamic Bonds (Sukuk), and Islamic Insurance(Takaful).

The Islamic ban on interest does not mean that capital doesn't cost anything in an Islamic system. Islam recognizes capital as a factor of production but it doesn't allow the factor to make a predetermined claim on the productive surplus in the form of interest so instead of interest, they use profit-sharing. What makes profit sharing permissible in Islam while interest is not, is that the profit-sharing ratio is predetermined , not the rate of return.

Here's an example of an Islamic mortgage transaction (Murabaha). Instead of loaning the buyer money to purchase the item, a bank buys the item itself from the seller, and re-sells it to the buyer at a profit, while allowing the buyer to pay the bank in installments. In order to protect itself against default, the bank asks for strict collateral. The goods or land is registered to the name of the buyer from the start of the transaction. Basically, you don't own it until you pay for it all.

On a related note, Islamic investment equity funds market is one of the fastest-growing sectors within the Islamic financial system. Currently, there are about 100 Islamic equity funds worldwide. The total assets managed through these funds currently exceed US$5 billion and is growing by 12.5% per annum.

The Qur'an prohibits gambling (i.e. games of chance involving money)and bayu al-gharar (trading in risk). Still, a financial transaction with a minor risk is deemed to be halal (permissible) while trading in non-minor risk (bayu al-ghasar) is deemed to be haram.

Again, there is way too much to go into in a blog, but the take home message is that there is a very different financial system in place in Islamic countries that uses Shariah principles to guide its activities.

As the count down continues to roll on, all of the participants going on the study abroad are starting to consider all of the things that could possibly affect our stay abroad. An issue that concerns many of us is the language spoken in both countries.

Arabic has three basic forms of language: Qur’anical Arabic (classical), Modern (formal), and Colloquial (spoken).

The Arabic Language is a very different but unique language. Arabic is written from right to left, and their alphabet consists of 28 letters. When reading or writing, you must start at the top right and move to the left. This could become a challenge adapting to this style of literature. Luckily, the language of business is English. Therefore; communicating with the entrepreneurs will not be an issue.

To the left is a layout of the Arabic alphabet. As you can see their writing consists of symbols.

Hospital -- mostashfa
Airport -- matter
Market -- sook
Pharmacy -- saydaliyya

How are you? -- kef Halak?
Fine thanks -- zein al-Hamdulillah
What's your name? -- shismak?
My name is? -- ismi ?

Yes -- aiwa/na'am
No -- la
Maybe -- mumkin
Please -- min fadhlik
Thank you -- shukran
You're welcome -- afwan
Excuse me -- lo tismaH

As my first blog come to a close, I find myself becoming extremely excited about the adventures ahead. I’m anxious to begin packing, and experiencing all of the wonderful things the different countries have to offer.

What is entrepreneurship?
According to the dictionary it is a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. Jim thinks it has nothing to do with neither creativity nor risk. I agree to a certain extent.

Jim says this because a person should minimize the risk before they start the business, they should be thorough enough to think of and take care of all the risks that should arise. Yes, they should, but they are also having some kind of risk to make the move in the market. It is a scary thing to take such a big step, especially for first-timers. Risk is something you have in everyday life, but yes Jim, you can try to minimize it as much as you can and hopefully almost to a minimal amount.

Creativity is another thing. Yes, it is easier to steal an idea from another person because yes, most things are already taken. Yet, you have to have some kind of creativity to take that other person’s idea, make it yours, and make it work.

There are two kinds of entrepreneurship, necessity and opportunity. Now, they kind of explain themselves, but just in case I will explain them. Necessity entrepreneurship is when you start a business to make money to stay alive. Opportunity entrepreneurship is when you start a business because you have seen an opportunity in the market for something that you believe will make you money.
Jim has told us that entrepreneurs are in a way in their own world. They don’t care what others think of them. They have more drive. He has also found that a lot of entrepreneurs have had bad childhoods that drive them to prove themselves – which they can do it and be better than those people who made fun of them or told them they would not amount to anything.

The formula we learned for entrepreneurship is X*Y=Z, where X= money earned per product, Y = quantity, and Z = profit margin. It is the profit margin you want to be really big. You can do that two different ways. One, by selling a lot of items which you make a little money on or two, you can make a lot on a small amount of items. The way Jim suggests, which I agree with, is to make a lot of money on selling a few items. He says to make your product or service a premium product/service.
Some other things I learned was that to make and sell your business plan you need to research other businesses to gather the information you sell. A way to get ideas is to brainstorm with a group of people and pick the 10 worst and 5 best. Jim also enlightened us that you pay a publicist to get awards for you. So, you basically buy the awards.

The four ways to fundraising are:
1. Bootstrapping – starting your business with your own money
2. Bank – loan (borrow)
3. Angles and friends and fools – angles are people who have money that they want to invest in an entrepreneur
4. Venture capital – basically selling pieces of your company; getting money-giving ownership

So as I was mulling over the information from our prep lecture on Dubai, and the readings, I had this memory flash back to me. I was 7 years old and my mom bought me ice skates that were 2 sizes too large so I could “grow into them” and I remembered that look on my Dad’s face as he rolled a third pair of socks over my feet to try and take up the extra space in the boot. That’s the same sense I get when I think of Dubai. There is a tremendous construction boom right now that is creating a megalopolis and, at least for now, a large amount remains empty and unused. Still, I found a number of really interesting points as I was reading about the country that were pretty enlightening.

Metro Dubai has an area of about 500 square miles and the population of about 2.2 million people. In comparison, New York City which has about the same area and 8.2 million people.
Dubai is a port city on the Persian Gulf (a short swim to Iran) which gave it great importance as a trade route being so close to India.
Dubai was known for its pearl exports until the 1930s. However, Dubai's pearling industry was damaged irreparably by the events of the First World War, and the Great Depression.
Even though Dubai built its economy on oil, oil now only accounts for 5% of the entire GDP. The rest of the GDP is from tourism, trade, healthcare, and real estate construction.
Only 17% of Dubai’s population is native “Emirati”. The remainder are expatriates largely from India, Pakistan, and the Philippines.
Unlike America, expatriates can not become citizens. They are only permitted in Dubai as long as they are employed.
Healthcare is big and hospitals are going up throughout the city to promote “medical tourism”. There are rumours of American cardiologists being paid $5 million/ year to relocate. (Oh yeah…and there’s no income tax there. Not a bad deal.)
Entrepreneurship is different than in America because venture capital-infrastructure isn’t as developed and most financing come from banks.
Also foreigners aren’t allowed to own businesses so often they enter strategic partnerships with native Emiratis to launch their business.
Dubai has recently created a large biotechnology office park and incubator for emerging life sciences companies. …and the name of this organization is …you guessed it… DuBiotech. (www.dubiotech.ae)

“Growth” is the word that comes to mind when I think of Dubai, and until I see it first hand, I feel like it's at this precarious juncture where it could boom or stall. I would think that Dubai really needs strict vigilance and a lot of support right now to ensure success. The potential for Dubai to blossom into the New York of the middle east is certainly there. While city planners certainly deserve the acclaim for having the vision and foresight to plan so far in advance, there is a great responsibility for Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, to play the loving father and ensure that enough “socks” are rolled onto his son’s feet until his son can grow into his skates.

As I learn more and more about Egypt, I am struck by the dichotomies. Young female Egyptians are wearing jeans and listening to iPods, yet share the same Islamic religious beliefs as their ancestors and wear the hijab. In addition, many young Egyptians are out of work, despite advanced degrees, because the Egyptian economy is unable to provide enough jobs to match their skills. Because of this, many Egyptians are forced to live with their parents longer and postpone marriages. We discussed in class how people become entrepreneurs either out of necessity or opportunity. I wonder if most Egyptian entrepreneurs start their businesses due to necessity because they cannot find work.

Other interesting information I have learned about Egypt is that it is rude to show the bottoms of your feet, cross your legs, and use hand gestures. I realized as I was at work today how often I cross my legs and talk with my hands! I’m going to make a conscious effort to break myself of these habits before our trip, but I know it will be difficult.

I also got a few travel books from the library that provided the following do’s and don’t when traveling to Egypt: