Amman- 2 January 2022
The President of the German Jordanian University, Prof. Ala’aldeen Al-Halhouli, and General Manager of the Innovative Startups and SMEs Fund (ISSF), Eng. Laith Al-Qasem discussed cooperation in entrepreneurship, innovation, and supporting joint projects in the field.
The meeting was attended by the Vice President for International Affairs, Prof. Ralf Rosskopf, the Dean of Deanship of Innovation, Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship (DI-TECH), Dr. Nidal Al-Shawareh, the Dean of the School of Management and Logistic Sciences (SMLS) Dr. Muhannad Atmeh, and from ISSF side, Senior Communications and Knowledge Management Officer, Asma’a Al-Khaledi.
During the meeting, Dr. Al-Halhouli presented the university’s mission, programs, the applied scientific approach, the German dimension. Dr. Al-Halhouli stated that GJU has partnerships with nearly two thousand companies in Germany and one hundred and twenty German applied universities.
Dr. Al-Halhouli added that the university had established the (DI-TECH) to spread a culture of creativity and support innovative and entrepreneurial ideas among GJU's community, programs, and research.
For his part, Dr. Rosskopf indicated the importance of converging the concepts of innovation, creative thinking, problem solving, collecting initiatives and ideas practically, and working on more than one dimension to achieve the desired goals.
On the other hand, Shawareh indicated the Deanship’s endeavors to create a comprehensive culture of innovation and creativity in all university departments and identify needs and areas in society to fill the gaps.
Eng. Al-Qasim stressed the importance of the German Jordanian University’s step in establishing a deanship specialized in innovation and entrepreneurship, which is the first of its kind in Jordan, expressing his willingness and the ISSF to support this approach as it supports the Jordanian entrepreneurship environment.
He added that innovation is the foundation for sustainable competitiveness in companies, stating that building competencies to insert innovation in companies may play a role in increasing their competitiveness and increasing export opportunities, as economic growth based on export increases job opportunities, which is needed in the Jordanian labor market, stressing that this step helps to change the Jordanian culture to become more entrepreneurial.
It is noteworthy that The Innovative Startups and SMEs Fund (“ISSF”) is a private sector managed fund-making investments in innovative startups and early-stage SMEs and was established in 2017 in response to the first recommendation of the Jordanian Economic Policy Council.