Amman-25 March, 2014
The Office for Industrial Links at the German Jordanian University in collaboration with Migrate and with the support of the Migration for Development Program ( CIM ) organized a workshop on Innovation and Entrepreneurship Eco-System.
The President of GJU, Prof. Natheer Abu Obeid started the workshop by welcoming all guests and expressed his support for innovation and entrepreneurship and shared some personal stories of innovations that have affected his life.
He further hoped that all participants would build relationships through this important workshop, and take concrete steps together towards growing a thriving startup community, emphasizing that these steps might be hard and need take the right kind of approach and responsibility over a long period of time, but at the end, they will achieve their goal.
“We should make our dreams reasonable” Prof. Abu.Obeid stated.
For her part, Mrs. Britta Kähler, Director of the Office for Industrial Links, gave a brief introduction about GJU, and explained the role that OIL plays in supporting such initiatives of linking the university with the industry and in building up strong relationships with the Jordanian and German private sector.
On behalf of the Migration for Development Program (CIM) that supported the workshop development, the program coordinator in Jordan, Mrs. Esmat Khatttab, gave a brief about the mission of CIM in networking opportunities and the knowledge transfer through the returning Jordanian diaspora and their role in bridging Germany and Jordan which is of great value to the planned innovation center of GJU.
Continuing the role of GJU in facilitating the partnership between Germany and Jordan, Mr. Tiemo Ehmke, Board Member of icebauhaus, Innovation, Collaboration and Entrepreneurship Centre in Weimer Germany, and a member of the ice-hubs network, was invited to share his experience in the workshop on developing such centres in Jordan. It is worth mentioning that the ice-hubs network has several centres around Africa and Germany, which GJU is hoping to join as iceamman.
Besides that Migrate, as a partner in organizing this event, presented their vision of linking Job Creation, Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Business Growth through the CEO of Migrate Jordan Mr. Nader Nemeh.
The workshop would not be complete without the sharing of student and alumni of GJU success stories. GJU proudly gave the floor to Manal Abushamies and Ayah Shaban, the graduates of GJU who started their business “Namlyah” in Amman, which produces homemade artisan jams.
In addition Zeinah Al.Khalidi , a student of GJU shared Zeinah’s Delights Project . Both projects (the students and the graduates) appreciated the efforts of GJU at establishing an entrepreneurship center that would support them in their entrepreneurial journey to success.
In order to strengthen the students’ point of view, a parallel discussion in the same room took place with a group of active students who proposed a model for the entrepreneurship center and presented it to the stakeholders.
At the end the participants appreciated the open discussion and the opportunity to have the actors in this field in one room to support the innovation and entrepreneurship eco-system in Jordan and collaborate rather than duplicate activities.
It is worth mentioning that the GJU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center is seeking to play a remarkable role in the development of the innovation and entrepreneurship eco-system in Jordan through collaboration with different stakeholders.