July 13, 2016
A report on training 50+ undergraduate students on Intel Youth Enterprise Ideation Camp
I’ve spent the last two days Monday 11/Tuesday 12 July 2016 with my teammate Ahmed Zain training Ain Shams University undergraduate students on Intel Youth Enterprise Ideation Camp, that’s been provided & conducted by Technology Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC) through the InnovEgypt Program.
The following are my notes regarding the training, the students, and the perception of students for the given training, in a quick headlines, without deep details.
On Jun 17th 2016, I’ve been invited to join InnovEgypt team as an Ideation Educator who will help in delivering the Ideation modulewithin InnovEgypt Program 7th round (Summer 2016). The module that I’ve been selected to deliver is the 2nd module of InnovEgypt which depends on Intel Youth Enterprise Ideation Camp, delivered in cooperation between Intel Corporation & TIEC.
Most of the students were undergraduates (2nd/3rd year), in Ain Shams University, studying Engineering, with few studying Commerce. There were almost 50+ students, formed 10 teams during the course of the camp, focused mainly on solving some of their country’s major issues, and some social problems facing their generation. Here’s teams and their leaders (listed alphabetically):
- Break / Ahmed Asharaf
- ELectroplasm / Sara
- Expendables / Emad Zowail
- Fakar / Abdelrahman Ayman
- Fighters / Beshoy Magdy
- Gears / Ahmed
- One Goal / Abdelrahman Taher
- Pikachu / Yara Adel
- Spain / Nancy Yousry
- Pulse / Hassan
It’s been noticeable that most teams focused on solving issues facing Egyptian Educational System (7 teams out of 10), both pre-university and undergraduate education, with few focused on Spinsterhood, and Air Pollution.
Two days of training, full of sessions, and practical activities, the students got to learn about the following topics:
- Innovation & Creativity
- Entrepreneurship
- Failure Celebration
- Team Creation
- Problem Understanding
- Ideation Methodologies
- Brainstorming types
- Technology Trends
- Business Model Canvas
- Pitching Tips & Tricks
Alongside the sessions, and practical activities there was some fun activities and motivational videos to keep them energized.
Through this camp I’ve came to some conclusions, that I’ll state here as my own personal opinions:
- Egyptian Educational System is the Biggest Challenge & Major problem facing our country Egypt.
- Undergraduate students lack a lot of knowledge about innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship, but they’re thirst to learn more.
- Despite the availability of initiatives trying to fill the gap between the standard educational system, and today’s market needs such as this training aforementioned, it’s still not enough to make a real difference & impact nation-wide.
- Most of the so-called innovation/entrepreneurship initiatives in Egypt use outdated materials, and sometimes obsolete methodologies.
- Most of the students, even those with early entrepreneurial signs, don’t have a clue how to sustain, and sometimes don’t even agree on the fact that their idea must generate money to keep alive. They need focused training on revenue streams & how to utilize it wisely.
Accordingly I’m encouraging every knowledgeable person, in every field who can pay it forward, and contribute to the community through official initiatives like this one, or through private initiatives, or even on his/her own to go for it & try to make difference, have an impact, and do something that’s beneficial for his/her country, for the humanity’s goodness. Regardless of Egyptian unstable political & economical state, there’s still a way to make a difference away from these areas, where you could look at later and be proud of. We’ve already too many experienced people out there in almost every field, but unfortunately we lack the appropriate connections between the dots. We should have circles of impact, experienced networks that works together. Get in touch with whoever person or institute that you think it could have some impact & afford your services, they may be in need for someone like you, you don’t know.
I’ll be taking my responsibility in giving back to my country, to the humanity through every possible way I can, I’m offering my services in my fields of experience: Technology & Entrepreneurship, I’ll be in touch with every person/initiative/institution I could participate with to make positive difference. I’ll be preparing an up-to-date materials that could replace some of the outdated but currently-used materials in my fields of experience, and publish it publicly as open-source knowledge base for anyone to use, and again I encourage you to do so.
Thanks for everyone working to make this world a better place. #Keep_Moving_Forward #To_Be_Continued
