Technology-based Entrepreneurship for Supporting Sustainability in MENA Region

With the development of information technology and globalization, economic development has been shifted from the industrial economy to the knowledge economy, in which the human resource is considered a key source for supporting national economy. Accordingly, the number of new educational programs in this area are continuously evolving, with new disciplines continuously being established to support sustainability. Thus, the MENA-preneurs project aims at creating an interdisciplinary diploma degree and training activities in technology-based entrepreneurship aiming at building a robust entrepreneurship ecosystem that can foster and allow the start-ups and SMEs to play a leading role in economic development's and job creation in MENA region. This is will be accomplished through establishing centers for technology-based entrepreneurship (CE-TBE). Its mission is to prepare and qualify MENA human resources to become entrepreneurs in various fields.In terms of impact, we foresee MENA-Preneurs increasing the number of technology-based start-ups and SMEs driven from the diploma in MENA region which will help increasing the number of foreign investments in the field of TBE in MENA region. Also, with proper dissemination techniques adopted through the project, we can estimate a rise in numbers of participants of TBE events held by the project across the MENA region and industry stakeholders taking part in the diploma. Finally, we are targeting a high level of satisfaction among the internal and external stakeholders about the TBE ecosystem in MENA region via the endeavors of MENA-Preneurs projectGenerally, in all MENA countries there is an urgent need to create new paths for youth to find jobs and fight against the high rates of unemployment. Thus, the technology-based entrepreneurship trend needs to be adopted in the university programs, researchers and centres of excellence.