Silatech hosted the first Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) ever held in Libya from November 18-24.
The activities began in Benghazi with a discussion led by Khalid El Mofti, general manager of Tatweer Research, who presented an overview of opportunities for innovation driven SMEs, and called for more flexible governmental strategies to help promote the sustainability of these ventures. Over 150 people attended the opening discussion, and also heard from participants including Tarek El Gheryani of Libya Enterprise, Reem El Soussi, an activist who promotes entrepreneurship for women, and Amr Farkash, general manager of Reiyada.
Other workshops and discussions organised for GEW-Libya focused on introducing young people to the concept of entrepreneurship and helping them to decide whether they should become entrepreneurs; e-commerce and entrepreneurship possibilities in the online world; social entrepreneurship; creative thinking; and, entrepreneurship policy roundtables with policy makers. Hundreds of people attended GEW-Libya events, including high school and college students, young entrepreneurs, representatives of NGOs, media, policy makers and others.
Libya’s first Global Entrepreneurship Week concluded on November 24 with a meetup of teams taking place in the Benghazi Startup Cup, a business model competition co-organised by Think Creative and Silatech that aims to help entrepreneurs transform their ideas into viable, sustainable businesses. Contest winners will be announced in January 2014.
Silatech Libya Country Representative Zeyad bin Halim said, “Despite the struggles we are going through in Libya now, our country is full of young people who are ready and willing to work hard to build a new Libya. A new movement of creative, positive entrepreneurs is what we in Libya need, and we are proud that Silatech and our many partners have been able to give this movement a strong boost through Global Entrepreneurship Week.”
Silatech was the Country Host Partner for Libya; official Sponsors were the Local Council of Benghazi, and the Embassy of the Netherlands.
The opening session of the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Libya.
