Corporate innovation and entrepreneurship program launches second year

The Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program, formerly the Executive Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, is a nine-month, part-time course that encourages entrepreneurs to follow their dreams by giving them the skills needed to transform an idea into a marketable business venture.

"Corporate innovation plays a very important part in transforming societies into knowledge-based economies,"

says Mohamed Dobashi, program director and associate teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon Qatar.

"The CIEP program provides corporate leaders with the tools necessary to assist in growing their organizations and turning them into knowledge leaders in the marketplace. Corporate Innovation is certainly a critical success factor in the ever-growing global market which Qatar is certainly a participant."

The CIEP is offered in Doha as a partnership between Carnegie Mellon University and Qatar Science & Technology Park. Carnegie Mellon teamed up with Qatar Science & Technology Park to offer the program in Doha because QSTP is a hub for international companies and an incubator of start-up technology businesses, and Carnegie Mellon is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world. QSTP aims to develop Qatar's knowledge economy, and a key way of doing this is by providing people with the skills and resources to commercialize technology.

Forty-five students have enrolled in the program this year: 27 men and 18 women. Twelve nationalities are represented, and nearly half of the participants are Qatari. Forty-one students enrolled in the inaugural session, which ran from Aug. 2007 to May 2008. Several start up companies formed from that program and are seeking to take their ideas to the next level.

This year, several local organizations including ictQatar, Qatar Foundation and Qatar Financial Centre, are sponsoring employees in the program. Carnegie Mellon Qatar is hoping to have more support from local corporations because innovation and entrepreneurship are important components in the development of Qatar.

The CIEP program is comprised of four courses: Entrepreneurial Thought & Action, Technology Commercialization Strategy, Technology Commercialization Workshop and Entrepreneurial Business Planning. Each of the four courses is seven weeks long and begins with one week of intensive hands-on classes called 'fast weeks,' which are being held in Carnegie Mellon's spectacular new building in Education City. A network of successful entrepreneurs and managers give the lectures, discuss case studies and provide students with valuable personal advice.

The remaining six weeks are comprised of independent student work and videoconferences with the Tepper School of Business in Pittsburgh. The videoconferences are held at Carnegie Mellon in Education City in Doha, outside of business hours. Subsequent "fast weeks" will be held in January, February and May. The CIEP program will wrap up in June.