American University of Beirut's business school to open center for study of innovation and entrepreneurship

The American University of Beirut Olayan School of Business (OSB) will be inaugurating The Darwazah Center for the study of innovation and entrepreneurship in the region at 5:30 pm on January 14, 2010 in OSB's Maamari Auditorium.

The center aims to document and enhance innovative practices in the business community. It seeks to generate reliable information to guide evidence-based decision-making in this key sector that holds strategic importance in a knowledge economy. Its scope includes research, field studies, benchmarking, seminars and workshops as well as conferences all focused on the pivotal domain of organizational renewal and wealth creation through creative enterprise. "Innovate or die" is a serious risk facing businesses today and the new center hopes to become a major asset and a strategic resource for facing this challenge.

Samih Darwazah, founder and chairman of Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2005, was employed at Eli Lilly from 1964 to 1976 before establishing Hikma Pharmaceuticals in Jordan in 1977. Between 1995 and 1996 he served as minister of energy and mineral resources in Jordan. He also founded the Jordan Trade Association and was a member of the Advisory Economic Council to His Majesty King Hussein of Jordan.

A Fulbright scholar, Darwazah holds a master's degree in industrial pharmacy from the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, Missouri which he obtained in 1964, and a bachelor's degree in pharmacy from the American University of Beirut in 1954. Darwazah was elected Middle East Entrepreneur of the Year in 2007 by Ernst and Young. In 2009, Darwazah was elected chairman of Capital Bank of Jordan and he also served as a Member of the Senate of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Darwazah was granted an honorary doctorate from St. Louis College of Pharmacy in May 2010.