UAE Business Awards 2020

16 MEA MARKETS / 2020 UAE Business Awards , Most Empowering Female Entrepreneur Development Center 2020 Zayed University’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center Committed to helping students achieve their full potential through personal and professional development, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at Zayed University offers students a positive development programto encourage, advance and graduate successful student companies fromall majors and colleges. Recently, we profiled the university to learnmore about the rapid growth the center has experienced since their inception only two years ago. Established in 2018, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at Zayed University was designed with a mandate to graduate student entrepreneurs and promote a culture of Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship within the university. Leading the way is the center’s director, Dr. Wasseem Abaza whose tireless efforts and hard work was a driving force in the creation of the award-winning center. One of the key differentiators of Zayed University’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center is that they focus on Social Innovation with particular attention on local female entrepreneurs. There is only one other university that serves this population, but they follow a more traditional, problem-solving approach to entrepreneurship. Whilst this approach may work within a limited setting, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at Zayed University looks at entrepreneurship from a wholistic approach, meaning they help develop both the business and the entrepreneur while emphasizing their impact on society. Since the Center serves local female entrepreneurs, it is important for the staff to understand their perspective and work with them as individuals, because this population is undeserved in the UAE and misunderstood by most. For the center, this strong group of entrepreneurs have tremendous potential and only need an opportunity to capitalize on it. Unfortunately, more often than not, they are not used to having people believe in their potential and so need to cultivate their confidence and Feb20292 reorient their beliefs about what is possible. The Center helps them achieve this is by adopting a Positive Organizational Development methodology where the staff focus the entrepreneurs’ attention on what is possible, what is innovative and what are the opportunities available. This unique approach distinguishes the Center from others; there is no problem-solving and there is no learning from failure. Only opportunity recognition and learning from success. Whilst the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at Zayed University’s journey has only just begun, the organization has already started planning to introduce a series of professional training programs for their students and faculty. These include Social Innovation Development, Social Innovation Investing, Tech Basics and Digital Marketing to name but a few. So far, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at Zayed University has been operating from classrooms and workshop areas, however come Fall 2020 they will be opening their fully operational physical space on their Dubai campus with their Abu Dhabi campus space set to follow in Fall 2021. Company: Zayed University’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center Contact: Dr. Wasseem Abaza Address: P.O.Box 19282, Dubai, UAE Telephone: +971 4 402 1531 Web Address: https://www.zu.ac.ae/main/en/IEcenter/index.aspx