Inside PBS Blog

Last week we invited FRONTLINE/World Producer Charlotte Buchen to answer your questions about her story on social entrepreneurship in the Middle East.  Her report,“Egypt: Middle East, Inc.,” followed three students competing in a contest to identify innovative business thinkers in the region. 
Ahmed Youssry is one of the three students viewers got to know through Buchen’s lens. Buchen turned to Youssry for help answering the questions you submitted. Take a look at her answers below.
And don’t forget if you missed the show when it aired on television, you can still watch it online.

Can you please update us on any of the INJAZ contestants and/or any of their competition projects? I just watched the video on the Frontline website and would love to know. Laura

Ahmed Youssry and his team have decided to try to bring their waste management business to cities other than Cairo where there is a market for their services. No garbage collection or recycling programs of any kind currently exist in these places.
Ahmed is currently in San Francisco for a few days for our social entrepreneur film festival and has been able to meet some local American social entrepreneurs as well as check out some green businesses and see how waste is management is done here in the Bay Area. He met with Matt Flannery, the social entrepreneur who currently is CEO of Kiva.org, and with the folks at www.stopwaste.org who filled him in on how recycling is done in Alameda County.

Some people even recognized him from the show during his layover in New York, and many people ask him about his relationship with his father and how he’s doing.

 As for Abdel Hameed and his team, C&P, they were able to travel to Beirut, Lebanon where they competed with teams from 12 other countries in the region in late June.  They had a great time but ultimately the winner  for the INJAZ regional competition was a team from Oman. Their product was gifts made out of recycled palm fronds. 
Nour and her team are hoping to launch another enterprise this summer, and she is working as a social specialist in a nursery and really loves it.

Some of the teams from Ain Shams University are talking about starting a small-scale union for young entrepreneurs in order to share resources, create new opportunities and encourage each other going forward.

Do you think that a program like INJAZ could have an impact on areas other than Egypt, or do you think its success is dependent on the region and its entrepreneurial spirit? (Inspired by Darryl’s comment about Cincinnati, OH and its current job losses)

INJAZ bases its model on a very old program that started in the U.S – Junior Achievement, or JA.  So it’s not surprising that Darryl saw similarities in their work!  Junior Achievement is still alive and well in many places, and has a Cincinnati office.  I’m sure any of these programs can always thrive even more from increased community engagement and interest from the private sector to help address the unemployment crisis in some parts of the United States. I also received a comment from someone on a Native American reservation in North Dakota, where unemployment is at an unbelievable 87% .  Certainly it would be great to see communities rallying to help bring some opportunity and skills to places where currently little exists. 

What seems to have helped INJAZ really take off is both strong leadership and strong involvement from the private sector, as well as a curriculum tailored to the cultures in each country of the Middle East. 
Here is the Junior Achievement Ohio area website: http://www.japartners.org/ and the organization’s general website: http://www.ja.org

My question: what are some of the barriers to building more new businesses in Egypt? Startup capital? New ideas? Infrastructure? Too much bureaucracy? Skills? Rebecca

There is definitely a very different culture when it comes to starting a business in Egypt.   While people are extremely entrepreneurial and many work in the informal sector in order to make ends meet, starting an official, legal business is still challenging in terms of capital, and dealing with bureaucratic red tape.   The World Bank collects data on “ease of doing business” in dozens of countries around the world.  The U.S. ranks #3 overall.  Egypt is at #114.  

Nonetheless, in 2008 Egypt was named “most improved” in terms of ease of doing business. Over the past decade Egypt has been striving to make it easier both to start a business and to grow existing small businesses.  Some policies include making it easier to obtain loans and credit and of course, the funding of numerous training programs such as INJAZ.  And Egypt has a turns up pretty favorably compared to other nations in the region - according the World Bank, it takes on average 7 days to start a business, as opposed to a regional average of 23.5 days.  (According to the World Bank it’s 6 days in the U.S.)  But corruption and bureaucracy remain major challenges.

There are also social barriers for entrepreneurs.  As Ahmed described to me, “Part of the identity of Egyptians is to have a dream job, like to be a doctor or engineer, not to start a business.  It’s viewed as risky, and it’s not as well respected.  Especially small-scale entrepreneurs.”   He says his team faced particular challenges trying to start a waste management business because there are huge prejudices against garbagemen, who are viewed as low class. 

Ahmed also sees a lack of awareness amongst people about entrepreneurship.  “People need to understand what entrepreneurship is, how it’s done, how to create a business – it’s an awareness issue.”  He says that was the main benefit of the INJAZ program - that it explains the concepts and gives students an opportunity to explore them.

What role does gender play in leadership development competitions and programs? (inspired by Mike’s comment about the “need for an all-male and an all-female program” to exist)

INJAZ definitely places a large emphasis on developing female leaders – they work to gain access to girls’ schools like the one you saw in the program and they develop strategies to keep girls engaged in their programs.  Women face a rate of unemployment four times higher than that of men.  And the success of women in the workforce has an impact on a nation’s economic development and social welfare.  As female education rises, fertility, population growth, and infant and child mortality fall and family health improves.

That said, INJAZ teams in the competitions are based on the school the group originates from – if it is an all-girls, or all-boys school, then the team can be either all-girl or all-boy.  There is only one competition, though, so ultimately the event is co-ed.   Mike raises an interesting point about the advantages of single-sex education and groups that I think is entirely valid – while I can’t weigh in on the history of the Jaycee group, I did attend an all-girls high school myself (Emma Willard School in Troy, NY) and felt that I benefited from the leadership opportunities I had access to there.

Social Entrepreneurs have such a hard time getting their foot in the door. Is this what makes the journey sweeter? Julie

I’m not a social entrepreneur myself so put this question to Ahmed.
“What makes it sweeter is knowing that there are people who support your work,” he said. “If you are working for a cause other than profit, you get support from people who believe in your cause.”

Ahmed said what keeps him motivated is thinking about the result of the work in terms of the skills and knowledge you gain from the journey, and of course, thinking about the result in terms of a successful, profitable business.  

It’s also motivational to have your work recognized.  “Especially for young entrepreneurs, it’s important to get support and recognition from more experienced businessmen, and that’s why the INJAZ competition was great.”