StrateSphere LLC Successfully Completes Series of Venture Highway Entrepreneurship Workshops at Dar Al-Hekma University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

StrateSphere recently completed a series of entrepreneurship focused workshops at Dar Al-Hekma University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

StrateSphere partnered with Dar Al-Hekma to implement a Venture Highway branded 10-day entrepreneurship course and two additional short workshops during September 12-25, 2017. The 10-day Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking course was offered to 97 students on Dar Al-Hekma University's campus in Jeddah and is the third such course offered by StrateSphere on campus in 2017. Student participants received 3 credits for participating in the 70-hour course and competed for cash prizes at a final pitch competition held at Masfaq Jeddah, a business development center. Winning teams included iBenefit, a fitness app offering prizes for exercise achievement, All In, a 24-hour restaurant, and To Go Market, a mobile mini-market.

The company also held a 6-hour entrepreneurial finance workshop for and a 5-hour workshop devoted to teaching the Jeddah community at large how to use the Business Model Canvas planning tool to validate business ideas. Both were held on the Dar Al-Hekma campus.

'StrateSphere is committed to inspiring and educating young entrepreneurs in collaboration with local partners around the world, and we are pleased to continue to strengthen our partnership with such a prestigious academic institution as Dar Al-Hekma University, stated Tariq Farwana, StrateSphere's Founder and Managing Partner. 'We are also grateful to Masfaq Jeddah for generously sponsoring our White Space final event. Masfaq's work in moving the Saudi Arabian government's Vision 2030 strategy forward will make a positive impact in Jeddah, and we hope that Dar Al-Hekma students can take full advantage of Masfaq's services.

Dr. Inass Ali, Business Professor at Dar Al-Hekma University, stated that she was pleased with 'yet another successful delivery of the Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking course by the passionate and brilliant instructors of StrateSphere. 'Dar Al-Hekma students' entrepreneurial talents were on full display at the final pitching event.

Abdullah Abualnasr, Masfaq Jeddah's Head of Project Management and Business Development Sector, was pleased to host the 24 teams competing in the final event. 'Masfaq believes in the importance of supporting entrepreneurship, startup businesses, and the country's youth. We are keen to prepare them to enter the business sector as job creators and are here to help these dynamic Dar Al-Hekma students take their next steps on their pathway to success.

Venture Highway to Offer Teacher Professional Development Courses

Venture Highway, a StrateSphere portfolio company, is now offering professional development workshops for high school teachers.  The subject matter of the workshops we have developed are centered around entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial thinking, innovation, and design thinking.  They are relevant for all teachers, not just those who teach entrepreneurship or business.

We are excited that registration has opened for our Venture Highway teacher professional development workshop at Seton Hall University.

This Venture Highway workshop is an intensive training program that helps teachers deliver engaging and relevant entrepreneurship education programs.  Our focused training, conducted over 3 days, provides teachers with experiential tools, teaching resources and methodologies, and a deep understanding of our introductory entrepreneurship subject matter. All attendees receive access to the Venture Highway Integrated Learning System (containing lessons plans, syllabi, teaching materials) and are eligible for 2 CEUs offered through the PAST Foundation.  Lunch is also included. 
 
The workshop is being held July 24-26, 2017 at Seton Hall University, 400 S Orange Ave, South Orange, NJ 07079.

You can register for this workshop through the following link: http://bit.ly/2qJ3U24.
 
Some of the important subjects we will cover are:
- How do you come up with a business idea?
- How do you set a mission and vision statement for yourself and your company?
- How do you figure out whether your idea can become a real business opportunity?
- Who is your potential target audience and how do you reach them?
- What marketing techniques can you use to convince people to buy your product or service?
- How do you best explain your business idea to others?

We look forward to delivering many more workshops in the future.  We are passionate about helping teachers to expand their knowledge and to motivate students to innovate and explore new opportunities.

StrateSphere and Dar Al-Hekma University Form Partnership to Build Entrepreneurship Program

StrateSphere and Dar Al-Hekma University, a prestigious women’s college in Jeddah, have teamed to build the student entrepreneurship program under the Venture Highway brand, a portfolio company of StrateSphere.  Venture Highway has already developed and delivered two condensed Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking courses for credit, taught by Kevin Gadd and Victor Salama, that were extremely successful, and another one is scheduled for the Fall of 2017.

The feedback from students and administrators at Dar Al-Hekma about the first two courses was outstanding.  The courses are extremely experiential and give students not only extensive knowledge about a broad range of entrepreneurial concepts and processes, but also hands on experience.  Students work in teams on their own business idea, and work through the process of building and testing a business model.

The courses end with a final event, called the White Space Event, at which students present their business ideas in a trade show format to an audience of faculty, community members and leaders, and other students.  The events for the first two courses were a huge success, with a large number of attendees who were very impressed with the nature of the event, and the ideas and creativity of the students. Dr. Inass Ali, Dean of Hekma School of Business & Law, stated that “this entrepreneurship course was indeed a transformation for the students in just 10 days! Watching the students pitch by the end of the course in such confidence and persuasion was impressive. Sometimes creativity needs to be elicited and the instructors of the course successfully did so. Dar Al-Hekma University is committed to providing diverse and engaging modes of transfer of knowledge and hence is looking forward to a sustainable relationship with StrateSphere.”

StrateSphere is looking forward to continuing and expanding the program with Dar Al Hekma, culminating in the development of an entrepreneurship center where students can work with mentors to continue to develop their ideas and launch their businesses.

“StrateSphere is committed to inspiring and educating young entrepreneurs in collaboration with local partners around the world, and we are pleased to have been able to offer our cutting-edge blended learning entrepreneurship course in partnership with Dar Al-Hekma University”, stated Tariq Farwana, StrateSphere’s Founder and Managing Partner.