Event Report | ETIC one day conference on enterpreneurship in Algeria

Event Report | ETIC one day conference on enterpreneurship in Algeria

ETIC is a student club that was established in 2009 in ESI (École Nationale Supérieure d’Informatique). We are a group of young ambitious students and we created ETIC to help transform ESI student’s life from a tedious routine into a more fulfilling experience and to promote knowledge sharing and create a space for exchange and reflection.

In order to achieve these aims, ETIC works in partnership with other student clubs such as CAP (Club d’Activités Polyvalentes) of ENP (Ecole Nationale Polytechnique) and CSE (Club Scientifique de l’ESI), as well as various other associations and organizations. The club has organised numerous events including job fairs, training camps, international conferences such as the first TEDx conference in Algeria, workshops, sporting events and concerts.

We are particularly keen on working to empower young students by equipping them with the necessary skills to excel in their future professional life. With this in mind, we recently organised a conference titled “After Graduation” in which we invited Noureddine Tayebi, a research scientist at the Components Research Division at Intel Corporation, to share his experience as a leading figure in entrepreneurship mentoring programs. Noureddine Tayebi was awarded PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and is the owner of over 40 patents. The conference was held in ESI on the 18th of October 2012 and was attended by tens of students and young entrepreneurs from multiple disciplines.

Dr. Tayebi started his talk by describing the opportunities for studying in the USA, its advantages and the challenges facing Algerian students in US colleges, the most prominent of which are the language barrier and cultural differences. He then shared his own experience as a college student and a young entrepreneur, describing the hurdles he had to overcome while emphasising the importance of resilience and perseverance in the life of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial work in the US was the major focus of this talk and Dr. Tayei described the Silicon Valley as a perfect model of a successful and profitable ecosystem of universities and companies that attracts potential investors and promote creative ideas which are ultimately transformed into tangible projects and exemplar business models.

Dr. Tayebi then underlined the key qualities that make up a successful entrepreneur. These include the importance of thinking about the feasibility of the project and calculating the associated risks, the importance of clear and detailed planning which reflects on the progress of the project at each stage, and the efficient management of available human and financial resources and infrastructure. Above all Dr. Tayebi stressed the importance of the entrepreneur’s desire and belief in the project itself. For Dr. Tayebi, without such driving desire, the whole experience could be deemed a fruitless endeavour.

The talk concluded with a look at the Algerian experience in entrepreneurial work. His analysis pointed out the increasing interest of young students in entrepreneurship in recent years. This increase should be taken as a sign of changing tides; inspired and ambitious students and young research scientists are starting to venture into the fulfilling process of converting their creative ideas and small projects into successful enterprises and business models that attract investment and thrive on challenging financial climates.

Another aspect of Dr. Tayebi’s talk was his reflections on the problems that currently hinders the success of entrepreneurial ventures in Algeria. Interestingly, these included not only bureaucracy, but also the reluctance of investors to take calculated risks, and the obvious lack of business acumen and commercial awareness among academic circles. On the other hand, the speaker underscored the fact that such shortcomings should by no means be deterrents to the young ambitious entrepreneurs because they could eventually be rooted out as per the American model he described at the beginning of his talk. The rapidly evolving business climate in Algeria is in fact a reason for optimism for the flourishing future that awaits young Algerian entrepreneurs.