U.S. Government and Coca-Cola Sponsor Summer Entrepreneurship Program for Egyptian Students

May 31, 2012

Ambassador Anne W. Patterson with Entrepreneurship Scholarship Recipients

Cairo - The U.S. Department of State and the Coca-Cola Company are partnering to sponsor 100 college students from across North Africa and the Middle East, including 50 Egyptians, to attend a special Summer Entrepreneurship Program at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business in the United States beginning in June 2012.  The scholarship program is being implemented in collaboration with the Partners for a New Beginning (PNB) initiative, which was established to advance economic opportunity, education, and to develop entrepreneurship across the region.

“Job creation is going to be key for your generation and job creation comes from innovation - and overwhelmingly from small and medium sized businesses started by entrepreneurs,” said U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson addressing the students at the May 30 send-off celebration and orientation at the U.S. Embassy.

“The State Department is pleased to join hands with the Coca-Cola Company and Indiana University to develop a unique program to provide entrepreneurship education to college students from across the region during the summer of 2012,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman.  “By investing in entrepreneurship education, we hope that these young people will gain the expertise and new ideas to allow them to become agents of change and action when they return home to become tomorrow’s leaders and business executives.”

This multi-faceted immersion program is designed to give a select group of students from across the MENA region the opportunity to learn about developing business plans, social entrepreneurship, and non-profit management.  Students will gain basic understanding of successful business practices and pedagogy through an accelerated four-week curriculum based on the core elements of the Kelley School of Business undergraduate program, one of the top-ranked programs in the United States.

The Partners for a New Beginning (PNB) is an alliance of public-private partnerships committed to deepening engagement between the United States and local communities around the world on issues of education, exchange, economic opportunity, and science and technology, to advance the vision President Obama outlined in his 2009 Cairo speech.  At the global level, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright leads PNB as Chair.  Vice Chairs include Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, as well as Walter Isaacson, President of the Aspen Institute.