TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) and Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar held a reception at the university’s Education City campus announcing the start of the Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program (CIEP) for the 2009-2010 academic year.

The reception gathered the new students, alumni and faculty of the CIEP programme.

Speakers at the reception included Bowman Heiden, innovation director at Qatar Science & Technology Park; Charles E. Thorpe, dean of Carnegie Mellon Qatar; and Arthur A. Boni, director of Donald H Jones Centre for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University.

Bowman Heiden, executive director of CIEP, addressed the new class.

“CIEP is a unique programme, not only in the Middle East, but also globally.

This year the real world will be our classroom as we combine education and practice by developing real innovations and ventures using leading research results gathered from QSTP’s university partners at QF and abroad.

This will be a learning experience for everyone involved as we look to develop the knowledge-based economy in Qatar through the creation of technology-based ventures.” The programme is a nine month, part-time certified executive programme offered by QSTP with a faculty consisting of professors from Carnegie Mellon Qatar.

CIEP is focussed on creating both capable entrepreneurs and successful technology innovations and ventures.

In order to facilitate this process, high-potential technologies from university and corporate partners have been recruited for the projects.

“At Carnegie Mellon, we have only completed part of our mission when we educate innovative students and generate groundbreaking research.

The last step is turning those research results into products that change the way we live.

The CIEP, with our partners at QSTP, gives people from the community the skills needed to turn great ideas into great companies,” said Charles E Thorpe, dean of Carnegie Mellon Qatar.

The CIEP participants work together in teams on practical projects, to develop entrepreneurial capabilities for building technology-based innovations.

Participants in the programme can either work on specific innovation projects for their current company or build technology ventures based on technologies from idea providers, such as the universities at Education City – which is a new element this year.

In collaboration with Education City’s universities, the CIEP programme organisers researched and selected relevant technologies to Qatar.

This process generated approximately 200 project ideas, 20 of which were selected for consideration in the CIEP.

In addition to the Education City project list, this year the programme has added a few new elements including an incubation focus working to evaluate real technology projects together with QSTP.

The programme has also introduced a mentoring programme and increased collaboration with the local scientific community.

There are 44 students enrolled in the class, including 12 Qatari nationals with the remaining representing 12 other nationalities.