Abstract:

University incubators are becoming a key stakeholder in creating a startup culture in different societies around the world, both developed and developing.  The entrepreneurship ecosystem is built around a variety of stakeholders; however, the role of human capital remains invaluable.  The passion, technology-savvy growing generation around the world, the campus environment and the blended academic-business-industry setting are all contributing factors to create a flow of innovative ideas that could be taken to the next level through the commercialization of products and services.  In the context of emerging economies, this paper addresses the notion of university-based incubators and their role with a country-wide entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem in the context of Egypt that although going through a series of challenges since 2011 but still possesses a wide spectrum of opportunities and prospects given its youthful society.  The Venture-Lab (V-Lab) experience is a platform that was created not only for students of the school of business at the American University in Cairo (AUC) where it is hosted, but for the society at large with innovative ideas that have the potential to realize a sustainable and scalable impact on creating a competitive and agile small and medium sized space that could have long-term implications on productivity, job creation and economic development.