In January, the Johnson School's new Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute (EII) led a 10-day Cornell Entrepreneurship Certificate Program course with aspiring innovators from around the world in a collaboration with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

The program, led by Johnson professor Wesley Sine and Johnson Ph.D. student Chad Carlos, provided a glimpse into the entrepreneurship process that many participants -- 42 graduate students from 10 countries and 11 senior executives from companies in Saudi Arabia, Germany and Japan -- had never experienced, said Sine.

The students worked in teams at KAUST to generate a business plan, and each team was assisted by a mentor -- one of 13 Johnson alumni entrepreneurs.

"This course was path breaking for this corner of the world," said Sine. "This is a region where large family business groups dominate the economic landscape, social and governmental obstacles are tough, and the barriers to entrepreneurship are daunting. Most funding is via wealthy investors with a few universities like KAUST dabbling in early stage seed funds. Venture capital is rare."

While half the students hailed from the Middle East, others came from as far as China, Pakistan, Mexico, Colombia, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Indonesia and Chile. They represented such educational backgrounds as bioscience, geophysics, mechanical engineering, computer science, marine science and applied mathematics.

The task of identifying an opportunity in the Arab Middle East and writing a business plan around it in 10 days was extremely difficult, said Sine.

"Many students struggled at first," he said. "Most of the students had very little entrepreneurial experience, and we had very high expectations. The improvement of the teams over the 10-day period was extraordinary. Students who had never written a business plan were able to identify innovative opportunities to address real problems and developed well-defined plans for commercializing their ideas. The business ideas ranged from solar water pumps that would save farmers and the country of Saudi Arabia hundreds of millions of dollars to online payment services like Paypal, which do not currently exist in the region."

At first, many participants felt out of their comfort zones, and some tears were even shed in the process, Sine said. However, by the end, each team identified a legitimate opportunity in the Middle East that Sine hopes the students will continue to develop.

"My background is in biosciences," said Steffi Guan, a Ph.D. bioscience student from China at KAUST. "But [the program] was the most challenging experience I've ever had."

Tawfeq Al-Shams of Saudi Arabia, an employee in the finance department at KAUST who is launching his own business, added: "It wasn't a training course, it was a process of change. The way I used to think, learn, plan, implement and adapt [were] changed during these two weeks."

"The students were effusive in their enthusiasm for the program," said Sine. "And we couldn't be more excited with the outcome of this endeavor and we hope this is the beginning of a long relationship with KAUST."

The Johnson School certificate program with KAUST is one of various Cornell connections with KAUST; these include Cornell President Emeritus Frank Rhodes having served on its International Advisory Council and presenting at KAUST's groundbreaking ceremony in 2007; the Cornell University-KAUST Center for Research and Education, the KAUST-Cornell Center for Energy and Sustainability at Kimball Hall.