The American University in Cairo’s start-up incubator the Venture Lab (V-Lab) brought its sixth cycle to a close on May 11, marking the graduation of nine new start-ups at its bi-annual Demo Day celebration held on the New Cairo campus. The event drew a large crowd of AUC students and faculty, as well as investors and business-insiders to hear entrepreneurs pitch their ideas. “As you know, entrepreneurship is the pillar of sustainable development, and we are committed to developing students but also we have a commitment to Egypt, to the communities in which we all work,” said AUC President Thomas Thomason in his opening remarks. The event was sponsored by the Arab African International Bank, a long-time partner of the V-Lab. “The Central Bank started to promote micro-initiatives, smaller mediums and micro-enterprises by allocating funds with low interest rates to empower the small enterprises, around last December,” Dalia Abdel Kader, the director of marketing and communications at the Arab African International Bank, told Egyptian Streets. “That was a message that banks should work on changing their business policies and practices to accommodate the bottom and the middle of the pyramids.” The wide…
Supporting Egypt’s Young Entrepreneurs: AUC Venture Lab Wraps Sixth Cycle
May 14, 2016
