JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia is one among 77 countries worldwide that took part in the first Global Entrepreneurship Week. The global initiative, which began on Monday and will end today was established with the aim of connecting young business owners and future business leaders in a global network and movement of entrepreneurship, with as many as 5 million participants expected worldwide.

“This week is just a step in a long way ahead,” Munira Al-Ghamdi, manager of the National Entrepreneurship Center, which hosted the event, told Arab News.

“We need to make the week a Global Year of Entrepreneurship as we in the Kingdom lack the culture of entrepreneurship and we should all work to raise awareness about it.”

Taking place in Jeddah, Riyadh, and Dammam, activities such as speed networking and creative coffee break sessions were facilitated by a patron of the National Entrepreneurship Center for the students of Jeddah’s Dar Al-Hekma, Prince Sultan College and King Abdulaziz University as well as Dammam’s King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals.

Lectures were presented by officials from Zain Telecom, the Saudi Organization for Training and Education and the Centennial Fund, the parent organization of the National Entrepreneurship Center. The week will close today with a presentation by ARAMCO in Dammam.

Commenting on how organizations around the world began preparing for the week and how the NEC put together correlating activities in the Kingdom, Al-Ghamdi said, “People around the world started preparing for this week since the beginning of the year,” said Al-Ghamdi.

“You may be surprised to know that we at the National Entrepreneurship Center only learned about the event recently, but we acted fast with a vision in mind leading us toward achieving our goal of participating.”

Al-Ghamdi added that her organization has signed an agreement with the managers of the global event in the UK to be hosts this year and in coming years.

“We have a good team and a very supportive management,” she said. “And we made it, thanks to Allah.”

Global Entrepreneurship Week is a combination of two successful initiatives: Entrepreneurship Week USA in 2007 and the inspiration behind it; and Enterprise Week in the UK, which was kicked off in 2004 by now-Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

These two efforts have combined to engage over 2,720 partner organizations, one of which is the Saudi National Entrepreneurship Center, the latest initiative of the Centennial Fund, which was established in 2004 with a royal charter to help young Saudi men and women achieve financial independence through helping them start their own businesses.