Students from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) recently completed a two-week, interactive course called “Entrepreneurship for All,” which is designed to teach leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation through design thinking. The course, developed by Stanford University faculty through the Stanford Center for Professional Development (SCPD), is the first-of-its-kind to be offered in a Saudi higher education institution.

The goal of the course is to equip the next generation of leaders with an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset and its related core skills.

“I like to say that entrepreneurship is the new math,” said KAUST President Tony Chan. “The innovation skills learned through the practice of developing a startup and commercializing research stay with students throughout their careers. KAUST is collaborating with the SCPD to offer this course material to all KAUST students and, hopefully, to students throughout the Kingdom, in the future,” he said.

The new interactive course is an important milestone in KAUST’s contribution to the development of an innovation and knowledge-based economy in the Kingdom. A core focus of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 objectives is to increase entrepreneurship activity and create new companies in high value-added sectors. KAUST has supported over 240 startups through its entrepreneurship programs and expects this program to help spur the next generation of cutting-edge and deep tech startups in the Kingdom.