CURTIN UNIVERSITY: PRESENTING PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS TO REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS

In conversation with Bilal Siddiqi, Managing Director Strategy at Transnational Academic Group; Vice Chairman - Lancaster University Ghana; Director - Learning & Teaching at Curtin University Dubai

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Curtin University Dubai recently launched its first innovation hub and the Ignition incubation programme. How do you envision this initiative shaping the region's entrepreneurial and academic ecosystem over the next few years?

Our Innovation Hub will be a platform where young people with original ideas can be mentored and supported to transform their ideas into practical solutions to real world problems. As a highly ranked university, with a global network, and a history of innovation, we hope to create a local ecosystem where young entrepreneurs can engage with academics, mentors from industry, and potential investors to realise their true potential.

Our goal is to support young people in the early stages of their entrepreneurial journey by helping them develop elevator pitches and MVP's. Our incubation program is not designed as a general boot camp on business administration. Rather, it is specifically focussed on entrepreneurial competencies — it is a platform for dialogue, for design thinking, for stress-testing solutions, for building resilience in young people, and for connecting people.

We also work closely with Qora71, a UAE-based syndicate partnered with Hub71, giving our students access to experienced mentors and investors to help shape the UAE's entrepreneurial future.