'From Scratch' Host Jessica Harris Travels To Cairo

I went to Egypt in March to participate on a panel hosted by Endeavor, an organization that facilitates entrepreneurship globally.

Endeavor just publicly launched its new office in Cairo with the hopes of spurring new business creation in Cairo and the rest of the Middle East. My husband and I have had a personal interest in the region for a while, having traveled to Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan.

I believe that a growing entrepreneurial community, and the creation of small businesses, will aid the development of a more civil society in the region; a larger middle class is one of the likely results of a more robust start-up community. We stopped going to the region once we had a daughter in August, 2008. This Endeavor invitation was the catalyst to return, and given that Egypt is safer than many countries we've visited, we were willing to take our 19 month-old daughter with us.

After an exhausting 13 hour flight with a toddler, we made it to our hotel and had a day to spare before my panel. I had lunch with Sherife Abdel Messih, who recently graduated from MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sherife started an organization called SPARK!, which aims to "create an entrepreneurial eco-system in Egypt."

We had lunch on the Nile. Incidentally, the restaurant was directly across the Nile from our hotel. It took us 45 minutes to get there by car, and 90 seconds to get back to our hotel by boat. Cairo traffic is off the charts. My taxi moved 2 inches in 40 minutes one afternoon, near the roundabout by the Egyptian museum. I think a country's traffic system is a symbol for its government.

Through SPARK!, Sherife is trying to help Egyptian college grads who wish to start businesses or social organizations by teaching them the nuts and bolts of the launching process.

The launching process in Cairo is vastly different from that of the United States and other Western nations. As I gleaned after just 4 days in Cairo, the entrepreneurial scene in Cairo is in its infancy. There are several hurdles to starting a business.

First, there is no word for "entrepreneur" in Arabic. Just getting people's heads around the concept of starting a business from scratch is a challenge. Second, the legal system is not friendly towards entrepreneurs. Personal bankruptcy laws in Egypt are draconian; there is no second chance for an entrepreneur who files for bankruptcy. Third, there is no "networking infrastructure" for those who wish to start companies. Access to venture capital is minimal, and aspiring entrepreneurs have to hope that they have connections to one of Egypt's tycoons who might fund a business out of some personal interest. Fourth, the media, to a large degree, is still controlled by the government, and has not focused historically on entrepreneurial stories.

SPARK! is hoping to address the black hole that exists between idea creation and raising capital. I was impressed with Sharife's eloquence, and level of thoughtfulness. A number of professionals who return to Cairo after receiving a college degree from the West focus on becoming as rich as possible. Sherife is instead working to lay the groundwork for a more innovative, progressive professional society.

My panel was called "Covering Entrepreneurship in the Arab World," which included panelists Michael Slackman, New York Times Cairo Bureau Chief, and Hisham Kassem, founder of Egypt's daily publication al-Masry al-Youm. Endeavor's Elmira Bayrasli led the discussion.

Our discussion focused largely on the impediments to entrepreneurship in Egypt, as well as the potential solutions. One place to start, other than freeing the media, encouraging reporters to unearth start-up projects, and creating more friendly laws, is by revamping Cairo's traffic system so entrepreneurs can get to their meetings on time!

Jessica Harris is the host of the public radio program From Scratch, heard on NPR Worldwide, NPR Now Sirius - XM channel 134 in the USA, and Monday mornings at 8:00 on NPR FM Berlin, 104.1.