Dynamics of Entrepreneurship in Egypt: Assessing the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

The January 25th revolution in Egypt has inspired a spirit of motivation for youth to take matters into their hands and create their destiny. In less than 6 years the Egyptian Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (EE) managed to draw regional and global attention in terms of business support, funding, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and research. Tech-savvy and multi-lingual youth are the Egyptian EE’s largest strength, and more constituents are joining the EE every hour. Despite the fact that more support services and stakeholders are emerging to promote entrepreneurship in Egypt, scattered efforts, uncoordinated initiatives, fragile legal framework and low-quality education do not seem to move the nascent ecosystem into a growth stage. Using a rigorous analysis, we conclude that the Egyptian EE is still at birth stage and most of its constituents are mostly fledgling organizations. The legal framework is inefficient. The market lacks genuine ideas and mentors. Venture capitalists still lack expertise, scientific research is not authoritative. Innovation infrastructure is underdeveloped, most of the patents are registered offshore, IP protection is practically inexistent. More worryingly the country is unable to retain its most qualified talents who immigrate to more robust innovation environments. To date, entrepreneurship in Egypt is unable to create sustainable employment or impact national economic growth. However, there is a significant opportunity for improvement. In this chapter we assess the Egyptian EE, then present a set of recommendations for policy makers and investors.