Tunisia: Entrepreneurism and Innovation - the Road Ahead

16 January 2012
opinion

I recently spent three weeks in Tunisia as a Fulbright Senior Specialist. I was invited to advise how Tunisian universities might move forward in the area of teaching entrepreneurship and innovation. I met many wonderful and very smart people in education, business, law, medicine, engineering and government, and I am grateful for their time. Here are some takeaways from my visit.

Roughly 55 percent of the Tunisian population is under the age of 25 and in recent years unemployment has hovered around 14 percent (30 percent and higher for recent university graduates), so for democracy to take root in Tunisia job creation will be crucial. For this reason alone entrepreneurship and innovation are being taken seriously in Tunisia and are viewed as a way to jump-start the economy and job growth. The players here also recognize that recent political changes present a rare opportunity that may never come again. Tunisians are also wisely studying lessons from places like Silicon Valley, Route 128 and the Research Triangle in the US and smaller innovation clusters such as those found in Finland and Singapore. Here are some of the upcoming challenges I see for Tunisia.

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