The president of King Saud University, Professor Abdullah Bin-Abdulrahman Al-Othman, signed a three-year joint contract with Kent State University to teach entrepreneurship in the foundation year in the University and to develop its curricula on Tuesday 4/12/1429H.
The ceremony was attended by Professor Ali Bin-Sa’id Al-Ghamidi, the vice president for knowledge exchange and technology transfer, Professor Ahmed Al-Shimemri, the Dean of development and the supervisor of the entrepreneurship centre, and Doctor Abdulaziz Al-Othman, the Dean of the foundation year.
The vice president of Kent State University, Professor Steve Michael, signed the contract on behalf of the university. The ceremony was, also, attended by the manager of the project of entrepreneurship, Professor Qasim Khan.
Regarding the preparatory program of the foundation year, the president of King Saud University, Prof. Abdullah Al-Othman, expressed his happiness for signing the agreement with Kent State University which is one of the leading universities in teaching business pioneers programs. He said, with the foundation year program, the goal is to prepare students of the university to be able to create business opportunities for themselves and for others. He added that this agreement will enable students to improve and ameliorate their skills for their business life now and in the future. He, also, said that the leading universities now show special interest in graduating such distinguished students, and the goal is to introduce students to a new era relationships between graduates and employment demands.
Prof. Al-Othman pointed out that this curriculum is the first of its type accredited in the Saudi Universities as it goes in parallel with the tendency towards knowledge economics. It aims at equipping students with necessary knowledge and skills to transform creative ideas into applied projects according to the professional bases to embark on projects.
The curriculum aims at enabling students to learn the basics of launching a project from qualifying themselves and knowing their potentials to become business pioneers, knowing how to plan to convey plans to projects which pass through the mechanism of conveying ideas entailing planning, organisation, management, marketing, and seeking funding, to the practical steps in project management.
The entrepreneurship centre supervisor, Doctor Ahmed Al-Shmemri, said that the staff of King Saud University is proud of the higher education academic activities run by the university in the kingdom, and it has identified a vision centring around knowledge economy and knowledge society. This vision, for him, will not come true unless all creative ideas relating to scientific research are transferred to productive projects. As such, knowledge based on this wise vision requires preparing a qualified generation able to transfer ideas into applied and economic realty.
Today academics are going to deal with a new educational methodology which sensitively interacts with applied and practical cases, and they will act as intelligent pioneers to transfer knowledge and technology easily and to concentrate on direct applied research. This new program offered by Kent State University will help teaching students how to transfer ideas to economic projects as well as teaching them planning and organisation skills. This will reflect on their future education at the university and then their future employment.
He added that this new program to the Arab world will start in the second semester of the academic year 1429H/1430H for all the foundation year students. This program will be taught through training and workshops whereby students will be divided into groups to encourage team work and cooperation on the part of the students. The program will also enable students to interact with international students to exchange ideas and new projects, and establishing mutual projects through the international communication network with the entrepreneurship centre. In addition, the contract signed with Kent State University includes developing distinguished teaching curricula to cover the electronic curriculum, training portfolios, the teacher’s book, teaching cases, video clips, and the website accompanying the headquarters through the internet and a number of the enriching information resources. Finally, the entrepreneurship centre will work hard to support this program with activities, competitions, and presents.