The American Space’s full auditorium attested to students’ enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, one of the most prominent Iraqi symbols of which spoke to stoke the attendees’ will to overcome fear and embark on the adventure of creating their own business projects, but only after having studied well their target business domains and the experiences of those who have actually engaged in them. Students listened intently as he pointed out major milestones on the path from ideation to realization.
“Huge fears sweep you when you decide to establish a new business project; this is natural—a rational human being fears… but on the other hand, will must be greater than fear,” said Mr. Hassan Saoud at the outset of the seminar hosted by the American University of Iraq-Baghdad (AUIB) and co-organized in collaboration with the university’s Center of Excellence for Innovation and Development (CEID) and the Iraqi Scientific Society for Technology and Innovation (ISSTI).
The young Iraqi entrepreneur recounted the story of founding his own company by launching a food and grocery delivery application, later continuing his entrepreneurial journey by establishing “Bedaya,” a platform offering practical educational content, followed by “Tiketat,” an event ticketing management platform. Mr. Hassan Saoud inspired the audience with his own story and those of other entrepreneurs—among them a university student who successfully balanced his studies with founding his own business venture—emphasizing that specialization is a prerequisite for a successful project, and at the same time maintaining that one can “learn any field of business within ninety days” of diligent study.
“An entrepreneur does not sell only his time, but sells solutions and systems,” said Mr. Hassan Saoud, outlining the key challenges facing entrepreneurs and noting that these challenges, along with the opportunities that emerge along the way, mean that “any project is subject to development, and even radical transformation,” which requires from entrepreneurs flexibility, dynamism, and a constant pursuit of “information—the most valuable thing one can purchase.”