GEMS World Academy Dubai has announced the launch of The Hub – Centre of Excellence for Entrepreneurship, a first-of-its-kind in the educational sector that will foster an entrepreneurial mindset and drive innovation amongst students leading to social value addition through successful ventures and the creation of jobs. The Hub – Centre of Excellence for Entrepreneurship is a key support platform that will incubate the ideas of student entrepreneurs and handhold them in making them a reality.

The Centre will also help students to refine their projects, gain necessary guidance, establish their enterprises rapidly in partnership with key industry leaders and with the support of their entrepreneurship eco-system partner, Wamda Ventures. Additionally, the Centre will provide training, enable access to experts, promote peer-to-peer connections and facilitate resources for students to enable them to scale up and grow their entrepreneurial mind-set.

Key GEMS Education findings state that students are far more likely to have to create their own employment and that 65 percent of the jobs they will engage in do not exist today. With current unemployment rates in the MENA at around 28 percent, it is even more important to enable the region’s youth to tap the potential of self-entrepreneurship.

Dino Varkey, CEO of GEMS Education, said: “The Hub – Centre of Excellence for Entrepreneurship at GEMS World Academy Dubai is a crucial component of the school and is one of only five GEMS Education Centres of Excellence. The Centre is designed to promote technological and digital learning as well as unique student pathways and qualifications. The new Centre of Excellence is a significant part of this process, providing our bright young minds with a collaborative space to work on projects related to entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainable development.”

Helen Al Uzaizi, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Environmentalism Director, Administration said: “Students go into a constantly changing world that requires flexibility, creativity, collaboration and nimbleness to adapt to rapid change. Increasingly, our students need to think like entrepreneurs. The Centre of Excellence for Entrepreneurship aims to break schools out of old dichotomies between knowledge and skills, and traditional rigor and entrepreneurial creativity. We want our students to be socially aware, responsible global citizens while understanding local needs.”

GEMS Education students presented ground-breaking innovations such as the WorkHub – a centre to upskill and re-integrate unemployed people and connect them back into the workforce. The event also featured a project named Axion Education – a solar-powered tablet with educational programmes and curriculums to reach children who do not have access to schools in impoverished areas. These revolutionary projects were among the many that were aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 1 to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.