Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at King Faisal University

The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at King Faisal University is one of the academic and research centers at King Faisal University, al-Ahsa Governorate, the Eastern Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It seeks to instill a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship within the society. It aims to support innovative and entrepreneurial ideas and to enable their owners to activate these ideas and establish their own startups. It also supports them in presenting their ideas before potential investors, namely when it comes to innovation projects related to fields aligned with the university's aspirations, including the themes of food security and environmental sustainability. In fact, the center's inauguration stems from keeping pace with development and excellence achievement within the university. In this respect, the university is keen on developing the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, where these efforts support the university's main functions in the fields of scientific research, education, and community partnership.

The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at King Faisal University assumes several responsibilities, including instilling a culture of exploration, innovation, and entrepreneurship among university students. It also seeks to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship by organizing competitions. It aspires to educate students and researchers on the elements of the innovation ecosystem and its adopted methodology for teaching and training programs. It encourages innovators to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, assess their proposals and projects, and facilitate the procedures for executing their innovative ideas. The center also seeks to establish startups in fields aligned with the university's aspirations. It aims to activate business incubators and accelerators to incubate startups within an appropriate environment. In this respect, it offers logistic support and works on fostering local and international relationships with houses of expertise and training centers specialized in innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at King Faisal University offers several enabling services, including a business incubator that supports entrepreneurial projects in several fields for six months, ultimately enabling trainers by offering comprehensive training programs. Services also include the Entrepreneurship Club, aimed at educating students on the concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation to enable them by equipping them with the extracurricular tools and skills that supplement their studies, train them to translate their innovative ideas into entrepreneurial opportunities, organize activities to instill a culture of entrepreneurship, and form teams that would take part in entrepreneurship and innovation activities within and outside the university, among other aspirations. The center also offers guidance and counseling services. It holds several discussion panels and training sessions, in addition to executing the Social Development Bank Program for Financing Small and Medium Enterprises.