Yesterday evening was the launch of the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Jordan. The event is happening simultaneously all across the globe with the aim of “mentoring madness” :) Okay, that’s not really true, the real aim is to connect young people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators.

There were 13 speakers at yesterday’s Amman launch: Joi Ito of Creative Commons, Sami Shalabi of Google, Maher Qadura of Hikmat Road Safety, Meisa Batayneh of Maisam, Khaled Kalaldeh of Ketab, Ghassan Nuqul of Nuqul, Mitchell Baker of Mozilla, Amjad Aryan of Pharmacy1, Emile Cubesy of IV Holding, Laith Qasem of YEA, Sabri Hakim of Talasim, Habib Haddad of Yamli, and Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn.

A few interesting snippets:

One of my favorite speakers, Joi Ito, talked a little about new ideas, and said how they usually “Sound stupid until you try them.” Of course, as I’m sure you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, I have been an avid supporter of Creative Commons since I first heard of it in 2004, and it was awesome listening to the man behind  it talk. Ito also mentioned how many companies lower the cost of failure, and this lower cost of innovation, because starting businesses can be a very high-risk factor. Creative Commons was created to cut down from the risk, and provide easy way for creative people like Google to worry less about copyrights and lawyers by standardizing the online system of copy right.

Sami Shalabi also gave a very interesting  talk, citing that his favorite thing about coming to Jordan was eating good shawerma :) He also talked about how although entrepreneurs only have an 18% shot at success, with open source, the cost could be very low. He cited himself as an example, where his venture Zingku (which was bought by Google) produced some softwares with the total cost of ZERO, while their highest expenditure was actually caffeine :)

Maher Qadura was refreshingly critical of our culture of criticism, saying that as Jordanians, criticism is a core competence, and how we have to thrive on that and let it help us become better. Jordan has lowered traffic accidents by 30% this year, with many thanks going to his organization’s efforts.

Mitchell Baker  of Mozilla talked very passionately about being open when dealing with business, and transparency. She said how Mozilla is a non-profit foundation that actually makes profit! :) That woman is awesome. Her self-confidence is amazing. I think she’s my new hero.

Laith Qasem of YEA was talking about the state of creative content in the Arab world, and he said a very interesting thing: In the Arab world, we have the pipelines, the hardware, the technology, but we have nothing to push through these pipelines. Which is very true. We need more creatives, more content creators, more people who should shove good taste down the Arab world’s throat.

Really, very impressive event organied by The Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, Endeavor Jordan, Creative Commons an the Young Entrepreneurs Association.

Fortunately, the week just started, and there are many great events to attend with GEW, with events all across Jordan including Zarqa, Ma’an and Irbid. Check the schedule here for the next week.

Meanwhile, for those of you who want to meet and listen to the fantastic Joi Ito, Reid Hoffman, Mitchell Baker, Sami Shalabi, and Habib Hadad, the event today at PSUT is open to the public and free of charge. Not to be missed!

More: Ahmad Humeid’s post about the event