Qatar's entrepreneurial quest

DOHA, Qatar (CNN) -- Noor Al-Mohannadi is a budding Qatari businesswoman taking part in the inaugural class of a new entrepreneurship program -- the first of its kind her country -- delivered by the Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon University in partnership with the Qatar Science & Technology Park.

"The idea of having my own business was in my mind since before graduation," says 29-year-old Al-Mohannadi. "I was trying to find any suitable business course in the country but it was really hard to find."

Al-Mohannadi is interested in childhood development and dreams of opening a multi-disciplinary liberal arts pre-school. She believes the new entrepreneurship course will enable her to become an innovator in a country that has a miniscule private sector and, like most GCC countries, is largely dependent on expatriate labor.

According to the General Secretariat for Development and Planning (GSDP) 96 percent of working Qataris are employed in the public sector. That figure is even higher today than it was two decades ago, mostly due to the boom in the government-controlled natural gas and oil sectors.

But the Qatari government is hoping to reverse that trend by boosting entrepreneurship and investing heavily in education.

In a 2007 report, the World Bank said Qatar's economy is growing faster than its current output of graduates.

"It's a process. We know it's a process and it will take its course," says Sheikh Hamad bin Jabor Al-Thani, head of GSDP.

"Qatar has taken the lead in trying to adapt a methodology and an approach in terms of how we can go about turning Qatar into a more knowledge-based economy," says Al-Thani.

Al-Thani says Qatar is banking on its ambitious investments in education.

The Executive Entrepreneurship Certificate Program is being taught in partnership with the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) which plans to become an incubator for start-up businesses. QSTP is a member of the Qatar Foundation, a mammoth educational facility spearheaded by the government to attract elite western academic institutions to Qatar including Cornell, Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon.

"I think you can visit any souk in the region and you can see entrepreneurship abundantly on display," says Tom Emerson, a Chair of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business, and one of the program's prestigious instructors.

"I think if we can take that same entrepreneurial talent and zeal and re-focus it on high-yield opportunities, that can really be a transformative process for the region and for the economy," says Emerson.

Tangible results are likely to take years to materialize, but for at least one would-be entrepreneur, the path to moving forward is clear.

"When you get your certificate it doesn't mean that you're done," says Al-Mohannadi. "To educate yourself is the first step. For me, I never stop learning." E-mail to a friend