Students Compete in CMU-Q’s Entrepreneurship Program Twenty budding entrepreneurs from universities in Qatar were coached this spring as they developed business plans and presented investor pitches at Quick Startup 2014, a business-training program launched this year by Carnegie Mellon Qatar. The three-day program aimed to expose students to entrepreneurship and provide opportunities for them to interact with local business leaders, which in turn creates pathways for them to develop their ideas into real ventures, said Thomas Emerson, distinguished career professor of entrepreneurship. Participants’ projects were judged based on their potential profits, feasibility and market research. The winning team, “Memzy,” developed a social media application and were keen on having professionals analyze their venture before moving forward. “We signed up for Quick Startup because we wanted to understand how to start a venture. Having a panel of judges with industry experience was the perfect opportunity for us to gather feedback,” said winning team member Afrah Hassan, a senior in information systems. The second place went to “Tarweej,” a startup aimed at helping high school students choose a university and fill out
application forms, with third place going to “Qatar Arabian Theme Park,” a venture to set up the region’s first theme park. The students were mentored by experts from industry and academia, including Dave Mawhinney, co-director of the Carnegie Mellon University Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship and executive director of the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship; Milton Cofield, executive director of Undergraduate Business Administration at Carnegie Mellon; and Peter Stern, a Carnegie Mellon graduate who co-founded Datek Online, the fourth-largest online brokerage firm.
The judging panel comprised Cofield; Saleh Al Khulaifi, head of business development at Qatar Development Bank; Hala Al Misnad, junior associate from Enterprise Qatar; Peter J. Moore, entrepreneurial mentor at the College of the North Atlantic-Qatar; Mohamed Fathy Miligy, relationship manager at Qatar National Bank; and Juha Peralampi, manager at the Business Incubator Center for Entrepreneurship and lecturer in the Entrepreneurship and International Business Marketing and Management Department at Qatar University.
Understanding Pittsburghese “Yinz going dahntahn to watch dem Stillers?” If this makes sense to you, you’ve probably spent time in Carnegie Mellon’s hometown of Pittsburgh or the surrounding area. Barbara Johnstone, a professor of English and linguistics at Carnegie Mellon and author of Speaking Pittsburghese: The Story of a Dialect, has spent years researching the language of Pittsburgh. In a talk at Carnegie Mellon Qatar this spring, Johnstone captivated an audience from Pittsburgh and around the world as she traced the history and development of Pittsburghese, which is among the most distinctive dialects in the United States. According to Johnstone, words like yinz (you guys), dahntahn (downtown) and dem Stillers (the Steelers football team) have evolved over time, starting as simple phrases and ending up as commodities. Today, the use of Pittsburghese on t-shirts and other souvenirs helps Pittsburghers share the city’s culture and heritage. At the same time, the commercial use has strengthened and reinforced the dialect as a local identity.
Summer 2014 / Fall 2014
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