A new layer in the entrepreneurship ecosystem is taking shape through the increasing institutional presence of academic bodies, including both top-tier and less prominent universities in Lebanon. Universities have been linked locally to entrepreneurship in the past, but this link was often feeble and limited to teaching a few courses or having an occasional conference. Now, the bond between academia and the ecosystem seems bound to become tighter and take on the structure of intense and mutual interaction as described by American University of Beirut professor and entrepreneurship expert Salim Chahine. “Entrepreneurship as an ecosystem requires a triple helix where you have close interaction between the government, industry and the universities,” he says. Two Beirut-based universities with advanced plans for rolling out their entrepreneurship centers are AUB, which has a project to inaugurate an innovation park by early next year at the latest, and the École Supérieure des Affaires (ESA),
