Georgetown University: School of Foreign Service in Qatar

This August, seven students from the Washington, DC, campus traveled to Doha with Professor Dale Murphy on a course trip to meet with their classmates from SFS-Qatar. As part of the requirements of the “Social Entrepreneurship in the Middle East and the U.S.” course, students are required to attend field trips in Doha, Qatar and Washington, DC. “We had a great time sharing backgrounds, talking about future plans and of course discussing politics,” said Salwar Sultani (SFS’11), referring to his colleagues’ visit from DC campus. Students from both campuses attended a week full of lectures, field trips and social outings.

This course on entrepreneurship exemplifies Georgetown University’s commitment to service to others and work for social justice. “I signed [up] for the course because I felt that it would allow me to gain the necessary tools to work for change,” said Aakash Jayaprakash (SFS’11). The course aims to equip students with the basic skills to turn them into entrepreneurs by exposing the students to the importance of entrepreneurship on the economical and political environments of a country. This course also covers how entrepreneurs get funding to start new businesses, as well as the challenges that present day philanthropy faces.

The course is uniquely different from most other classes because the class connects two separate campuses. Building on the telepresence technology, the course takes place in two separate classrooms – one in Washington, DC, and the other in Doha, Qatar – linked via videoconference technology that enables clear and life-size audiovisual classroom experience. Madhoorya Mantha (SFS’11) comments that “[this is] one of the defining moments in SFS history, and an example of globalized world class education”.

SFS-Qatar students are univocal in their interest to join the course: to acquire tools for social change. Some like Jayaprakash got interested in the course as a way to complement his experience in the Labor Equation project, a program where he got involved in researching migrant workers living in Doha, Qatar. Similarly, Sultani strongly believes that “positive change can be brought through social entrepreneurship.” SFS-Qatar students are very enthusiastic about the course as it directly relates to the political economy of the Gulf. Shaily Agrawal (SFS’11) observes that there a lot of opportunities for social entrepreneurs in a booming economy, like Qatar’s. Along similar lines, Mark Saliba (SFS’09) sees this course as a way to educate regional Arabs on opportunities to channel their wealth into social capital.

For DC student George Chipev (SFS’09) the international perspective of the course was an important motivator for him to register. He is very much interested in building on each campus students’ experiences and background to combine the knowledge on Middle East and Qatar with the history of social entrepreneurship coming from Washington, DC. Similarly, Lauren Elizabeth Funk (SFS’10) is very interested to explore how different ideas on social entrepreneurship can be married.

This course trip had been a great opportunity for Georgetown students to experience the University's international presence first-hand. Chipev comments that SFS-Qatar has grown beyond being an experiment at this point and became an effective and integral part of Georgetown community. “I think SFS-Qatar has much to offer to Georgetown, ultimately,” he said.

Similarly, Jayaprakash remarks that with this trip, SFS-Qatar students build a better sense of their Hoya identity, “when [they] see that [they] are not all that different from students in DC.”

DC students are already looking forward to the end of this semester to host their friends from Qatar. “They worked hard to help us feel comfortable and to show us part of their lives” says Chipev. “I hope to be able to do the same when they visit DC.”