JEDDAH – Since March 2010, over 5000 aspiring entrepreneurs from Saudi Arabia have successfully participated in Shell's "Intilaaqah" program, an enterprise development scheme to encourage young people aged between 16 and 30 to start their own business. As part of the initiative, 300 entrepreneurs recently participated in the "Intilaaqah" program at Saudi-Aramco's summer exhibition in Riyadh. Speaking at a ceremony to mark this occasion, Patrick Van Daele, Country Chairman of Shell in Saudi Arabia, said "we have a shared responsibility to encourage employment opportunities for youth. We are very happy that our outstanding partnership with Saudi-Aramco allowed us to bring Intilaaqah to the country and support Saudi Vision 2020." Shell's Intilaaqah program is active in over 8 countries across the Middle East. It has successfully provided support and guidance to young entrepreneurs from all walks of life for almost 25 years. It provides a tried and tested model to encourage young people to recognize that there are good career opportunities in small and medium size businesses. Intilaaqah is part of Shell's global LiveWIRE program, an initiative first launched in 1982 to address high unemployment among youth in Scotland. Since then LiveWIRE has quickly grown to become one of the largest resource organizations for young entrepreneurs in the world, with a social network of over 100,000 members. Shell has been in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for more than 60 years with investments in refining, lubricants, petrochemicals and gas exploration. – SG
