It is chartered by ministerial decision # 1906, issued by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs on 30 August 2002. That was the culmination of the efforts of twelve founding members who come from varying experience in business and volunteer work. Recognizing the importance of conveying the modern business mindset to Syria's youth, their dialogue provided the cornerstone for SYEA. The vision, mission, and the constitution were outlined in anticipation of an official channel to communicate with their audience.

Main sponsors of the conference are the International bank for trade and financing, Hawa And Attar company, Spacetel Syria, the Modern Arab Business Company (MABCO), the United Group for press and Publication, and Concord for Advertising, and many others.

In a statement to ArabicNews.com, Spacetel Syria public relations manager Fares Kallas said that Spacetel Syria is a stakeholder company and one of Investcom which works in more than 16 Arab and foreign countries with a work team of 3500 employees all over the world.

He said that Spacetel Syria is an integral component of the Syrian community and is committed to effectively take part in social development activities. He explained "we contribute to economic and social development in Syria by providing state of the art of telecommunication services." He said that in the approach to investing in people "we believe that the work of every member of staff contributes in some way to the achievement of our strategic objectives and it is therefore important that we understand that everyone can make a difference." Highlighting the basics of Investcom, Mr. Kallas said that its organizational culture is based on the principles to be creative and innovative; listen and value different ideas and opinions; express thought and feelings; empower staff to make decisions about the way of working and how to improve it; and to encourage them to take personal risks and learn from mistakes.

As for their given support to the SYEA, Kallas stressed strong support to entrepreneurship levels according to tasks. He detailed that this copes with "our strategies" to attaining the principles of act and improve now, adapt existing approaches and acts and looking ahead; anticipate the future and develops new products and services; and create opportunities and acts for the long term.

Highlighting Spacetel Syria numerous activities, Kallas in particular pointed that Spacetel Syria has launched its comprehensive project to support the education sector in Syria in September 2002 out of its constant feeling of the social and national responsibility. It was the first time in Syria where a private company coordinated with the Ministry of Education to start its educational sponsoring program.

He detailed that on Saturday 22nd of March 2003, the company held a ceremony to honor the top ten students who graduated recently from high school as a first step to inaugurate the project.

SpacetelSyria awarded ten educational grants for five students from the science section and another five for the literature students. The grants entitle the top ten students to receive 5000 sp monthly in order to cover their daily expenses and 2000 sp to cover their rent and residential needs and crash courses in English/French and computer skills and full coverage for all the books and the educational materials, in addition to that, the company presented an integrated system of computer to assist the students in their future assignments and projects.

The grants will last until the students graduate from their universities. The grants are not refundable and the students are not committed to the company with any obligations in the future except their commitments to continue their journey of distinction and success, Kallas said.

He also said that this project will continue the process of following up with the students and will keep an eye on their yearly performance.

Citing another impressive example of Spacetel Syria activities, Kallas said that derived by the Syrians love to sweets and in front of a huge audience of 60,000 people, over 200 cooks from all over the country came to prepare the largest ever pistachio cake on July 1st, 2003 and thus marked Syria's first official entry into the Guinness Book of world Records. The cake weighed in at 4 tons and covered 200 square meters. He commented that this massive event was organized in Aleppo by Spacetel Syria.

In a similar statement to ArabicNews.com, SYEA's secretary general Abdul Salam Haykal said that SYEA' s strategy and programs are designed to build on the strengths, minimize the weaknesses, exploit the opportunities, and evade deterring threats. He said that under discussion and analysis is a set of programs, brief profile of which is given at the end of this report. Some of these programs can be carried out jointly with one of the parties involved.

In addition, he continued, SYEA is open to new ideas for joint programs by any of parties concerned. The project has to fall within SYEA's mission and vision, and within the regulations set forward in the Constitution. Also, the joint venture have to maintain and preferably add to SYEA's position and status, and will have to take place on neutral premises in the absence of an independent SYEA site.

He said all of the programs will serve the public awareness that SYEA has in its vision, noting that it is SYEA's purpose to become a training or educational institute for the general public until it has reached its vision of becoming the authority on entrepreneurship in Syria.

Most of the programs are relatively easily financed through SYEA's own annual budget, or through sponsorship and subscription. They can also depends on financial or in-kind subsidies from existing foreign cultural and economic missions, he said, adding that by this, SYEA also hopes to encourage the public-private partnership in Syria, including state and private educational institutions, ministries, chambers of commerce, and other bodies representing foreign cultural or aid programs in the country, he indicated.

Haykal said that the founders had an audience with Mrs. Asmaa al-Assad, who expressed support for the establishment of such an organization. He indicated that upon receiving the official license, the founders met with Mrs. al-Assad again and put before her the broad outline of SYEA's activities which are presented later in this report. Since that date, SYEA has worked on closer definition of its programs in a way which fulfills its mission statement, and translating its identity and image into brochures and other publicity and solicitation material.

In 2004, SYEA will launch a program of corporate membership, so that a number of entrepreneurs working in the same business can join SYEA and benefit from its programs at a lower group subscription. This targeted mainly at family businesses, and will accommodate the business owners as well as their mid- and upper-tier managers, Haykal concluded.