The Building of Innovative Place: The Start-Ups Center in Wadi Makkah

Entrepreneurs typically work in teams, and university entrepreneurs require the involvement of innovators and researchers from different disciplines in a stimulating environment. However, the campus of Umm Al-Qura University lacked any physical spaces to guarantee entrepreneurial synergy. Therefore, Umm Al-Qura University established the Wadi Makkah Company under the Agency for Business and Innovation. Wadi Makkah took the initiative and redesigned one of the shared classrooms, transforming it into start-ups center to represent the company’s vision and reflect its entrepreneurial ecosystem. This paper chronicles the start-ups center’s construction and suggests a framework for creating an innovative environment appropriate for Saudi universities in similar conditions.