RIT professors awarded State Department grant to help entrepreneurs in Jordan form circular economy businesses
A $250,000 grant from the U.S. State Department will fund a program led by Rochester Institute of Technology professors Clyde Hull and Eric Williams to help entrepreneurs in Jordan form circular economy businesses.
The program, implemented in partnership with Education for Employment and the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, will provide funding and training to 40 entrepreneurs, 35 women and five men.
Circular economy (CE) businesses use a regenerative production model with a goal to eliminate waste and reuse resources. The program aims to launch at least four new CE start-ups that are women- or woman-majority-owned businesses in Jordan by September 2022.
Hull, professor of management in RIT’s Saunders College of Business and the grant’s primary investigator, says that CE principles have been applied successfully in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, but Jordan has yet to see concerted efforts to apply CE.