Ayman El Tarabishy

September

September has been a month of confronting the silence inherent in our most common metrics. I started the month drafting thoughts on why we remain obsessed with GDP and the Human Development Index, despite their shared failure to capture the essence of what actually makes an economy pulse. It occurred to me that we have built an entire architecture of measurement around things that happen to people—life expectancy, years of schooling, income—while completely ignoring the agency of the individual. When I wrote Something You Did, I wanted to articulate the difference between being a passive recipient of economic conditions and being an active participant who builds, fails, and starts again. The pushback from colleagues was immediate; many argued we lack the data to track the human spirit, but that felt like a convenient excuse for our lack of imagination. We are measuring the harvest but ignoring the toil of the farmer.

By mid-month, I found myself imagining the uncomfortable desk of a policymaker. I penned If You Were a Minister as a thought experiment, wondering what would happen if we forced leaders to confront a third metric—one that measures whether the people doing the producing are actually all right while they do it. The reaction from those in government circles was telling. There is a distinct, visceral discomfort in realizing that your country’s success might be disconnected from the actual health and autonomy of your citizens. It is easier to cling to the safety of rising GDP figures than to face a metric that exposes the internal struggles of the workforce.

Watching these ideas move from my notes into wider discussions with ministers and researchers has been an exercise in humility. The consensus I observed wasn't agreement, but rather a quiet, shared anxiety. Almost everyone I spoke with admitted that the current system is incomplete, yet the hesitation to adopt a new framework is rooted in a deep fear of the unknown. We have lived in the comfort of standardized, predictable numbers for so long that the prospect of measuring human flourishing feels genuinely risky. It is not enough to simply propose a new index; we have to fundamentally rewrite the narrative of what it means to be a productive society, moving away from viewing citizens as mere inputs for the state and toward seeing them as the authors of their own progress.

As these professional inquiries deepened, I was reminded that our educational institutions face a similar crisis of engagement. In The Socratic AI, three years later, I looked back at my early arguments against banning AI in the classroom. Three years later, while higher education has largely accepted the need to integrate these tools, we are still failing to define what that integration actually looks like. Deciding not to police student use of technology is not a plan; it only clears the space. The hard work lies in what we put back into that space—specifically, using these tools not as a shortcut, but as a sparring partner to challenge student assumptions and deepen critical thinking.

The common thread connecting my work with policymakers and my time in the classroom is a frustration with passive systems. Whether it is an economy that records output while ignoring the act of creation, or a lecture hall that values the completion of an assignment over the struggle of ideas, we are consistently prioritizing the result over the process. We have spent decades optimizing for the outcome, ignoring the person who has to live with the experience. It is why I keep pushing these conversations; we are caught between what we can easily count and what we actually care about, and the inertia of our old ways of thinking remains a powerful barrier to real growth.

Looking back on these few weeks, I realize that the most difficult part of this work isn't the math—it's the honesty required to admit we have been asking the wrong questions all along. My desk is currently covered in drafts and feedback that suggest we are on the precipice of a shift, but that shift requires us to move beyond the safety of current metrics. If we are to build anything truly sustainable, we must finally stop viewing people as mere objects of policy and start measuring whether they are actually thriving, or merely being acted upon. We have to start measuring what people do, not just what is done to them.

August

August arrived with a heavy humidity that seemed to match the weight of the archives I spent the first week unearthing. My focus kept drifting back to the dissonance between how we measure progress and what we actually value. Reading The Man Who Attacked His Own Numbers, I found myself struck by the sheer bravery of Mahbub ul Haq. It is rare to see an architect of a system turn against his own blue-prints once he realizes the foundations are crumbling. His realization that high growth figures could mask deep-seated inequality resonates in my own work; we often become so enamored with the elegance of our data that we forget to ask what or who is being pushed into the margins to make those numbers look good.

By the middle of the month, the conversation I was having with colleagues shifted toward the practical failures of our accounting systems. I kept coming back to the specific mechanics of accountability—or the lack thereof—that surfaced in What Kennedy Forgot to Ask For. The contrast between a clear, immovable deadline for something as ambitious as a moon landing and the vague, often manipulated metrics we use for human development is startling. It made me question whether we lack the will to measure what makes life truly worthwhile, or if we are simply afraid of the results such a measurement might force us to confront.

I spent several afternoons in the quiet of my office trying to reconcile these two threads. If the goal is, as Robert Kennedy suggested, to account for the parts of life that standard economic indicators ignore, why do we continue to rely so heavily on the old guard of GDP? It is not merely an academic oversight. It is a fundamental choice about what we prioritize. I’ve started to wonder if the success of a policy shouldn't be defined by its scale, but by its ability to pass the same kind of public, testable scrutiny that defined the lunar mission.

The uncertainty in my own research feels more acute now than it did even a few months ago. I find myself circling back to the idea that the figures we celebrate often tell a story of exclusion rather than inclusion. When Haq stood up in Karachi to dismantle his own success, he wasn't just admitting a mistake; he was attempting to align the arithmetic with reality. I want my own professional contributions to do the same, yet I am still trying to define what that honest arithmetic actually looks like in our current, incredibly complex global economy.

There is a specific kind of professional humility required to admit that the tools we’ve spent years refining might be measuring the wrong things entirely. My students often look for a definitive answer, a singular metric that indicates a thriving society. I find I can no longer offer them one. I can only offer them the invitation to be as skeptical of their own successes as Haq was of his, and to hold our current systems to the same standard of transparency that made the race to the moon so compelling.

This month has solidified a growing suspicion that our metrics act as a shield against the truth rather than a window into it. I am no longer interested in the comfort of a smooth growth curve if the baseline is built on an illusion. The challenge for the coming year is to step away from the convenience of existing models and start asking, with real precision, what it is we are actually trying to reach. It is a messy, uncomfortable place to be, but it feels like the only honest way to move forward.

July

By July 2026, my work over the last decade began to feel less like a series of professional obligations and more like a necessary shift in how we understand the entrepreneurial spirit. As Dr. Ki-Chan Kim and I looked back at our efforts to center the individual in the entrepreneurial story, we realized our framework was ready to move from theory to a shared movement. In The Idea of a Human-Centered Entrepreneurship Summit, we explored the possibility of gathering global leaders in South Korea to refine this vision. After seeing the impact of the HCE Index, it became clear that we need a dedicated space where researchers, policymakers, and founders can grapple with what it means to build an economy that treats entrepreneurs as people first, rather than as mere economic units.

This momentum took on a more personal dimension when I read the official document honoring the International Council for Small Business in The Day Small Business Was Heard in Congress. That congressional proclamation was not just a piece of paper; it was a recognition of seventy years of effort by thousands of educators and scholars who believed that small business owners deserved a seat at the table. Standing in the halls of Congress, I felt the weight of that history and our ongoing responsibility to keep pushing for better, more human representation in public policy.

Being in those chambers forced me to think deeply about the metrics we use to judge our collective success. We have spent too long relying on outdated tools that only tell half the story. I wrote What Comes After GDP and HDI? to challenge the status quo, arguing that while production and health statistics are essential, they do not capture the actual human experience of flourishing. Whether I was discussing these ideas in Paris or Washington, the fundamental question remained the same: if our current indices do not measure the freedom and agency of a person starting a business, are we actually tracking progress or just output?

I found myself dwelling on the historical context of these numbers while researching The Number That Came With a Warning. It struck me that even Simon Kuznets, the man who handed the U.S. Senate the foundation for GDP in 1934, warned on that very same page that such accounts could not tell us whether life was actually going well. For ninety years, we have largely ignored that warning. Digging into the history of Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen as they developed the Human Development Index reminded me that we have always struggled to fit the complexity of a human life into a single, digestible figure.

This tension between data and reality became urgent when I saw the latest surge in American startup numbers. While news cycles celebrated a record-breaking 5.7 million new business applications as a sign of a vibrant renaissance, I found myself hesitating to join the cheerleading. In Five Million Founders. One Missing Question, I felt compelled to push back against the standard narrative. It is one thing to have millions of people starting businesses; it is another to know if those people are finding true autonomy or merely escaping a broken labor market. As a professor, my job is not just to celebrate the scoreboard but to critique the conditions that force people into risk.

My thoughts often return to my own upbringing and the image of my father working late at his desk, a cup of tea going cold beside him. As I recounted in The Builder's Dilemma, that small business was the foundation of my life, not some abstract economic data point. It taught me that entrepreneurship is fundamentally about people giving themselves to something, a principle I have carried from my family home all the way to the United Nations. Recognizing that human element is not a soft sentiment; it is the most vital part of the work.

This perspective has also fundamentally shifted how I view the tools we use in the classroom. As artificial intelligence changes the way students present their ideas, we have to look past the surface-level polish. In The business plan was never the point, I realized that AI has effectively collapsed the cost of creating a business plan, making it impossible to ignore the widening gap between a perfect document and a founder's actual capability. We have been grading a proxy for far too long, and now we are forced to ask what we are truly trying to teach.

The convergence of these events—the legislative recognition, the call for a new summit, and the critical look at our economic health—forced me to see the dual nature of my work more clearly. I am constantly toggling between the macro view of global policy and the micro view of the individual classroom. Yet, the core mission is identical in both spaces: figuring out how to foster innovation without sacrificing dignity, and how to build systems that support the person behind the business plan.

The challenge is not in finding more entrepreneurs, but in ensuring that the environment they inhabit is actually conducive to their well-being. It is a messy, complex, and deeply human problem, and I am finding that my own thinking is becoming more grounded the more I focus on that simple distinction between a functioning economy and a flourishing one. I don't have all the answers for what happens next, but I am certain that if we don't start measuring what actually makes a human life better, we will keep building economies that leave the best parts of us behind.

As July comes to a close, I am left with the conviction that our role is to act as a bridge between the cold numbers of the economy and the real, often difficult lives of the people who build it. My work now is to keep asking the difficult questions, knowing that the most important progress often happens in the spaces that our current metrics simply fail to see.

January

As 2026 began, I found myself returning to a question that has followed me for years: how do we welcome innovation without losing our humanity? In January, while writing Evoking Ecosystems in the Age of AI, I felt both excitement and caution. Artificial intelligence was accelerating at an extraordinary pace, yet I could also sense institutions reacting with familiar habits—building rules, structures, and gatekeeping mechanisms that, however well intended, risked making entrepreneurship harder for the very people it should empower. My reflection was not rooted in resistance to technology, but in a deep belief that the future must remain open to human possibility.

That article became a personal reminder that ecosystems are not built by policy documents alone. They are shaped by trust, imagination, culture, and the courage of individuals willing to begin before certainty arrives. I kept thinking about entrepreneurs who do not enter the innovation economy with massive resources, specialized legal teams, or powerful networks. If our response to AI creates new obstacles for them, then we are not preparing for the future—we are narrowing it. January challenged me to articulate, once again, that entrepreneurship must remain accessible, relational, and deeply human.

I also reflected on the role of education in this new era. Universities, research institutions, and learning communities have an extraordinary responsibility right now. We cannot simply teach people how to use new tools; we must help them ask wiser questions about purpose, dignity, and impact. I have long believed that entrepreneurial education should do more than produce startups. It should cultivate judgment, empathy, resilience, and service. Writing in January renewed my conviction that in the age of AI, the classroom must become a place where innovation and conscience develop together.

There was something deeply energizing about beginning the year with this theme. It reminded me that humane entrepreneurship is not an abstract idea reserved for conferences or journals—it is a living framework for navigating moments of disruption. I felt grateful that my work could continue to emphasize culture over control, people over systems, and long-term flourishing over short-term reaction. In many ways, January set the moral tone for the rest of my year.

Year Reflection

As I reflect on 2026 so far, I feel a quiet but profound gratitude for the direction the year has taken. From January’s questions about preserving our humanity in an age of accelerating technology to July’s efforts to bring Human-Centered Entrepreneurship and the voice of small business into larger global and national conversations, a clear thread has emerged. These moments continue to reaffirm what I know in my heart: entrepreneurship, at its best, is a force for dignity, education, renewal, and shared human progress.

Key Highlights

• Reaffirmed that the future of AI must be shaped by human values, cultural awareness, and open opportunity for entrepreneurs.
• Emphasized that entrepreneurial ecosystems thrive through trust, education, and inclusion—not through unnecessary barriers.
• Advanced the long-term vision of Human-Centered Entrepreneurship as a global framework with summit-level potential.
• Deepened the connection between scholarship, universities, and real-world entrepreneurial leadership.
• Elevated the importance of small businesses in shaping economic renewal, community resilience, and public life.
• Strengthened bridges across global and national platforms, from South Korea to Capitol Hill, in service of meaningful entrepreneurial impact.

Quotes

“In every era of disruption, the most important technology is still human trust.”

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2026

“Entrepreneurship fulfills its highest purpose when it expands dignity as much as it creates value.”

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2026

“When education, enterprise, and public leadership meet with sincerity, small ideas can transform the world.”

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2026

January

As I look back on 2025, I find myself returning again and again to a simple but powerful idea: sometimes a photograph can say what a report, a speech, or even a strategy document cannot. In January, when I reflected on the “Best ICSB Photos for 2025,” I was not merely selecting images. I was revisiting moments of human connection, shared purpose, and the quiet dignity of people who wake up each day to build something meaningful. Those photos reminded me that entrepreneurship is never only about markets or metrics; at its heart, it is about people, families, communities, and the courage to imagine a better future.

What moved me most in those images was the spirit behind them. I saw not staged success, but real effort—hands extended in welcome, faces lit by curiosity, classrooms alive with possibility, and small business leaders standing with the pride that comes from building value against difficult odds. The ICSB community has always represented more than an institution to me. It is a living network of educators, entrepreneurs, students, and changemakers who believe that enterprise can be humane, thoughtful, and deeply rooted in service. January gave me a chance to honor that truth visually, and in doing so, emotionally.

As I reflected on those photographs, I was reminded that small businesses remain among the most important expressions of hope in our world. They are often modest in scale but profound in impact. They create jobs, preserve local identity, and give individuals the ability to shape their own destiny. In many of the images, I could sense the determination of people who may not have had vast resources, but who had vision, discipline, and heart. That has always inspired me. The entrepreneurial journey is rarely easy, yet it continues to be one of the most powerful pathways for human empowerment.

Education also stood out vividly in my mind as I revisited the year through these images. So many of the moments captured were not only about celebration, but about learning—learning across generations, across geographies, and across lived experiences. I have long believed that education in entrepreneurship must do more than transfer knowledge. It must cultivate judgment, empathy, resilience, and responsibility. The photographs reminded me that the classroom is not confined to four walls. It exists in conversations, mentoring sessions, global gatherings, and the lived examples of those who persevere with integrity.

Another deep feeling that January stirred in me was gratitude for the global character of our work. The ICSB story is international not as a slogan, but as a lived reality. In the faces and places represented in those photos, I saw a mosaic of cultures, languages, and aspirations. I saw that the challenges facing entrepreneurs differ from one region to another, yet the human desire to create, contribute, and belong is universal. This global dimension has always strengthened my conviction that entrepreneurship can serve as a bridge—connecting not only economies, but also people who might otherwise remain distant from one another.

What I cherish most is that these images captured collaboration rather than individual triumph alone. They showed communities in motion. They showed support systems forming around ideas. They showed that meaningful progress rarely emerges from isolation. It grows through trust, generosity, and a willingness to build together. In a world that often celebrates speed and spectacle, I found reassurance in moments that reflected patience, mentorship, and shared commitment. Those are the foundations that endure. They are also the values I most hope to carry forward in my work.

There was also something deeply personal about this reflection. Looking at the photos, I was reminded why I have dedicated so much of my life to this mission. The answer is not abstract. It is visible in the confidence of a student discovering a voice, in the resolve of an entrepreneur refining a dream, and in the collective energy of people who believe that business can elevate the human condition. January became, in many ways, a mirror. It allowed me to see not only what the community had accomplished, but also what matters most to me: helping create ecosystems where people can thrive with dignity and purpose.

As the year unfolded in my mind through those images, I felt renewed in my belief that humane entrepreneurship is not an idealistic detour from serious work; it is the serious work. It asks us to remember that enterprises should serve people, not the other way around. It asks us to build institutions that are compassionate as well as competent. It asks us to think of success not only in financial terms, but in terms of opportunity created, lives strengthened, and communities made more resilient. If 2025 had a visual language, these photos spoke it beautifully.

By the end of this reflection, I understood that the article was never just about “best photos.” It was about memory, meaning, and momentum. It was about preserving the emotional record of a year dedicated to service, learning, and global engagement. It was about recognizing that every image held a lesson: that small beginnings matter, that people flourish when they are seen and supported, and that our shared work becomes most powerful when it is rooted in humanity. For that reminder, I am profoundly thankful. January set the tone for my reflection on 2025, and it did so with grace, warmth, and quiet strength.

Key Highlights

• Humane entrepreneurship remained the guiding lens through which I understood enterprise, leadership, and impact.
• Small businesses stood out as engines of dignity, resilience, and community transformation.
• Entrepreneurship education emerged not just as instruction, but as a means of shaping character, judgment, and responsibility.
• The global ICSB community demonstrated the power of collaboration across cultures, sectors, and generations.
• Visual storytelling through photography revealed the emotional truth behind the year’s work: purpose is strongest when it is shared.

“When we honor the human story behind enterprise, we discover that impact begins long before success is measured.”

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2025

“The most meaningful work is not simply to build businesses, but to build people, possibilities, and communities.”

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2025

“A single image can remind us that entrepreneurship, at its best, is an act of hope made visible.”

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2025

December

December brought both urgency and optimism. My reflections on ESG frameworks were driven by a concern I have held for some time: when well-intentioned systems become overly bureaucratic, they can unintentionally burden the very businesses we hope will lead change. MSMEs need encouragement, flexibility, and tools that reward outcomes and ingenuity. They should not be trapped by rigid reporting structures designed without their scale and realities in mind. I found myself returning to a simple principle: responsibility must be made workable if it is to be meaningful.

At the same time, December ended on a deeply hopeful note through the experience of Lemonade Day at HELP International School in Malaysia. Watching young students engage with entrepreneurship, financial thinking, and problem-solving was profoundly energizing. It reminded me that education is at its best when it is experiential, joyful, and connected to real life. These students were not merely learning concepts; they were learning confidence, creativity, and agency. In them, I could see the future leaders our world needs—young people capable of combining enterprise with empathy, ambition with responsibility, and knowledge with action.

As I look back on 2024, I see a year stitched together by a consistent thread: the belief that entrepreneurship must remain deeply human. Whether through global coalitions, policy partnerships, national examples, MSME empowerment, or youth education, I kept returning to the same conviction—that our work is most worthwhile when it helps people build lives of meaning and contribution. This year did not simply affirm my mission; it refined it. I leave 2024 even more certain that small businesses, educators, students, and community-minded leaders will continue to shape a better world from the ground up.

“Education plants the seed, entrepreneurship gives it motion, and human purpose gives it meaning.”

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2024

November

In November, my reflections were shaped by Malaysia and by the vibrant role MSMEs play in national development. Speaking about their importance at the SME World Forum reinforced something I have seen across regions: small businesses are often the most agile, community-connected, and quietly transformative actors in an economy. They do not ask for special treatment; they ask for room to breathe, room to build, and room to grow. I felt strongly that policymakers must understand this distinction. Simplifying regulations is not about lowering standards. It is about removing unnecessary friction so that energy can flow toward innovation, employment, and service.

Malaysia also reminded me of the importance of context. Every country has its own entrepreneurial culture, challenges, and possibilities, yet the aspirations of MSMEs are remarkably universal. They want to contribute. They want to survive uncertainty with dignity. They want their effort to matter. This month deepened my conviction that when we listen carefully to entrepreneurs on the ground, we hear not only business concerns but the pulse of society itself.

June

By June, many of the year’s core ideas had converged in a way that felt especially personal to me. Writing and thinking about human-centered entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals brought renewed clarity to what I have tried to champion throughout my work: entrepreneurship must begin with people. MSMEs are often discussed in economic terms, but their deeper power lies in their human scale. They are close to families, neighborhoods, and local needs. They adapt quickly, create trust, and often carry a sense of responsibility that large systems struggle to replicate.

I was also encouraged by the growing emphasis on a circular, human-centered economy. The future cannot be built on extraction alone; it must be built on renewal, resilience, and shared benefit. MSMEs are uniquely positioned to model this way of thinking because they understand constraints, relationships, and practical innovation. June reminded me that the SDGs are not distant diplomatic aspirations. They become real when a small enterprise hires with intention, solves a local problem, reduces waste, or creates opportunity where none existed before. That is where global goals meet everyday life.

“The smallest enterprise can carry the largest possibility when it is rooted in dignity, purpose, and community.”

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2024

April

April gave me an opportunity to reflect on the enduring value of partnership. The relationship between ICSB and the OECD represents much more than organizational cooperation; to me, it symbolizes the bridge between ideas and implementation. For over a decade, I have seen how essential it is to create spaces where research, policy, and entrepreneurial practice can speak to one another. MSMEs do not need distant admiration—they need thoughtful frameworks that recognize their realities and respond to them with clarity and practicality.

This month reminded me that meaningful global impact often grows through patient institutional work. There is a quiet power in building platforms where the concerns of small businesses are not treated as peripheral, but as central to economic well-being. I felt renewed in my commitment to making sure that MSMEs remain visible in international conversations, because they are not a side note in development. They are the daily engine of communities, employment, and renewal. When policy is informed by their lived experience, it becomes more honest and more effective.

March

In March, my attention turned to Switzerland, a country whose entrepreneurial story offers lessons far beyond its borders. As I reflected on its path, I was struck by how enduring success rarely comes from a single policy or moment of innovation. Instead, it emerges from a culture that values education, trust, governance, and long-term thinking. Switzerland’s example reaffirmed my belief that entrepreneurship thrives best where institutions are stable, learning is respected, and excellence is pursued without losing sight of social cohesion.

What resonated with me most was the balance Switzerland has been able to maintain: competitiveness alongside quality of life, resilience alongside openness, and innovation alongside responsibility. This balance is something I believe many nations are searching for. I kept returning to the idea that entrepreneurship should never be detached from the conditions that allow human beings to live well. When a society invests seriously in education and equips people to imagine, build, and adapt, it does more than produce successful firms. It produces confidence, belonging, and a shared sense that the future can be shaped with intention.

“Entrepreneurship achieves its highest purpose when innovation serves humanity, not the other way around.”

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2024

February

As 2024 began to take shape, February invited me to return to a truth I have long carried with me: progress is only meaningful when it is human. My reflections this month were grounded in people, dignity, and the systems we build to help others flourish. Preparing for the “Women in Medicine” conversation reminded me that leadership is never abstract. It is lived through courage, service, and the steady contributions of women who strengthen institutions, heal communities, and expand what is possible for future generations. I found myself thinking deeply about how recognition matters—not as ceremony alone, but as a way of clarifying who we are becoming as a global society.

That same spirit shaped my thoughts around social justice and the role of institutions in confronting persistent inequities. Seeing ICSB join a global coalition committed to social justice felt like an important step in aligning entrepreneurship with a broader moral responsibility. For me, small business has never been only about markets or transactions; it is about work, fairness, mobility, and hope. When trade, labor, and opportunity are examined together, entrepreneurship becomes a vehicle for inclusion. February reminded me that building stronger economies requires building more decent, compassionate, and accessible pathways for people to participate in them.

Key Highlights

• A renewed commitment to humane entrepreneurship, with people, dignity, and community impact placed at the center of economic thinking.
• Recognition of women’s global contributions in medicine as a powerful reminder that leadership and service transform societies.
• Stronger alignment between entrepreneurship and social justice through international coalition-building and cross-sector collaboration.
• Switzerland’s model of innovation, governance, and education as a compelling example of how nations can pair competitiveness with societal well-being.
• Continued work with global partners such as the OECD to ensure MSMEs remain central to conversations on economic well-being and policy design.
• A deepened focus on MSMEs as essential drivers of the UN Sustainable Development Goals through human-centered and circular economic approaches.
• Clear emphasis on simplifying regulatory environments so that small businesses can thrive, innovate, and better serve their communities.
• A call to refocus ESG around practical innovation rather than excessive bureaucracy, especially for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.
• Inspiration from young students in Malaysia, whose curiosity and entrepreneurial spirit affirmed the importance of experiential education and future-ready leadership.

December

As December arrived, I felt both gratitude and clarity. Looking back on the year through my end-of-year message, I saw how much had been accomplished through ICSB’s global initiatives, research efforts, and educational programs. Yet what stayed with me most was not just the volume of work, but its coherence. Again and again, the same themes emerged: humane entrepreneurship, global collaboration, education that prepares ethical leaders, and a steadfast commitment to small businesses as engines of both prosperity and dignity.

My reflections on 2024 trends, especially collaborative alliances, felt like a natural extension of everything 2023 had taught me. No organization, entrepreneur, or institution can navigate uncertainty alone. The future belongs to those who can build trust, share knowledge, pool strengths, and create together. In my farewell to 2023, I kept returning to resilience and frugality—not as constraints, but as disciplines that sharpen wisdom. I leave this year humbled by the work, inspired by the people, and more convinced than ever that entrepreneurship must remain in service of humanity.

November

November brought one of the year’s most personally meaningful ideas into the spotlight: the “Entrepreneurship Road.” Introducing this concept in Baku felt symbolic and timely. Historically, trade routes connected goods and civilizations; today, I believe entrepreneurship can connect innovation, sustainability, and human dignity across borders. I wanted the Entrepreneurship Road to represent more than commerce. I wanted it to reflect a shared journey—one where the 17 Sustainable Development Goals serve not as distant aspirations, but as practical signposts for building a more balanced and humane global economy.

The November issue of Small Business Horizon also stirred my imagination in a different way. The intersection of AI and music, including the revival of artistic expression through technology, reminded me that innovation is not limited to markets and management. It reaches into culture, memory, and creativity. I found that deeply moving. It reinforced my belief that entrepreneurship, education, and technology are all enriched when they remain connected to the human spirit. Progress is at its best when it does not strip away wonder.

"Small businesses change the world not only through scale, but through soul."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2023

October

By October, I found myself reflecting on recognition, representation, and responsibility. The celebration of America’s top small businesses was a welcome reminder that behind every successful firm is a story of persistence, craft, and community trust. I always find these moments encouraging because they validate something I hold deeply: small businesses do not need to be massive to be meaningful. Their excellence is often found in their consistency, character, and connection to the people they serve.

My writing on women in global markets and SMEs confronting climate change expanded that reflection further. Women continue to shape entrepreneurial ecosystems across the world, often while confronting structural constraints that remain stubbornly persistent. Their leadership is indispensable. Likewise, the climate challenge is no longer a distant policy issue; it is a lived business reality. I was encouraged by the adaptability of SMEs and their ability to act locally while contributing to global solutions. October reminded me that resilience is not abstract. It is built one decision, one team, and one community at a time.

August

In August, my reflections became more expansive and, at times, more urgent. Writing about AI as a punctuated revolution helped me articulate what I was sensing all year: that we are not merely experiencing gradual technological change, but moments of abrupt transformation that can redefine how economies and societies function. For SMEs, this is both exhilarating and daunting. I wanted to stress that technology must be aligned with sustainability and ethics, especially when its speed threatens to outpace our collective wisdom. The question is not whether AI will shape the future; it is whether we will shape its use with care.

August also pushed me to reflect on institutions and trust. Preparing for the SME World Forum in Baku filled me with anticipation because I knew it would convene diverse voices around the future of the SME ecosystem. At the same time, my thoughts on academic integrity and the “perfect storm” in management research reminded me that leadership requires vigilance. Scholarship, like entrepreneurship, depends on credibility. A human-centered approach to journal leadership, transparency, and reform felt essential. I ended the month believing even more strongly that progress without integrity is fragile, and that credibility is one of our most important assets.

July

July felt like a crescendo. There was movement, energy, and a sense that many of the ideas I had been cultivating were coming into sharper public focus. When I wrote about the future ahead and the entrepreneurial revolution, I was really writing about possibility with responsibility. I have long believed that entrepreneurship can become a pathway toward peace, humanity, and shared prosperity, especially when young people are given the tools to create rather than simply react. In a world often overwhelmed by division and uncertainty, I wanted to articulate a future where innovation serves human flourishing.

Our time in Jinju deepened this conviction. There was something profoundly grounding about exploring entrepreneurship through history, nature, and culture. I was reminded that many ideas we describe today with modern language—social entrepreneurship, circularity, stewardship—have roots in older wisdom traditions. The 6th edition of the ICSB Global MSMEs Report and the broader MSMEs Day conversations further underscored the centrality of youth, women, sustainable supply chains, and policy reform. July was not only about celebrating progress; it was about reaffirming a mission that must remain global, inclusive, and values-driven.

June

June was one of the most vibrant and meaningful months of the year. Marking United Nations MSMEs Day always fills me with pride, but in 2023 it felt especially powerful. I was reminded again that MSMEs are not secondary actors in the world economy; they are its living backbone. My focus this month centered on women, youth, and resilient supply chains, because these are not isolated topics. They are connected threads in the larger fabric of inclusive development. If we want sustainable progress, we must equip emerging entrepreneurs and strengthen the ecosystems that sustain them.

June also gave me the chance to celebrate learning in motion through ICSB’s 2023 Academy. I was inspired by the multicultural and multidisciplinary environment we created, one that encouraged students to think across borders and beyond familiar assumptions. My work on South Korea’s thriving social venture ecosystem and the contrasts between Eastern and Western entrepreneurial traditions reinforced another lesson I carried all year: there is no single model for meaningful enterprise. The East-West dialogue reminded me that entrepreneurship can be shaped by community, duty, harmony, and purpose just as much as by competition and individual ambition.

"Education is most powerful when it prepares people not only to build ventures, but to build a better world through them."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2023

May

In May, my attention turned more directly toward the global importance of MSMEs and the cultural foundations of entrepreneurship. As I prepared ideas linked to MSMEs Day, I felt renewed appreciation for how often micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises are discussed as statistics when they are, in reality, human stories. They are families taking risks, communities creating resilience, and dreamers turning necessity into possibility. I wanted to make sure that our work kept elevating their role not only in economic growth but also in social cohesion and long-term stability.

At the same time, my reflections on Korean entrepreneurship gave me space to think about history, tradition, and national identity. South Korea’s development story is one of discipline, strategic vision, education, and adaptation. I was especially drawn to the way cultural values can shape entrepreneurial behavior over generations. Too often, entrepreneurship is treated as a universal formula, detached from context. Yet the more I studied and wrote, the more I saw that entrepreneurship is deeply cultural. It carries memory, philosophy, and social norms with it, and that realization enriched my thinking throughout the year.

April

April brought me back to the classroom, which has always been one of the most meaningful spaces in my life. As conversations about AI in education intensified, I found myself resisting the instinct to ban what we do not yet fully understand. Instead, I leaned into the Socratic method, curiosity, and critical thinking. If students are going to live and lead in a world shaped by AI, then our task as educators is not to shield them from it, but to teach them how to engage it thoughtfully and responsibly. I wanted students to learn how to question, test, interpret, and challenge AI-generated output rather than accept it passively.

April was also a month of conceptual clarity for me. Distinguishing between people-centered and human-centered approaches may seem subtle at first glance, but to me it carries real philosophical weight. I kept returning to the belief that entrepreneurship and policymaking must honor the full dignity of the person, not merely serve stakeholders in a transactional way. My reflections around MSMEs during this period also reinforced that small businesses thrive when strategy is tied to meaning. Efficiency and innovation matter, of course, but they matter most when they improve lives and strengthen communities.

March

By March, artificial intelligence had become impossible to ignore. I spent a great deal of time reflecting on what AI could mean for small businesses: not just in theory, but in the daily reality of decision-making, customer engagement, efficiency, and survival. I felt both excitement and caution. AI offers small firms extraordinary tools, but it also raises serious questions around ethics, trust, cost, privacy, and readiness. I did not want to romanticize technology, nor did I want to fear it. Instead, I wanted to position it as something entrepreneurs must approach with wisdom, discernment, and courage.

March also gave me an opportunity to deepen one of the ideas closest to my heart: humane entrepreneurship. Connecting humane entrepreneurship with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals felt natural, almost inevitable. For years, I have believed that business must be a force that uplifts human dignity while also producing value. The SDGs offered a shared global language for that belief. The more I wrote and spoke about this connection, the more convinced I became that small businesses are not peripheral to global progress; they are central to it. When grounded in humanity, entrepreneurship can address poverty, inclusion, sustainability, and hope all at once.

"The future of entrepreneurship is not simply faster or smarter; it must also be kinder, more ethical, and more deeply human."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2023

January

I began 2023 with a deep sense of responsibility. In many ways, January set the tone for the entire year: rigorous, practical, and deeply human. As I reflected on whether policies truly work for small businesses and entrepreneurs, I kept returning to a simple but profound question: are we measuring what matters, or merely what is easy to count? The work around evaluating SME and entrepreneurship policies reminded me that good intentions are never enough. If we want to serve entrepreneurs well, especially those operating with limited resources and high uncertainty, we must build systems that are accountable, evidence-based, and honest about outcomes.

That same month, I also found myself thinking carefully about opportunity and access. Writing about women entrepreneurs reinforced how often brilliant founders must navigate barriers that extend far beyond their products or business models. Funding, investor expectations, confidence, and credibility all intersect in complex ways. I wanted that work to be practical, useful, and empowering. At the same time, our partnership with Gwangju City and the integration of e-sports into entrepreneurship education reminded me that innovation often enters through unexpected doors. I was energized by the idea that learning entrepreneurship can happen through competition, creativity, and emerging industries that resonate with younger generations.

As I reflect on 2022, I see a year shaped by tension, possibility, and a deepening conviction that entrepreneurship must always remain rooted in humanity. Across every article, speech, and institutional effort, I found myself returning to the same essential question: how can we build systems that serve people, especially those whose talents are too often overlooked or constrained by crisis, inequality, or exclusion? This year reminded me that small businesses are not merely economic units; they are expressions of dignity, resilience, family, and community. My work became, more than ever, an effort to connect research with lived experience and to ensure that entrepreneurship continues to be a force for healing, renewal, and shared progress.

December

December offered a natural moment of synthesis. In my year-end message as ICSB President, I found myself reflecting with gratitude on the resilience of the small business community and on the progress we made together through global events, institutional partnerships, and public engagement. The year had not been easy for MSMEs, yet their persistence continued to inspire me. Looking ahead through the Top Ten Trends for 2023, I saw reason for cautious optimism. Even amid global tension and the lingering effects of the pandemic, opportunities remain for innovation, resilience, and renewed purpose. Humane entrepreneurship and MSMEs will continue to play a central role in shaping recovery, not as temporary fixes, but as foundational pillars of sustainable development.

I ended the year thinking deeply about research excellence and what it truly means for scholarly work to matter. Too often, academic success is measured in ways that feel disconnected from the needs of society. My conversation around research excellence reaffirmed my belief that scholarship should be judged not only by prestige, but by relevance, courage, and contribution. This conviction mirrors the broader journey of my year: whether in war, education, policy, digital transformation, or social enterprise, I kept returning to the same mission. I want my work to help create a world where entrepreneurship is more humane, more accessible, and more responsive to the realities people live every day. As 2022 closed, I felt tired at times, yes—but also energized, grateful, and more certain than ever that this work matters.

November

In November, I had the opportunity to bring the idea of humane entrepreneurship into even sharper focus. I reflected on what it means for businesses to place empathy, dignity, and equity at the center of their operations, and how leaders can move organizations toward healthier and more sustainable cultures. I have become increasingly convinced that the quality of a business cannot be judged by financial outputs alone. The way people are treated, the sense of purpose they experience, and the fairness embedded in decision-making matter deeply. Humane entrepreneurship gives language to these priorities and challenges us to build enterprises that are innovative precisely because they are human-centered, not in spite of it.

November also invited me to think about the future through multiple lenses: society, digital reality, and education. The upcoming Georges Doriot Days represented the kind of transdisciplinary, globally engaged conversation I value so much—one that sees entrepreneurship as a catalyst for social transformation. I was equally struck by the growing importance of digital presence and digital conferences, not simply as substitutes for physical gathering, but as pathways to accessibility, sustainability, and connection across borders. Most of all, I reflected on the future of entrepreneurship education. If we are serious about creating leaders who care for both society and the planet, then our classrooms must evolve. Education must teach not only how to build ventures, but why those ventures should exist and whom they should serve.

"Education in entrepreneurship should not only prepare students to build companies; it should prepare them to build a better world."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2022

October

In October, I explored change more directly. Writing about how SMEs must choose change led me to consider the emotional and psychological dimensions of transformation. Change is often discussed strategically, but it is also deeply human. Fear, uncertainty, habit, and cognitive overload all shape how leaders respond to disruption. For small and medium enterprises, however, remaining still is often the riskiest option of all. I wanted to underscore that agility is not just a technical capability; it is a mindset, a discipline, and sometimes even an act of courage. This reflection felt especially relevant in a world where so many businesses are navigating uncertainty without the buffers enjoyed by larger institutions.

October also deepened my focus on women’s entrepreneurship policy and social innovation. The persistent gender gap in entrepreneurship continues to signal unfinished work, and I felt compelled to emphasize the role of targeted policy, education, and access to finance in creating more equitable conditions. At the same time, the story of DC Central Kitchen reminded me why I remain inspired by social enterprises. Here was an example of innovation grounded in purpose—using culinary training, school meals, and revenue creativity to support people overcoming poverty and addiction. This case reaffirmed something I hold close: entrepreneurship at its best does not merely create income; it creates pathways to stability, confidence, and belonging.

September

September was one of the richest months of reflection. I wrote about Women 2030 and the need for sustainable career development that recognizes the barriers women continue to face in professional advancement and community leadership. This work was especially meaningful because it connected entrepreneurship to long-term systems change. I have long believed that empowering women is not a side conversation within economic development; it is central to it. When women have stronger pathways to education, finance, leadership, and institutional support, entire communities benefit. The Women 2030 initiative represented the kind of collaborative and future-oriented thinking I want to see more of in the world.

That month also allowed me to consider the arrival of the entrepreneurial revolution in a more comprehensive sense. Sustainability, digitalization, and geopolitical shifts are reshaping the landscape faster than many institutions can adapt. I felt a growing urgency to remind leaders that technology alone is not enough. Artificial intelligence, digital tools, and innovation systems must be guided by social responsibility and human values. Alongside this, I reflected on rebuilding the sense of community after a period of isolation, and on the practical realities facing small businesses: changing regulations, rapid digitization, and limited access to networks. These are not minor administrative concerns; they determine whether enterprises can survive, belong, and grow. The lesson I carried from September was simple but profound: entrepreneurs need ecosystems, not just encouragement.

July

July brought a meaningful moment of affirmation when the ICSB World Congress received recognition from The Honorable Charles E. Schumer. I experienced this not simply as an institutional milestone, but as recognition of the millions of small business owners, educators, and ecosystem builders whose work often goes unnoticed. For years, I have believed that when we elevate small business, we elevate communities, jobs, innovation, and hope. This acknowledgment reminded me that the global conversation around entrepreneurship is expanding and that the contributions of ICSB are resonating beyond our immediate circles. It strengthened my resolve to continue building bridges between policymakers, scholars, and practitioners in service of MSMEs worldwide.

June

By June, my attention turned toward a larger and more hopeful question: who is the entrepreneurial revolution truly for? I returned to this question more than once because it felt urgent. The disruptions of recent years had revealed so clearly that progress is uneven, and that many communities bear the heaviest burdens while receiving the fewest opportunities. I wanted to insist that the entrepreneurial revolution cannot be reserved for the privileged, the well-connected, or the already visible. It must reach those who have been marginalized, displaced, or left behind by conventional systems. To me, this was not only a matter of inclusion; it was a matter of building a safer, more balanced, and more just future.

That same month, I also wrote about why an entrepreneurial revolution is needed at all. Climate pressures, global inequities, and social fragmentation made the answer clear: we can no longer treat entrepreneurship as a purely commercial pursuit. It must become a vehicle for responsibility as much as innovation. I found myself thinking often about the next generation and the kind of world they will inherit. Humane entrepreneurship, in this context, became my way of articulating a path forward—one where enterprise serves people and planet together, where economic creativity is measured not only by growth but by restoration, fairness, and resilience.

"The entrepreneurial revolution means little unless it opens doors for those who have long stood outside them."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2022

March

In March, my reflections were shaped by the painful reality of conflict as I wrote about war and entrepreneurship. It was impossible to ignore the devastating consequences that war has on economies, families, and the fragile ecosystems in which small businesses struggle to survive. Yet even in the midst of destruction, I saw how entrepreneurial energy persists. This paradox stayed with me: entrepreneurship can emerge in the harshest conditions, but it must never become detached from compassion. Writing on this topic reinforced my belief that humane entrepreneurship is not an abstract ideal; it is a necessary response to suffering. If entrepreneurship is to matter in moments of crisis, it must protect dignity, promote equity, and create space for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises to endure and rebuild.

"Even in the shadow of conflict, entrepreneurship must remain an instrument of human dignity."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2022

Key Highlights

• Deepened my commitment to humane entrepreneurship as a framework centered on dignity, empathy, equity, and long-term sustainability.
• Explored how war, pandemic disruption, and geopolitical instability affect micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises around the world.
• Emphasized that the entrepreneurial revolution must benefit all of society, especially marginalized and disenfranchised communities.
• Celebrated growing recognition of ICSB’s global role in supporting small businesses and strengthening international collaboration.
• Focused on women’s career development and entrepreneurship policy as essential pathways to stronger communities and fairer economies.
• Highlighted digital transformation, networks, and education as critical tools for the future of entrepreneurship.
• Closed the year with optimism, identifying key trends for 2023 while reaffirming the importance of research that creates meaningful impact.

September

In September, I found myself wrestling with one of the defining tensions of our time: the relationship between automation and humanity. The advance of Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence, and digital systems offers extraordinary promise, but it also raises difficult questions. I wanted to explore how we can welcome technological progress without allowing it to erode empathy, dignity, or human agency. For me, the future of automation must never be framed as a choice between innovation and values. The real challenge is to design systems in which technology serves people, rather than asking people to adapt themselves to impersonal systems. Humane entrepreneurship became, in this context, an essential compass—one that helps ensure our tools remain aligned with our deepest responsibilities.

September also brought me back to one of the most enduring convictions of my professional life: education is the cornerstone of transformation. If we want a world led by entrepreneurs who care about communities, sustainability, and shared prosperity, then we must teach differently. We must design learning environments that help students see enterprise as a force for social and environmental good, not only as a route to financial reward. Reflecting on education and humane entrepreneurship filled me with optimism because I believe classrooms can become launchpads for global change. Every curriculum that integrates sustainability, every lesson that centers human dignity, and every student encouraged to think beyond self-interest becomes part of a larger movement toward a better future.

"The future belongs to entrepreneurs who can pair innovation with empathy and vision with responsibility."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2021

August

By August, my reflections had become even more holistic. I wrote about humane, sustainable, and harmonious entrepreneurship as interconnected ideas rather than separate ambitions, because I increasingly saw that our global challenges demand integrated thinking. Climate change, inequity, social fragmentation, and human rights concerns cannot be addressed through isolated business strategies. They call for an entrepreneurial mindset that values long-term balance over immediate extraction. In writing on this theme, I felt a growing clarity that harmony is not a soft ideal; it is a strategic necessity. Businesses that ignore human and ecological realities may achieve temporary wins, but they cannot create lasting value. I wanted to emphasize that humane entrepreneurship is not simply about being kinder in business; it is about being wiser, more responsible, and more capable of shaping a livable future.

That same month, I returned to the vital role of MSMEs in a dynamic world. Small and medium-sized enterprises have always stood close to the heartbeat of communities, and during the post-pandemic recovery their importance felt even more visible. I reflected on how humane entrepreneurship can strengthen MSMEs by putting people first and treating human capital as a source of innovation, resilience, and renewal. Too often, smaller firms are measured only by what they lack—scale, resources, market power. But I have seen repeatedly that they possess something equally powerful: agility, intimacy with their communities, and the capacity to humanize economic life. Writing about MSMEs reminded me that empowering these enterprises is one of the most practical ways to generate widespread, grounded, and meaningful impact.

April

In April, my attention turned toward business education and the important evolution taking place within accreditation and institutional standards. I was heartened by the way AACSB was reimagining its framework, moving away from rigid prescriptions and toward principles, outcomes, and entrepreneurial thinking. This mattered to me because education should not produce leaders who simply preserve existing systems; it should prepare them to question assumptions, work across disciplines, and respond creatively to a rapidly changing world. I have long believed that entrepreneurship education must be alive to context, culture, and global interdependence. Seeing a major institution embrace that spirit felt like confirmation that the future of business education can be both rigorous and imaginative.

"Education matters most when it teaches people not only how to succeed, but how to serve."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2021

March

March marked one full year since the pandemic had so dramatically altered our lives, and that remembrance brought a mixture of sorrow, gratitude, and resolve. I found myself reflecting on how much had been lost, but also on how much had been learned. At ICSB, we had to rethink nearly everything: how we gathered, how we taught, how we supported entrepreneurs, and how we remained present for a global community during a period of uncertainty. What stood out most to me was that decentralization and digital accessibility were not merely emergency responses; they revealed a more humane way of operating. We became more reachable, more sustainable, and in many ways more global than before. This realization stayed with me deeply: sometimes disruption does not just interrupt progress, it clarifies what progress should look like.

February

February felt like a threshold month for me, a moment when many of the ideas I had been carrying for years suddenly seemed to find a wider audience and a deeper urgency. In reflecting on the rise of the ESG generation, I sensed that humane entrepreneurship was no longer a peripheral conversation; it was steadily becoming part of the mainstream language of business, investment, and leadership. I was encouraged by the growing commitment of younger generations to move beyond narrow, short-term thinking and instead build enterprises that honor people, communities, and the planet. It gave me hope to see business increasingly understood not only as an engine of profit, but as a platform for dignity, stewardship, and shared progress.

During that same month, I also spent time thinking about the digital and hybrid transformation of our professional lives. The world had changed so quickly, and with that change came a powerful lesson: resilience belongs to those who remain open, flexible, and connected. Writing about hybrid models and digital distinction reminded me that technology, when used thoughtfully, can expand access rather than limit it. Virtual conferences, digital infrastructure, and hybrid engagement created opportunities for broader participation across borders, income levels, and time zones. I found myself reflecting on how inclusion can be strengthened when innovation is guided by purpose and when access becomes a design principle rather than an afterthought.

February also brought me back to two deeply human concerns: creativity in times of crisis and equity as a lived commitment rather than a passing slogan. The story of corporate entrepreneurship in a crisis, exemplified by the Raleigh Little Theatre, reminded me that ingenuity often emerges when circumstances are most constrained. There is something profoundly inspiring about people refusing to surrender to disruption and instead reimagining what their institutions can become. At the same time, my reflections on equity challenged me personally and professionally. I kept returning to the belief that empathy, transparency, and meaningful opportunity must be embedded in our systems if entrepreneurship is to fulfill its highest promise. For me, this was not abstract theory; it was a call to build environments where more people can truly belong and thrive.

"When business becomes more human, it also becomes more enduring."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2021

Key Highlights

• The rise of the ESG generation affirmed that humane, sustainable business thinking is becoming a defining force in modern entrepreneurship.
• Hybrid and digital models revealed new possibilities for inclusion, global connection, and resilient institutional design.
• Creativity during crisis showed that entrepreneurial spirit can transform disruption into enduring opportunity.
• Equity, empathy, and transparency remained central to my reflections on how healthier entrepreneurial ecosystems are built.
• Business education continued to evolve toward interdisciplinary, principle-driven learning that prepares leaders for a connected world.
• Humane, sustainable, and harmonious entrepreneurship emerged as a holistic framework for addressing global challenges.
• MSMEs stood out as essential engines of recovery, community vitality, and people-centered innovation.
• The future of automation reinforced the importance of keeping technology aligned with human values.
• Education remained the most powerful long-term pathway for shaping entrepreneurs who create global impact with conscience and care.

Looking back on 2021, I see a year defined by convergence. Ideas that once seemed to live in separate rooms—sustainability, entrepreneurship, education, technology, and human dignity—came together with greater coherence and urgency. I felt more convinced than ever that the future of entrepreneurship must be measured not only by what it builds, but by whom it uplifts. This year reminded me that small businesses matter because people matter, that education matters because futures are formed there, and that global impact begins when we choose to lead with humanity. I end this reflection with gratitude for the colleagues, students, entrepreneurs, and communities who continue to challenge and inspire me. Their courage keeps reinforcing my belief that a more humane world of enterprise is not only possible; it is already being created.

December

By December, I was thinking intensely about action. Research matters deeply to me, but 2020 taught me that knowledge achieves its highest purpose only when it becomes tangible change. In writing about centering innovative solutions, I wanted to challenge the comfort of endless analysis without implementation. Too many entrepreneurs, especially those on the margins, cannot wait for perfect frameworks or complete certainty. They need practical tools, courageous experimentation, and institutions willing to move from conversation to commitment. This was also the spirit behind my reflections on research with impact: accuracy and rigor are essential, but so are relevance, justice, and accessibility. Research should help communities solve problems, not merely describe them eloquently.

As I look back on 2020, I do not remember it only as a year of disruption. I remember it as a year of clarification. The pandemic revealed what had been neglected, but it also illuminated what matters most: the resilience of small businesses, the moral power of humane entrepreneurship, the urgency of educational renewal, and the possibility of truly global cooperation rooted in dignity. I end the year humbled by how much pain people endured, yet encouraged by how many continued to create, teach, rebuild, and care. If this year asked me anything, it was to remain bold in ideas, grounded in people, and faithful to the belief that enterprise can be a force for healing as well as growth.

November

November was especially meaningful because it centered women entrepreneurs and their global impact. The inaugural ICSB Global Women Entrepreneurship Conference reminded me how many transformative solutions have long been created by women with far too little recognition or resourcing. Their work often carries a depth of community understanding that larger systems fail to see until much later. As I reflected on women moving us forward, I felt both admiration and responsibility. If we are serious about sustainable development and humane business, then we must create conditions where women entrepreneurs are not treated as exceptions to celebrate occasionally, but as indispensable leaders in shaping the future every day. Their presence expands what entrepreneurship can accomplish for families, neighborhoods, and nations.

October

October brought me back to essence. In reflecting on sustainable growth, I kept returning to empathy—not as sentiment, but as infrastructure. Without empathy, organizations may scale, but they do not truly develop in ways that sustain people or communities. I wanted to make clear that real growth must include relationships, belonging, and mutual care. Around the same time, I wrote about entrepreneurial ecosystems and questioned whether they can simply be engineered into existence. My instinct has always been that ecosystems thrive most naturally when they emerge from culture, trust, and lived human need rather than from rigid design alone. Nature itself offers a lesson here: what is alive grows through connection, diversity, and adaptation.

September

September invited me to go back to roots. In writing about the stakeholder share, I reflected on how entrepreneurship had drifted too far toward shareholder primacy and too far away from its human purpose. I wanted to emphasize that enterprise, at its best, creates value with people, not merely from them. This month also drew me into the intellectual history of sustainable development. Tracing its origins reminded me that ideas evolve, but their enduring strength lies in whether they help us live more responsibly with one another and with the world around us. I felt renewed by the possibility of reconnecting entrepreneurship with stewardship.

At the same time, I wrote about the democratization of knowledge and the real cost of downsizing. Both topics were linked by a common concern: when organizations treat people as expendable or keep knowledge concentrated in narrow circles, they weaken themselves. I wanted to affirm the opposite path—a more open, participatory, and human-centric model where institutions collaborate and where employees are seen not as overhead, but as carriers of creativity, memory, and future potential. In a year when so many decisions were being made under pressure, I felt it was especially important to remind leaders that short-term cuts can produce long-term damage if they sever trust and squander human capability.

August

In August, my work became more explicit about living the principles I had been writing about. It was not enough to describe humane entrepreneurship; we had to embody it in the culture and programs of ICSB itself. I reflected on what it means to move from concept to conduct—from saying we value inclusion, sustainability, and human-centered progress to actually organizing around those values. This month also sharpened my sense that the status quo had run its course. The old assumptions about success, efficiency, and wealth were proving too narrow for a world that had been humbled by crisis. I found myself returning to ideas like forgiveness, frugal innovation, resilience, and renewal as practical foundations for the future.

Another important realization in August was that wealth must be redefined. Financial capital matters, of course, but it is incomplete on its own. Human capability, trust, well-being, and our relationship with natural systems are also forms of wealth—arguably the most consequential forms. My reflections on the Sustainable Development Goals and on the humane entrepreneurial-oriented professor all converged around one conviction: institutions must align learning, purpose, and action. If we want a more sustainable world, then our classrooms, organizations, and economic practices must all teach the same lesson—that profit is strongest when it travels with human benefit rather than apart from it.

"The future belongs to those who measure wealth not only by what they earn, but by what they restore in people and communities."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2020

July

By July, I was preoccupied with the difference between information and knowledge. The world had become flooded with data, opinions, alerts, and noise, yet wisdom still felt scarce. This tension inspired my reflections on knowing knowledge and the future, and it strengthened my commitment to building structures that help entrepreneurs access not just content, but meaningful, usable insight. The ICSB Knowledge Hub emerged in my thinking as more than a network; it represented a philosophy. Knowledge should circulate, connect, and empower. It should not remain trapped in silos, inaccessible language, or institutional boundaries that keep those who most need it at the margins.

July also led me to leadership and the professoriate. I became more persuaded that the future of leadership belongs to those who serve, elevate, and create climates where others can flourish. Servant leadership, within the framework of humane entrepreneurship, felt less like a theory and more like a necessity. At the same time, I reflected on what it means to be a “new type of professor.” The traditional model of authority at a distance no longer felt sufficient for the moment. I wanted to imagine the educator as connector, facilitator, and bridge-builder—someone willing to cross disciplines, geographies, and formats in order to reach learners where they are. That vision still feels deeply personal to me.

June

June was a month of reckoning with uncertainty. I wrote that full uncertainty had, in many ways, become our only certainty, and I meant it. Yet within that instability, I saw an opening: the chance to rebuild economic life around empathy, fairness, and long-term resilience. My reflections on “true equitable embodiment” and “generation corona” were rooted in the belief that a new entrepreneurial generation was emerging—one that had witnessed systemic fragility firsthand and would therefore demand better from institutions and business itself. I sensed that the old language of growth was no longer enough. We needed a vocabulary that could hold both enterprise and human dignity at once.

June was also important because it allowed me to move humane entrepreneurship from idea to practice. I thought deeply about how leaders could assess whether their organizations were nurturing people or merely extracting from them. Categorizing firms by how they treat human beings was not an academic exercise for me; it was a way of asking hard questions during a hard time. Family businesses, in particular, stood out as powerful examples of endurance, relational trust, and long-view thinking. Their habits—protecting people, preserving legacy, sustaining community—offered lessons well beyond the family enterprise itself. In a time of turbulence, I found hope in models that showed business can be both productive and caring without contradiction.

"Humane entrepreneurship is not softness; it is the disciplined choice to let dignity guide growth."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2020

May

By May, my attention turned even more intentionally toward micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises as engines of global change. The deeper I reflected, the clearer it became that MSMEs are not peripheral to development; they are central to it. When empowered, they generate dignity, local opportunity, and practical solutions to problems that can feel impossibly large from a policy distance. I wrote about helping small businesses change the world because I genuinely believe they can help move us toward a more equitable and sustainable future. This was also the month I began framing the crisis not only as a shock to survive, but as a moment to redesign business models and prepare with greater foresight. We could not afford to simply wait for normal to return; we had to build something wiser.

May also deepened my reflection on education. The abruptness of the pandemic exposed how unprepared many institutions were for uncertainty, yet it also revealed how quickly educators and students can adapt when necessity becomes the teacher. I became more convinced that entrepreneurship education must do more than transfer knowledge; it must cultivate resilience, imagination, and moral clarity. Moving from sudden crisis to prepared planning meant changing how we teach, how we research, and how we define relevance. I felt a growing responsibility to help shape learning environments that are not detached from reality, but responsive to it—places where future entrepreneurs can develop the courage to act and the humility to listen.

April

April arrived like a rupture in time. The pandemic forced me to confront how fragile our assumptions had become—about markets, education, mobility, and even human closeness. As I reflected on what a business school should look like “for the day after,” I kept returning to a simple but unsettling truth: education could no longer be satisfied with producing efficient consumers of information. We had to help shape producers of value, meaning, and resilience. I found myself thinking more deeply about local capacity, responsible enterprise, and the kind of economic structures that honor people before abstractions. The disruption was painful, but it also stripped away illusion. It asked us, with urgency, what kind of leaders we were truly preparing for the world ahead.

At the same time, I was studying examples like South Korea, where science, discipline, technology, and empathy were woven together in ways that felt both practical and humane. That balance stayed with me. In a season defined by fear, I wrote about “blind optimism” not as denial, but as a form of courage small business owners often embody when the future refuses to reveal itself. I also could not ignore the human stories that sharpened the moral responsibility of entrepreneurship. A conversation about vulnerability and accessibility reminded me that inclusive innovation is not a luxury; it is a test of whether we really mean it when we say business should serve humanity. The crisis exposed many gaps, but it also illuminated where compassion and creativity could meet.

April also pushed me to speak plainly about small businesses. Around the world, relief systems were being designed quickly, yet too often they missed the daily reality of the entrepreneur carrying payroll, rent, uncertainty, and responsibility on their shoulders. I felt compelled to insist that small business truly matters—not as a slogan, but as the living fabric of communities. In the same month, I reflected on entrepreneurship in crisis, on digital education becoming a necessity rather than an experiment, and on the dangerous confusion behind the phrase “social distancing.” We were physically apart, yes, but our task was to remain socially and emotionally connected. I believed then, and still do, that any serious plan to support recovery had to be bold, global, and centered on small firms, teachers, nurses, and the people carrying society through its hardest days.

"In a year of physical distance, I discovered again that real entrepreneurship begins with human connection."

— Ayman El Tarabishy, 2020

Key Highlights

• Reframed entrepreneurship around dignity, empathy, and resilience during the global crisis.
• Elevated MSMEs as essential drivers of local recovery, sustainable development, and global equity.
• Called for bold support systems for small businesses, essential workers, educators, and vulnerable communities.
• Advanced humane entrepreneurship from a conceptual framework to a practical model for leadership and organizational life.
• Reimagined entrepreneurship education through digital learning, inclusive teaching, and a new role for professors.
• Strengthened the importance of democratized knowledge through collaborative networks and accessible research.
• Expanded the meaning of wealth to include human, social, and natural well-being alongside financial outcomes.
• Recentered stakeholder thinking, sustainable development, and employee retention as foundations of long-term value.
• Highlighted the transformative global role of women entrepreneurs in building humane and sustainable futures.
• Ended the year with a clear commitment to research that leads to practical, people-centered change.