Create Your Theory of Change

In times of crisis and distress, both businesses and individuals need to revise their goals and adapt. Usually, the theory of change is vital for social enterprises, nevertheless, it is a very useful framework for all small and medium enterprises and it is also a great tool to use when revising our personal goals and plans in special circumstances such as the pandemic we are living now. The session will cover the basics of the Theory of Change model and introduce tools that the attendees can use to create their own theory of change and strategically plan their initiatives to achieve real impact. Examples from real social enterprises and personal experience will be given.

Mona Itani is an engineer, academic, and social entrepreneur. After several years of working in telecommunication multi-national companies, she joined the American University of Beirut in 2011 where she served as a lecturer and researcher at the faculty of engineering and school of business. Currently, she is appointed as the coordinator of the Entrepreneurship Initiative at the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture where she is driving the faculty’s mission to become a leading entrepreneurship and innovation school in Lebanon and the Middle East. She is a published author on entrepreneurship, women, ethics, and engineering education. She is the managing director of Girls in Tech Lebanon and the ex-chair of IEEE Women in Engineering Affinity Group Lebanon Section and has co-founded several social initiatives that aim to promote women in technology such as She Develops Hackathon and Girls got IT initiative. She is the Founder and CEO of Riyada (Arabic for entrepreneurship) for Social Innovation SAL, a social enterprise that offers innovative education programs, corporate training, and consulting services to foster social entrepreneurship and innovation in the Arab world. She has completed her PhD in Management from the University of Leicester’s School of Business, UK in 2020.