Human-Centered Education Driving Community Impact
The Musa and Khaleda Dakri Center for Economic Inclusion (Dakri CEI) champions a model of experiential education that is proven to transform both university students and local community entrepreneurs. This model has been developed over the last decade, through the work of the SURE℠ Program.
At the Dakri CEI, Economic Inclusion means to foster inclusive growth by reducing barriers to the entrepreneurial ecosystems that sustain new and growing businesses. This starts with ensuring our students are taught human-centric leadership skills in hands-on, experiential learning environments. Our students develop empathy and other valuable leadership skills in a tangible way that is unique to other classroom settings.
Dakri CEI Vision and Mission
The Dakri Center’s vision is to be a global leader in experiential business education that trains empathetic business leaders while promoting economic inclusion.
Our mission is to train students with the skills they need for the future of work and to connect and uplift communities through educational programs and research.
There are three components to achieving our mission:
- Experiential education to create empathic and effective business leaders
- Community Engagement to empower under-resourced entrepreneurs from the community
- Research to amplify insights and impact for education and small businesses to foster economic inclusion
To enable this our work is powered by the SURE Program
- The SURE Program: Stimulating Urban Renewal through Entrepreneurship (SURE) provides University of Houston students with practical business consulting experience education by having them mentor under-resourced entrepreneurs.
- The SURE PLUS Program: Developing specialized support for entrepreneurs in their journey after attending the SURE Program. Providing support for industries with a large proportion of main street business and a specific focus on industries that provide benefit to their communities.
- The Cohort Program: We guide educators across institutions to develop and implement their own SURE-like programs, sharing our methods and creating a global network of impact-driven initiatives.
- Cutting edge Research: Our studies focus on the challenges faced by small businesses, including access to funding and sustainable growth strategies, ensuring our programs and insights are backed by data and tailored to real-world needs. Our goal is to build the nation’s leading database of small businesses.
The SURE Program
Stimulating Urban Renewal Through Entrepreneurship (SURE) at the University of Houston's C. T. Bauer College of Business is the flagship program of the Dakri Center. SURE is an innovative educational platform that creates a partnership between UH students, under-resourced entrepreneurs, and corporate business leaders. Our students gain practical, human-centered skills while empowering local community entrepreneurs through this semester-long experiential learning program.
Teaching and Curriculum
The Dakri CEI supports multiple educational programs and activities within the University of Houston's C. T. Bauer College of Business including the SURE program, consulting for small business needs, and the inter-university cohort program.
Research
The Dakri CEI’s focus is on Main Street Entrepreneurship and takes a three-pronged research approach to the topic.
Our Partners
The Dakri CEI could not operate without the support of our education, corporate, and government sponsors. Find out more about these people and organizations who help to keep the mission of Dakri CEI alive.