ESC Lille Announced that it Will Launch an Islamic Finance Seminar at Project and Programme Management Workshop in August 2007

Reported by Thibaut Goupil, in Evreux, France.

ESC Lille has announced that it will launch an Islamic Finance seminar at Project and Programme Management Workshop in August 2007, with NASA, The World Bank, the UN and Boeing among the participants. Following on the heels of its recent announcement that it will establish a new campus in the Gulf Region, leading French business school ESC Lille is turning its attention to Islamic Finance. A new seminar on this increasingly popular topic will be presented for the first time at ESC Lille's Summer Workshop in Strategy, Programme and Project Management to be held at the school's campus in Lille, France from August 20 - 24, 2007.

The session, which will be taught by experts from Kuwait Finance House and Arab Banking, will look at Islamic Finance's key players, trends and perspectives and the Sharia-based legal framework upon which Islamic Finance is based. Participants will also learn about various Islamic financial products and markets and consider how these relate to project finance.

Professor Bredillet (in photo) stressed that the session will "go beyond a classic multicultural approach that teaches 'do's and don'ts' to really get at a clear understanding of the traditional, fundamental roots of this important topic."

The session will be fully integrated into the ESC Lille curriculum starting in September 2007 in the form of a course to be offered jointly by the school's MSc in Project and Programme Management and MBA programmes. ESC Lille is particularly well-placed to offer programmes in this area. For over a decade it has been working in the Gulf Region through partnerships with Gulf-based companies such as Deyaar Development, Union Tower, UAE Airforce, Ideal Management Consulting, and Aramex, among others. During this period, it has also welcomed increasing numbers of students from the Gulf countries who are particularly drawn to the school's expertise in project management.

In addition to Islamic Finance, this year's workshop will look closely at the issue of Project and Programme Management standards, best practices, and sources of organisational and people development in the context of international development, government agencies, and the private sector. Other organisations and agencies to attend include Thales, Dassault, the Asian Development Bank, Ministry of Economy Trade & Industry Japan, Norwegian Ministry of Finance, Major Projects Association, Project Management Institute, Association for Project Management, APM Group, and the International Project Management Association.