Five months after an Egyptian uprising led to the fall of Hosni Mubarak's 30-year political regime, an all-star cast of young American and Danish entrepreneurs are in Cairo to offer an education in how to build a successful business. Along the way, they hope to learn a few things themselves.

The visiting group of entrepreneurs—seven from the United States and four from Denmark—along with leaders of business organizations and others arrived Sunday for a week-long startup boot camp. The effort is being backed by U.S. and Danish governments, and reflects part of the Obama administration's international strategy to encourage entrepreneurship in countries, like Egypt, which have strong Muslim populations.

“I want to share with them how I built my company, and I certainly want to learn from the people who are there,” said Shama Kabani, founder and CEO of The Marketing Zen Group who made BusinessWeek’s list of best young entrepreneurs in 2009. “I imagine this will all be pretty exciting.”

Another American on the trip, Brent Skoda, said he’s hoping to pick up tips from Egyptians about how business is done in the Middle East. “I would like to learn about what are the key factors in terms of creating a successful business in their region,” said Skoda, last year’s Global Student Entrepreneur Award winner for his site CollegeFitness.com. “I’d like to share the very same information with them, so we both walk away feeling like it was a very valuable exchange.”

Others making the trip from the United States include:

• Alexis Ohanian, one of the founders of Reddit.
• Jeff Hoffman, a founder Priceline.com who advises entrepreneurs.
• Kevin Langley, CEO and co-owner of Ellis Construction and chairman of the board of the Entrepreneurs Organization.
• Ryan Allis, co-founder and CEO of e-mail marketing services provider iContact.
• Scott Gerber, founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council.

This week's four-day program includes intensive sessions with 44 Egyptians, who will be split into 22 startup teams for a business plan competition. Winners either will be sent to a startup center in Denmark to hone their businesses for three months before presenting to investors or they will intern for three weeks at iContact.

Denmark, the U.S. State Department’s Global Entrepreneurship Program, USAID’s Egypt Competitiveness Project and the Egyptian government’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology organized the exchange.

“What we’re trying to do is to help them rebuild the economy, start to foster entrepreneurship as a viable career path,” Gerber said in a CNN interview.

Langley agreed.

“I see it as an opportunity to help shape the mindset about entrepreneurship in Egypt,” Langley said. “It’s very important for the youth in that region to understand that it is possible no matter how bad the conditions are to pursue their dreams…and create opportunities for themselves and others.”