Editor's note: Shama Kabani, the CEO of The Marketing Zen Group, as well as a speaker and author on the topic of entrepreneurship, is blogging for Portfolio.com from Egypt. She's part of a delegation of American and Danish entrepreneurs sent to mentor young Egyptians as they set out to create new businesses. Read more about the trip here.

I now know what it feels like to run on two hours of sleep because that’s exactly what I’ve gotten for the past two nights. And, oddly enough, it seems like there is enough energy and excitement in the air to keep me going. We heard that there were riots in Cairo, but we're safe in our hotel from the hubbub of the rest of the city.

At breakfast Wednesday, I posed a question to all the U.S. and Danish delegates. If you weren’t an entrepreneur, what would you be? This lead to a discussion about what entrepreneurship really means. Is it about making a profit or doing good? Did the intention behind starting the business matter? As a Millennial/Gen Y, I feel strongly that our generation has a much stronger sense of social entrepreneurship. Ryan Allis, CEO of iContact, summed it up best when he said (and I paraphrase) that our generation believes social good and social responsibility is an inherent and understood part of entrepreneurship. The words social entrepreneurship becomes redundant.

We delved deeper as Kevin Langley, global chairman-elect of EO, posed some challenging questions: Did we feel this way because we were entrepreneurs from a developed country? Does an entrepreneur in Sudan have the same motivations as an entrepreneur in the United States? There were no final answers, as we had to prepare to meet the Egyptians we’ve been mentoring. But, I know that these questions will stay with me long after I leave.

At lunch, I was given more to think about during a roundtable discussion I hosted to talk about women and entrepreneurship. I recently learned that only 16 percent of entrepreneurs in Egypt are female, and I wanted to understand from the women here why they felt that this was the case and how it could be improved upon. It seemed most of them became entrepreneurs because they wanted to follow their passions and blaze their own paths. It didn’t sound like being a woman had anything to do with it.

Then, why the low numbers I inquired? It could be a cultural thing they told me. Women generally aren’t expected to be the breadwinners in the family, and parents stress marriage. Husbands, on the other hand, don’t always understand why a wife would want to work when she was provided for. The expectations for women seem almost nil. When I wondered if they felt a women entrepreneur’s group would be beneficial for them in their city, many said no. They said that they didn’t want to be considered separate or “women entrepreneurs.” They just wanted to simply be “entrepreneurs.” I walked away with more questions than answers. And I realized that these problems weren’t going to be solved within a day. But it was a start.

For dinner, the delegates and the Egyptian entrepreneurs were all invited to the residence of the ambassador of Denmark, Christian Hoppe. I thanked him for promoting youth entrepreneurship and for seeing these initiatives through. He seemed genuinely pleased to be hosting us in his home. We ended the night by inviting one representative from each team to pitch their business idea to the ambassador. They had 60 seconds to do so, and they did an absolutely amazing job. I had a big grin as I saw young professional after young professional deliver their message with poise and confidence. Many of the presenters were the same entrepreneurs who three days ago couldn’t truly articulate what their business did within 30 minutes, and now they were stunning the audience with pithy and engaging summaries in less than a minute! I was a proud mentor.

Thursday is the final day, and it will be held at the Smart Village. These Egyptian entrepreneurs will have the chance to take everything we’ve taught them and present it to us one final time. Top local investors and entrepreneurs have been invited to attend. At the end of the day, the U.S. and Danish delegates will choose the winners. Stay tuned for the grand finale!