Dr. Manish Kohli is an experienced and a visionary executive
leader with demonstrated history of delivering complex healthcare “firsts,”
both, in the US and overseas. A leading voice in his field, he has lent his
expertise to pioneering health care organizations and endeavors throughout the
world to help transform care and reduce disparities in access to quality
healthcare. He works with health systems, policymakers and stakeholders in
areas of digital maturity, strategy, governance and workforce development with
the goal of redesigning care ecosystems to improve safety and quality while
optimizing resource utilization and cost.
Presently, he serves a Senior Advisor with Albright Stonebridge Group, where he
advises
clients on health care delivery initiatives and strategies with a special focus
on innovation, technology and digital health.
Additionally, Dr. Kohli advises domestic and global startups that aim to
transform health and care through emerging and innovative technologies in the
areas of telehealth, remote patient monitoring and cognitive artificial
intelligence. He is
regularly invited to lend his expertise globally as a speaker, lecturing
domestically and throughout the world.
Additionally, a member of the Board of Directors of Wings of Hope, global,
humanitarian non-profit organization that helps the world’s most vulnerable
communities, Dr. Kohli chairs the Board’s Global Health Programs
Committee. He also serves on the
Standards Advisory Panel, Joint Commission International (JCI). Notably, Dr.
Kohli is the immediate-past
Chairman, Board of Directors of Health Information and Management Systems
Society (HIMSS), a global, 80,0000+ member, cause-based, not-for-profit
organization focused on bet-ter health through information and technology.
In previous roles, Dr. Kohli served as Director of Global Programs, Harvard
Medical
International and Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) at leading health
systems
including, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi (CCAD), Advocate Aurora Health and
Johns Hopkins Community Physicians. During his professional tenure in the UAE
he helped build a pioneering Health Information Exchange for Dubai Healthcare
City (DHCC) and
subsequently, he was a key member of CCAD leadership team that delivered the
first fully digital, HIMSS Stage 7 hospital in the MENA region.
Dr. Kohli graduated from SIU School of Medicine, Springfield, IL. USA, and
completed
residency training in Family Medicine at Rush University, Chicago, IL USA where
he also served as Chief Resident and received the Vijay K. Maker Excellence in
Family Medicine award. Subsequently, he
completed residency training in Preventive Medicine at the
Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University as well as the
Patient Safety
fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Kohli has also completed Faculty
Development fellowship at Cook County Hospital, Chicago, IL. USA, and he holds
Master’s in Public Health (MPH) in International Health and Master’s in
Business Administration (MBA) in Medical Services Management both from the
Johns Hopkins University.
He is a Fellow of both, Health Information and Management System Society
(HIMSS) and American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). In addition, he is a Diplomate of both,
Ameri-can Board of Preventive Medicine- Clinical Informatics and the American
Board of
Family Medicine. In addition to his passion for digital health, he maintains a
special interest in preventive care, personal wellbeing and lifestyle medicine.
Anas Zeineddine has been leading innovation initiatives for several years by establishing innovation hubs, investing in startups, and providing early-stage incubation and acceleration programs. He has extensive experience in advising governmental entities in establishing sustainable innovation ecosystems, and developing strategies for supporting small and medium enterprises to stimulate economic development.
Anas has worked closely with national space organizations in establishing innovation frameworks and strategies for accelerating entrepreneurship in the space industry. He led several initiatives in the incubation of space technology startups through custom space innovation programs, and has done extensive work in the drones tech industry by launching strategic R&D investment projects. Previously, Anas worked with leading energy firms in engineering and project management. He also co-founded companies in the media and IOT industries.
Anas is also the founder of innovaMENA, an innovation enabler that supports entrepreneurs, startups and industry stakeholders, and provides innovation advisory to various organization
Since his graduation from Engineering 25 years ago, Dr. Khedr has been playing many roles in the entrepreneurial ecosystem; he built and sold startups, mentored hundreds of them, angel invested in some, worked for a venture capital and provided training to angel investors, incubators and accelerators.
He works as Managing Partner at his firm خضر وبزنس and he produces written, video and podcast content under that name. In 2020, he published a bestselling book about entrepreneurship called رائد الأعمال Inside Out.
Dr. Khedr's experience comes from the various ventures he has been working on, the DBA study as well as the ongoing consultation meetings he provides.
Director and Content Creator
Mariam Kamel is an investment professional with 15+ years experience working across a wide range of the capital markets spectrum, from publicly listed companies, to legacy family businesses, to her current and more active role, advising and investing in early-stage tech startups. Ms. Kamel began her career in Investment Banking advising mid- and large-cap companies in connection with corporate restructuring, equity- and debt-financing, mergers and acquisitions, and equity capital markets transactions, in the form of capital increases through private placements and Initial Public Offerings. She then provided Investor Relations advisory services for a number of publicly-listed companies and family conglomerates, with a particular focus on supporting companies in developing their Investor Relations divisions, preparing for IPO roadshows, working closely with clients’ chief financial officers and finance teams in institutionalizing many of the reporting mechanisms, investment decisions, and business development divisions.
Ms. Kamel also co-founded FLOW, a family health and wellness center, whose operations spanned across multiple locations.
Ms. Kamel leads and manages AUC Angels, the first university-based angel investor network in the MENA region, supporting Egypt’s innovative early stage startups with high growth potential secure seed funding. Ms. Kamel is an active angel investor, with investments across Egypt and sub-saharan Africa.
Khaled Ismail, Ph.D. Founder and Managing Partner of HIMangel, an angel investment fund focused on early-stage startups in Egypt (2017 -present). HIMangel invested in 11 startups starting in June 2017 and supported more than 30 other startups. Founder and Chairman of Kiangel, a not-for-profit angel investment fund investing in early-stage startups in Egypt (2011 - 2017). Kiangel invested in 11 startups between 2012 and 2017 and supported more than 50 other startups. Chairman of Endeavor Egypt (2011-2014) Managing Director of Intel Mobile Communications (2011 -2014) Founder of SySDSoft (2003-2011), an Egyptian engineering company that ranked among the top in the world in the design and development of the protocol stack of 4G cellular technology, which has been acquired by Intel in March 2011. Senior Advisor of the Egyptian Minister of CIT (2004 and 2007) VP of Engineering at Ellipsis Digital Systems (2000-2002) Research Staff Member at IBM’ s T J Watson Research Center (1989-1997) Ph.D. from MIT in 1989 IEEE Fellow since 1997. Published over 160 papers in international journals and holds 22 US patents. Recipient of the Eta Kappa Nu “ Best Young Electrical Engineer in the US” award in 1994, and the Shuman Award for the “ Young Arab Engineer” in 1995.
12+ years experienced Business Development & E-Commerce consultant with a demonstrated history of working in different consumer goods industries . Skilled in Negotiation, Projects Management, Sales, Communication, and Strategic Planning
Dalia Ibrahim is the CEO of Nahdet Misr Publishing House, an affiliate of Nahdet Misr Group, the pioneering education and publishing group that over the course of the past 80+ years has evolved into a regional icon of knowledge; becoming a globally-recognized provider of integrated and innovative educational and digital learning solutions. Dalia is also the founder of EdVentures; MENA’s first corporate venture capital specializing in Edtech, and the founder of Ta’heal for VET Skills Excellence, which provides solutions to unemployment based on demand-driven solutions.
Hany Soliman is equipped with 19 years of diversified experience in business development, wealth management, investment banking and strategic management serving SMEs, entrepreneurs and affluent segments in several countries and across different sectors: banking, document management, telecom and more recently, fintech. Hany used to head Commercial International Bank’s Innovation & Digital Strategic Alliance department where he was responsible for building the digital business value proposition and articulating the strategy to serve the unbanked segment through mobile products and payment solutions to achieve financial inclusion. He also worked to support startups and the entrepreneurship ecosystem to complement the Innovation department’s business proposition, moreover he managed the pre-seed/seed rounds for CIB's VC "CVentures". This led to CIB being positioned as the FinTech hub in the Egyptian market. Earlier Hany led the Business Banking Development for CIB, serving and supporting SMEs starting by setting a differentiated business model and introducing different financial and non-financial solutions to the SME market with a focus on positioning Business Banking as one of the best SME service providers. Throughout his career, Hany has participated in many strategic initiatives and programs as an advisor and mentor to SMEs and entrepreneurs on how to benefit from banking services and have access to finance at different stages of their life-cycle along with angel investment activities that got him deeply engaged with several startups in the market and join their advisory boards such as Digified, Dayra and KIWE. His knowledge is backed by an ICFA from the Chartered Institution for Securities and Investment in London and MBA from Phoenix University. In his current role, Hany leads PayTabs operations in Africa, also he is an Advisory Board Member for FinTech Galaxy, a Board Member at EFG EV Fintech and an Ambassador for Africa Berlin Network.
Ayman Ismail is an international expert in entrepreneurship and economic development. He is currently the Abdul Latif Jameel Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship and Associate Professor at AUC School of Business and the founding director of AUC Venture Lab and AUC Angels. He is a co-founder, angel investor or board member in several fast-growing startups in fintech, microfinance and logistics. Previously, he was a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, a consultant in McKinsey & Company’s New York office, a co-founder and managing partner at Enovio Consulting, and a Young Global Leader (YGL) at the World Economic Forum (WEF). He received his PhD in International Economic Development from MIT.
Mostafa Menessy holds a BSc in Computer Science from the American University in Cairo. His passion for Computer Security, Financial Services, and Entrepreneurship led him to meet his fellow co-founders to start Paymob, the leading Digital Payments company known for processing millions of transactions and billions of dollars in transaction volume. Since then, he has been on a mission along with his team to pave the way on how the power of scalable technology can help in improving the state of the underserved.
A 27 year old Entrepreneur with an experience in areas within Fashion, Ecommerce, Growth Hacking & Online Identity.
Co-founder & Managing Partner at In Your Shoe, a direct to consumer brand focusing on creating colorful & statement fashion items allowing people to express who they’re.
Ahmed El Assy is the co-founder and chief product at Gameball. He brings in years of experience in loyalty solutions, user experience & product management. He is the mastermind behind some of the most notable loyalty initiatives in the MENA region serving more than 150 million customers.
Honorary President of the DeInvesteerdersClub, Treasurer of BAN Nederland and Senior Investment Manager at Hivos Impact Investments. Global Ringmaster, Get In The Ring
Keith is a Scotsman who made the move to The Netherlands where he works with inspiring people to create gains for people and planet through profit. From this lowland base he travels widely, to service partners and clients in Europe, Asia and Africa. He’s been known to wear a top hat and tails, but is far more to be seen in his ubiquitous blue blazer.
Tamer Azer is a Partner at Shorooq Partners, a leading early-stage Venture Capital firm in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (MENAP) region.
Tamer began his career at the forefront of policy making with one of the world’s most influential business designers. He then went on and co-founded a number of startups and worked closely with several entrepreneurs for many years. He later joined Fahrenheit 212 as a Senior Innovation Consultant.
In 2016, he returned to Egypt to join A15, where he led investments and venture development. In 2019, he went on to join Sawari Ventures as Principal.
Tamer holds a bachelor’s from the University of Toronto and a Masters from the University of Oxford.
MARCEL BRUNO DRIDJE is a British Citizen currently leading these Initiatives:
Sophia Business Angels President / EBAN Board Member/co-founder of MEDANGELS and MDBAN / Mentor at the ISA BICC Cork Ireland/ Executive Coach / Business Angels trainer / International Business Dev and GTM Strategist.
A seasoned European Sales Executive, Marcel has substantial field experience helping IT and Telecom start-ups in the US and EMEA. Marcel has a broad range of experience in all aspects of sales, marketing, communication and management with direct experience with Fortune 500 enterprises (IBM, Nortel, Lucent, Cisco, EMC, ALU) and start-ups (Quantum, Andrew Networks, Pluris, Corvis, Ascend and Airespace). During the course of his career he has held VP roles most notably as VP EMEA Corvis (first all optical router) where he grew the team and business to an outstanding success. Of French-Algerian and British origin, Marcel launched his career after completing a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science from Portsmouth Polytechnic UK. He walked away from his first position with IBM UK as an Applications Engineer greatly relieved to embark on a career in sales...his forte and passion.
Bi-Lingual in French and English with a working knowledge of Spanish, Italian, German and Arabic.
Three major highlights from his career include helping Airespace to be the #2 WLAN in EMEA market share and positioned Cisco to be #1 WLAN vendor worldwide. He has helped start promoting Cisco VCE alliance (VMware, EMC, Cisco) and the BMC OEM relationship to Kick Start their first SP IaaS Cloud offering on a worldwide basis .He also pioneered the French ISP Internet business while leading Ascend’s insertion into FT/Orange first ISP business to include ISDNET, OLEANE and Internetway back in 1995-1999.
Marcel most recently left CISCO Systems in 2013 after 30 years in IT and Telecom Sales to start his new venture as a Business Angel to help start-ups with seed money, VC connections and International Business development & GTM Strategy. Ivas Systems ,FAVEEO ,Digitalarti ,OnePulse,Mpearl,Netwookie and Cyberflowanalytics ( Just acquired by Webroot Inc) are some of his star ventures. Currently focusing on the new AI investments projects.
A self-proclaimed Serial Entrepreneur & Intrapreneur, Marcel loves new Challenges in sharing his 30 years IT & Telecom experience with IT VC firms and new High-tech Start Ups Ready to expand their Sales & Mktg success across EMEA, USA and APAC.
Currently he is giving Master Classes for both Junior and Senior BA associations across EMEA, including the ‘Investment Readiness’ workshops for start-ups going through their Incubators & Accelerators scale up programs.
Michael is A digital transformation expert with extended years of experience. A proven leader of Product Owners, Solution Architects, Program and Project Managers and Software Development teams across the digital ecosystem. Proven experience in building agile teams, leading by example, and providing mentorship for solution innovation strategies and smarter customer engagement principles.
Michael Holds several positions at Mobinil/Orange Egypt , and now he is Head of IT and Digital Transformation -EVA Pharma Group
Francesca joined Seedstars after having taken part in the launch of an HRTech in France and co-founded a social entrepreneurship course with the UN-mandated University for Peace. At Seedstars she worked as a VC analyst MENA before managing the group's activities in the region. She eventually took on a global position as partnership manager where she works on strategic partnerships across the globe and the spinning off of new products.
HealthTech guru, graduated from Faculty of Arts- English Department, literature section. Before working in digital transformation, I have got my professional masters in Freight Forwarding business and Economy, and then shifted my career to advertising and digital transformation. I have worked on the agency-side, client-side, and built up teams for other clients and in house. In the last 8 years, I have specialized in Healthcare industry and its digitalization with concentration on patients’ experience and engagement online and offline.
Since 2006, I worked with many NGOS, programs, projects and youth Initiatives on different positions. I was working in Bibliotheca Alexandrina, RAYA Social Media, and Innovideas LLC. Also, I have worked as Group Marketing Manager for Andalusia Medical Group in Egypt and KSA. In the last couple of years, I joined Elaj Group as Group Marketing Communications Manager, then Cleopatra hospitals Group as Digital Communications Manager, since 2019. Now, I am E-business manager for Cleopatra hospitals Group.
In the public society, I am mentoring several startups with Flat6labs, Start Egypt, and Health2.0; and I was being selected to be a public speaker in many HealthTech events in Egypt and Middle East. Recently I have been selected to be a core member in The Egyptian Junior Business Association EJB, and a member in HIMSS Middle East Steering Committee.
Dr. Nicolas Rouhana (PhD) is currently the Chairman and CEO of IM Fndng, grouping IM Capital & IM Ventures aggregating $60M respectfully funded under USAID MENA Investment Initiative & Lebanon Investment Initiative, providing Matching Capital, Equity Guarantee and Technical Assistance to businesses and investors in Lebanon. The funds co-created the first Seed accelerator SpEED@BDD in Lebanon that graduated more than 35 startups, created and managed 5 business angel groups (Seeders & LWAF) with more than 135 angel investors, trained more than 65 mentors, invested in more than 45 startups, leveraged more than $40M from private capital, and created and maintained more than 800 jobs.
Between 2002 & 2015, Nicolas was the Executive Director of Berytech, a leading Technology Business Innovation & Incubation Center in Lebanon. He is currently President of the Internet Society-Lebanon Chapter and the current Chairman of Speed@BDD accelerator, he is also board member of Berytech and several Lebanese technology companies.
Nicolas has a Telecommunications Engineering degree from Saint-Joseph University in Beirut, a PhD in Networking Systems from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, and an EDP graduate from INSEAD, France.
Menna is currently the DMZ Cairo Director. Menna has a track record of developing and implementing startup-building programs. She has worked with Rainmaking Global on corporate innovation, corporate backed accelerators; the GIZ on entrepreneurship education; and Bedaya Center for entrepreneurship, one of the first governmental centers to support startups and SMEs.
A seasoned expert in international development cooperation, she has also worked with bi-lateral organizations such as the GIZ, and KfW, among others, to implement private sector development and job creation projects.
Menna holds a master’s degree in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from the University of Manchester, as a Chevening alumnus, and an MBA from ESLSCA business school.
Co-founder of Career 180, Freelance yard, & Talent Yard, Mohamed Akmal is an entrepreneur, event manager, career coach, and trainer par excellence. He has amassed a decade of experience founding multiple successful businesses and delivering hundreds of training courses. Akmal was also the co-founder of one of Egypt's top co-working spaces, Ebda3. A distinguished name in the career-related fairs and events, Akmal has continuously put on mega-successful job fairs throughout the years, such as Egypt Career Summit and Freelance Job Fair. Akmal is also a top-notch project manager having managed multi-million-pound projects for world-renowned companies like Etisalat, OLX, PepsiCo, Dream, and DMG.
Mr. Khalil El Bawab is currently the CEO & Managing Director of Misr Capital (MC); the Investment Banking arm of Banque Misr, the Second Largest bank in Egypt. He joined MC in November 2018 and managed to grow the business from just Asset Management (AM) & Direct Investments to expand to become a full-fledged Investment Bank. MC currently have a footprint and active operations in AM; which became the largest AM in Egypt with AUMs surpassing EGP 38 Bln from just EGP 1.2 Bln before he joined, Private Equity, Fixed Income Brokerage, and Investment Banking activities.
Mr. El Bawab is also the Chairman of Misr Capital Fixed Income Brokerage and a non-executive board member in BM Lease, Misr Digital Transformation.
Mr. El Bawab headed the Fixed Income Division at EFG-Hermes AM. He was the Managing Director of Hermes Fund Management and a key member of the Investment Committee overseeing the Fixed Income Investment Team. He spent more than 11 years at EFG Hermes. During his reign at EFG-Hermes, the AUMs of the Fixed Income mandates grew more than seven folds reaching EGP 18bn (it was EGP 10bn when he left). Mr. El Bawab managed a variety of Money Market Funds including Credit Agricole Money Market Fund (MMF), Bank of Alexandria MMF, and Qatar National Bank “Themar” MMF, Bank Audi MMF, and Arab Investment Bank MMF. Since joining the firm in 2007, EFG Hermes AM has consistently outperformed market peers in the Egyptian market and has received several awards and distinctions from major local and international prominent institutions including Zawya, EIMA and MENA Fund Manager Awards marking its robust performance. Among those awards, EFG Hermes AM received several awards & distinctions in the MM & FI universe including the title of "Money Market Fund of the Year in the MENA region" for five times in seven years from the London-based MENA Fund Manager Awards, in addition to “Best MM Fund in Egypt” for four times in six years presented by Thomson Reuters/Zawya MENA AM Awards (before Zawya was acquired by Thomson Reuters). Last but not least, he was one of the key team members who managed to win the best AM firm in Egypt presented by MENA Fund Manager Awards for six times in seven years.
Moreover, Mr. El Bawab was in charge of managing the 1st structured capital protected fund in Egypt; HSBC’s Fund "Istikrar" in addition to managing the 1st Fixed Income fund in Egypt for Bank of Alexandria in 2010 which was the first Egyptian FI fund to receive a high commendation; in the MENA region, by the MENA Fund Manager Awards in 2015. He is also co-managing the Principal Bank of Agriculture & Development (El Massy) Balanced Fund which has recently received the title of “Balanced Fund of the Year” for 2012 performance from the London-based MENA Fund Manager Awards. In addition to the funds, Mr. El Bawab was also managing a variety of discretionary portfolios for some of the region’s premiere banks, institutions, and high-net-worth individuals.
Prior to joining EFG-Hermes AM in May 2007; Mr. El Bawab held the position of the Assistant Chief Dealer at Arab Bank plc's Treasury & Capital Markets Department; where he worked since 1998 and was one of the leading primary dealers since its introduction in Egypt.
Mr. El Bawab is also a freelance lecturer in Managerial & Corporate Finance, AM, Treasury Products, & Risk Management.
Mr. El Bawab is a CPM and pursued his MBA in Banking and Finance from Maastricht School of Management, Netherlands in 2008 with distinction and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration; Finance Concentration with high honors from the American University in Cairo in 1998.
Syrine joined the Hambro Perks Oryx Fund in June 2021. She focuses on screening, selecting, and assessing emerging technology start-ups based in the MENA region. She is also executing new investments and portfolio management.
Syrine previously worked at EQ2 Ventures as an Investment Associate and as a Private Equity Analyst at Rothschild. Syrine holds a bachelor’s in economics & management and a master’s in finance from Université Paris Dauphine.
Syrine is fluent in three languages: English, Arabic, and French.
Kim Balle is the CEO and co-founder of Global Startup Awards, which is the biggest independent startup ecosystem competition in the world, created in 2012. Global Startup Awards is operated and owned by innovation agency XO.company. Kim Balle also owns a digital content agency operating out of the Nordic with clients such as Porsche.
Born and raised in Tanta, Egypt, into an environment where love and respect for food and its culture was one of the pillars of his family traditions and rituals.
Upon graduating from his culinary school at Henry Ford College Dearborn, Michigan, USA; Moustafa shove off for the bright light in the big country, where he worked at a wide variety of restaurants and gained his experiences. He has worked under influential leaders of the Italian culinary profession who have influenced his culinary philosophy and depth of knowledge.
Throughout the challenges faced him in his life and career, he manage to grow and become a successful entrepreneur by starting his own business. Chef Moustafa is currently the Executive Chef, Cofounder and Partner for Zooba Home Grown in Egypt and in New York. His culinary philosophy and passion reflects the growing trend towards a healthier and natural lifestyle. Working with neighboring farmers to seek out the finest in regional and local organic produce is the essence of his approach. Chef Moustafa creates cuisine that pleases the senses so that the natural flavors of the food express themselves.
Moustafa manage to step out of his comfort zone and took a lot of challenges in life and reached his goals, he became a Professor, teaching Professional Cooking and introduction to hospitality, The Egyptian Ambassador at the culture and Heritage committee, The technical chef for the EU for the Mediterranean Diet Project, the Egyptian ambassador at the WORLD CHEFS WITHOUT BORDERS, and the winner of the Falafel Festival in London 2016.
Moustafa is an exceptional innovative executive chef with strong leadership qualification combined with outstanding team building skills. He is an accomplished experienced food service consultant, who believes that each and every project deserves new and unique ideas, so he brings his expertise, professional background, vision, skills and passion to all of his assigned projects.
He spent a decade of challenges, successes, efforts and accomplishments in the field of documenting The Egyptian food heritage. As a chef he was the most capable model for introducing the spirit of the Egyptian cuisine. Moustafa was the most brilliant to find a permanent and renewed rhythm to add to the memory of the culinary community. Lately, He worked on different projects to document the history of the Egyptian cuisine, which is what he call “Egyptian culinary originality”, Clarifying the facts and details in every scientific honesty and record all the victories and setbacks that accompanied its development through different times, in order to deepen the values derived from the history of the Egyptian cuisine and keep pace with developments taking place in the whole world.
His culinary philosophy and passion reflects the growing trend towards a healthier and natural lifestyle. Working with neighboring farmers to seek out the finest in regional and local organic produce is the essence of his approach. Chef Moustafa creates cuisine that pleases the senses so that the natural flavors of the food express themselves.
In addition to cooking, Chef Moustafa's passion is to develop younger chefs to discover their own talents in the same way that he was encouraged in his early career. With this aim, he serves and encourages young chefs to attend cooking courses and cooking workshops, and provides ongoing coaching support to upcoming talents.
His Favorite thing to do is to travel all over Egypt to discover the Hidden Treasures that makes Egyptian Cuisine very unique.
Favorite Quote: “As chefs we get paid to play with food....so I make sure to enjoy that”.
Amr is the founder of GoodsMart, He studied Mechanical Engineering, ERP systems and database analysis. He worked with several companies in more than 15 countries around the world, travelling helped him shape his personality, expanded his awareness and introduced him to a great diversity of people.
Heba Labib, PhD is the Director of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness Center, IECC, at Nile University. She is also the director of NilePreneurs, a nationwide initiative to support startups and SMEs through capacity building, incubation, and innovation support. From 2014 through 2016, she has managed the Technology Commercialization and Industry Relations Office at Nile University. From 2011 through 2014, she was the founder and executive director of NU100, a nationwide entrepreneurship initiative for techpreneurs who have developmental ideas. The initiative resulted in the establishment of 18 companies. In 2007, Ms. Labib had partnered in setting up Palm Paper, a wastepaper recycling mill, where she had played multiple roles in procurement operations and logistics and later in product development and establishing the company’s sales operations. In 2004 Ms. Labib started Nile’s Gift, a company that processes and exports “Medicinal and Aromatic Plants”. Ms. Labib has won several entrepreneurship awards for the aforementioned businesses from Arab Business Challenge in 2007 in UAE, Business in Development Challenge in 2006, Netherlands, and the Shell “Intelaqah for Best Business Idea” Award in 2005 in Oman. She has also and participated in several Entrepreneurship seminars. Prior to the aforementioned ventures, Ms. Labib’s experience includes diligent studies on utilization of rice straw waste to convert to MDF and conducting a research study for the FAO on the “Gender Roles in the Production of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants”. Heba Labib holds a BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering from Oakland University, MI, and later she shifted to the field of Management of Technology, with MSc and PhD from Nile University, Egypt.
Sabrine Assem is the Founder and CEO of Untap, a competition management platform enabling innovation-driven organizations to tap into the power of open innovation and generate creative solutions. We help organizations plan, launch, manage, promote and assess open innovation challenges, hackathons, startup programs, creative contests, employee innovation programs, and more.
Sabrine got her Master's degree in Digital Innovation and Information Systems from Warwick Business School in the UK and is a Chevening Alumni member.
She worked as an innovation consultant and researcher at the German-Arab Chamber of Industry & Commerce and multiple other entities before founding Untap. She is also the founder of SolverMine, a former open innovation intermediary connecting organizations with R&D challenges to networks of problem solvers through crowdsourcing and innovation challenges.
Sabrine graduated from the German School in Alexandria and is a proud Alexandrian. She's also a graduate of the German University in Cairo (GUC), where she majored in Innovation Management and Information Systems and used to work as a Teaching Assistant.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Mohamed Wahby currently serves as the CEO of AMAN E-Payments, a leading FINTECH Company that pledges a better quality of life to people through convenient, easy and available e-payment solutions. Prior to his role in AMAN, Wahby was the CEO of Raya Social Media, one of the newest subsidiaries of Raya Holding. Since its inception in 2011, Raya Social Media launched nassya.com, the first hyper-local social network in Egypt and the Arab world. Prior to Raya, Wahby spent all of his professional career in the ICT sector in Egypt, working for distinguished companies including Microsoft, IBM, The Bank of Nova Scotia and others in various positions including technology management, audience, and product marketing, and product development.
Under Wahby’s leadership, AMAN aspires to become the leading FINTECH Company in the region and envisions an ultimate Egyptian cash-less society with full financial inclusion, previously unattainable segments of Egypt’s population.
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
Wahby holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from Ain Shams University and a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Louisville. Wahby also holds an MBA from RITI, Maastricht School of Management in addition to graduating from the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at the Harvard Business School.
I hold10 of years of experience in Growth and Marketing in telecom, ride hailing, and consumer financing, within Egypt and Internationally. I use this experience, my knowledge of Data, and tools to make decisions on how to grow products and businesses.
Mahmoud is a Mechatronics Engineer, graduated from Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University.
He received a silver medal in The Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions 2021 for early medical diagnosis using artificial intelligence (CIRA).
• Worked as a volunteer researcher at the Military Technical College in the unmanned integrated systems for a period followed by military service inside the college to complete research for a period of 7 years.
• Worked since 2013 in the jet factory in the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI) and carried out many studies that reflected the modernization of traditional mechanical operation machines and also shared some military technologies for jet engines.
• He participated in the local communications that are related to the coming industrial revolution
• He established the initiative Robotics for all in 2015 and graduated an innovative generation capable of keeping pace with the world in technology and intelligence, so he sponsors (ROBOTO Academy). The number of students at the academy has reached 1,800 students so far.
• He invented the robot "CIRA" February 2020 as the first medical robot in Egypt with self-efforts and as the first robot to take PCR swabs, ranked by the United Nations at the level as one of the top 50 innovations and according to Forbes Middle East magazine for the top 100 innovations and also according to Reuters One of the top 20 medical robots in the world. Recently, the robot CIRA won the silver medal at the Geneva Inventions in its exceptional session 2021 and 2022.
• Established Artifinity as the first Egyptian limited liability company for artificial intelligence and space technology.
Influencer in world youth forum 2022.
Tarek Assaad is Managing Partner at Algebra Ventures, Egypt’s leading VC fund. Tarek is also Managing Partner at Ideavelopers where he has been managing $50m of VC investments since 2009, including some of Egypt’s most prominent technology startups. Tarek is a director of Smart Card Applications, SiWare and IdealRatings. In this role, he was also responsible for the investment in Fawry, the leading bill payment and presentment company in Egypt, which realized a $100m exit in 2015.
Tarek started his career as an engineer at Lucent Technologies then as a software developer for SAQQARA Systems, an internet startup in Silicon Valley. He later became General Manager of CID Consulting where he led the company’s high growth, helping it to become one of the leading local consulting firms in Egypt.
Tarek holds a B.Sc. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Ain Shams University in Cairo and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Germine has 5 years of experience in banking, venture capital, and the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Germine is currently an Associate and Egypt Operations Manager at MEVP. She joined the company 2 years ago to launch MEVP's Egypt office and is currently working, along the Managing Director, on expanding MEVP's footprint in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining MEVP, Germine worked in the investment unit at Flat6Labs where she helped manage a portfolio of over 55 startups across diverse industries. Prior to that, Germine was an Assistant Product Development Manager at the Commercial International Bank (CIB). During her time at CIB, she worked alongside the bank's senior management on revamping the SME Banking department's strategy, products, and processes. Germine holds a bachelor's degree in Management Technology, with a double major in Economics and Finance, from The German University in Cairo. During her undergraduate years, Germine led several entrepreneurial initiatives and conducted her bachelor thesis on the Egyptian SME financing landscape.
Experienced in Business Development & Product Development, Comes across with 10 years of diversified experience in Business development and SME's businesses, through 3 industries ( Banking, Operators and Financial services ) With a project management background and credit analysis .
Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) International Business Management ( Faculty of Management Sciences), PMP & CMA Certified Member.
Reem Al Mosabbeh titled the youngest female Emirati Tech Entrepreneur that runs an IT solutions house, a startup mentor and speaker who was recently featured in Entrepreneur Middle East,Innovation Arabia 13 MIT, Global Entrepreneurs EOGSEA, Masdar Future Sustainability Leaders, Arab Excellence, TechStars & Dubai Chamber.
She is the founder of a Tech Firm called Retech, the co-founder of Unipreneur Inc. (An entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and leadership development platform for students) and is also a member of the Dubai Youth Council ,SDGs Global Council and Al Ghurair Foundation Council.
Through her work with the Dubai Youth Council and other Govt entities, she is involved in running various youth entrepreneurship and startup development initiatives, like GITEX YouthX Unipreneur (UAE's biggest and 1st of it's kind youth entrepreneurship event), the Young Falcons, Dubai Metavator Challenge, the UAE Hackathon and many more.
Manal Youssef is one of Egypt's pioneer women in the area of entrepreneurship, start-ups, and e-commerce businesses. She accumulated experiences in several fields such as pharmaceuticals, hospitality, and FMCG throughout the years. As soon as she graduated from IGCSE then the Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University in 2007, she went to work in the field of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
Ever so eager to learn and widen her horizon, Manal foresaw the growing importance of the internet and e-commerce in daily life, it is at that point that she decided to shift her career to work at one of the pioneering companies in both Egypt and Africa, Jumia, which officially entered the Egyptian market in 2012.
Manal quickly rose to her current leadership position as Head of Public Relations and Communications at Jumia Egypt.
Through her time with Jumia, Manal has led several local initiatives related to small projects and the development of entrepreneurs and handicraft owners, which was positively reflected on many companies, translating to increased customers interest and demand for local products manufactured by Egyptian hands. One such initiative was the success in devising a project idea to export Egyptian products to African countries through the Jumia's e-commerce platform, which had a very positive impact on project owners and also a positive impact on many people in the African market.
Manal contributed through her accumulated experiences to raising awareness and educating those using the Internet about the importance of e-commerce and the positive impact it can have on the lives of citizens and what its potential in contributing to the national economy and contribution to improving the GDP.
Over 16 years in Investment Banking, Corporate Finance, and Private Equity. Prior to heading to Beltone SME, he was Country Director at GroFin – a specialized SME financing company – for 5 years.
Mr. Ashour holds a BS in Accounting & Finance from Faculty of Commerce, Cairo University and is an Accredited SME Consultant “ASMEC” – Association of Accredited Small Business Consultants – USA.
Strategic Sourcing and Procurement expert with 16+ years experience with a demonstrated history of working in the different industries from FMCG's, Sport & Entertainment, E-commerce and Heavy Equipment.
Contributed and managed a wide variety of projects, from establishing procurement policies, KPI's and SLA as well as budgeting and procuring transformational projects of growth for the organizations.
Worked for global market leaders and innovators in multiple fields: FMCG's, E-commerce and Heavy Equipment with local and regional scopes. Have also worked as instructor of supply chain in a non profit organization to help fresh grads understand more the work nature of the supply chain.
MBA holder from Edinburgh business school.
A commercial strategist and visionary leader with more than 15 years of outstanding experience and accomplishments across OTC, Pharmaceutical business, FMCG, white goods who possess a range of knowledge and experience across different fields of consumer marketing, retail, trade & shopper marketing, digital marketing, medical detailing & expert marketing, e-commerce & sales management. An omnichannel marketing strategist who believe in the exquisite importance of Phygital approach & omnichannel related adaptations.
Expertise lies in successfully conceptualizing and implementing innovative marketing/ sales/ e-commerce initiatives, with an eye on the relevant consumer/ shopper behaviors —to drive market impact and business profitable growth. Blended with a strong ability of managing regional teams, with +10 years’ experience as leadership team member; focused on staff development & profit generation while ensuring that governance framework is in place, in use.
A strong believer in D&I, who is proudly leading women empowerment program with immense determination to challenge unconscious bias & help women to have/use their strong voice at the table, help paving the way for a more inclusive women empowered future
Stephen Key is the world’s leading expert on how to license a product idea and a 2018-2019 AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador. As an independent inventor, he achieved repeat success commercializing products ranging from simple novelty gifts to complex packaging innovations. He is currently the patent strategist for Fishbone Packaging, the environmentally-friendly solution for single-use plastic rings.
In 1999, he cofounded inventRight, the coaching program that has taught inventors from more than 65 countries how to harness the power of open innovation and the licensing business model to bring their ideas to market.
He is the author of One Simple Idea, Sell Your Ideas With or Without a Patent, Become a Professional Inventor, and Licensing Ideas using LinkedIn.
To help creative people become profitable inventors, he has written more than 1,000 articles for Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur magazines and published over 900 videos on his popular YouTube channel inventRightTV.
Nada is a co-founder of an educational startup that started in Egypt and expanded to Dubai and Jordan. After working on her own startup, she decided to work for a technology incubator under the Ministry of ICT in Egypt to share some of her entrepreneurial experiences. She also supported the launch of Athar Accelerator in Upper Egypt alongside VFlock, GIZ and Cloud and was one of the startup mentors and trainers. Later, she moved as the Incubation and Acceleration Manager in the first edtech corporate venture capital in MENA, EdVentures. She is also an entrepreneurship-focused social media content creator and host of ENTERpreneur, a podcast that brings the personal side of entrepreneurs.
Ameer is a Partner with Khwarizmi Ventures, a $70m early stage VC fund investing across the MENA region. The fund has invested in more than 25 portfolio companies across many sectors including FinTech, Logistics, E-commerce, SaaS, Marketplaces, and more.
Ameer is also the Co-founder and Chairman of BasharSoft, the company behind WUZZUF and FORASNA.com - Egypt's leading online employment platforms for white-collar professionals and blue-collar workers respectively. Collectively, both platforms impacted the lives of 6million+ job seekers in Egypt, and helped 50,000+ companies hire more than 750,000 people over the past years.
With significant growth and impact on the local online employment market, he grew the company to become one of Egypt’s fastest growing local tech companies. He raised a total of $10m in VC funding along the way and built a team of 300+ employees. Most investors in BasharSoft were first time investors in Egypt and the region, including 500 Startups, EBRD, VNV Global, and more.
In 2019, he was selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur and named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He also sits on the board of Egytrans, a publicly listed logistics company.
In March 2021, he was selected as Board Member at ITIDA, the executive arm of the Ministry of ICT in Egypt, to help in setting strategies from for Egypt on digitisation, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Ameer holds a MSc degree in Computer Engineering and BSc in Electronic and Communications both from Cairo University. He also completed executive programs on Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and business leadership executive programs at Stanford, MIT, INSEAD, and HBS.
I have over 13 years of work experience in the IT space, around 8 years within the Pharma industry, my main objective is to bridge the gap between pharma companies and Health care professionals as well as patients, achieving the business strategic objectives via leveraging technology. In this capacity, I partner with business stakeholders to create strategies, lead the delivery of initiatives.
Yasmine Nagaty brings 10 years of program management and leadership experience in youth development and employability programs as well as entrepreneurship. She currently is the Acceleration Manager for AUC Venture Lab, Egypt's first university-based startup accelerator and an award-winning accelerator in Africa and the MENA region. As part of her role,
CEO at Estshara. Estshara is the e-health platform from diagnosis to healing working primarily with Insurance companies to provide estshara services to their beneficiaries.
more than 15 years of experience with the healthcare industry from pharma to digital healthcare within multination and startup industries.
Heba Ali is an Egyptian/American investor, development economist, and operator.
With over 15 years of global experience, Ali’s expertise spans across investing in high-growth and impact-driven startups, fostering emerging market linkages, and researching tech entrepreneurship ecosystems since 2007 – with a particular focus on Egypt and MEA.
Ali has a Master of Science in International Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where she specialized in business model innovation at the base of the pyramid, tech and socio-economic impact, and economic development policy. She focused her research on critically analyzing tech entrepreneurship ecosystems from an economic perspective. Ali obtained her Bachelor of Science in Management Technology from the German University in Cairo, where she double-majored in Strategic Management and International Business.
Dr.Emad Kattara 26 years of experience in the banking field beginning from Barclays, Arab African, & Audi bank.
Holds a Business Administration Master's degree in Customer Service from AAST.
12 years of experience in the field of training at the Egyptian Banking Institute.
CEO & founder of Banker's Lounge Academy.
He is also an economist, journalist and broadcaster, & has many articles and press interviews with senior banking experts and economists.
Belal Zahran started his career in the banking industry in Egypt for five years before shifting gears and entering the startup world.
It was there at Bayt that Belal learned everything about startups, business models, growth strategies, profitability, and most importantly SaaS (software as a service).
Spending eight years at the startup, taking on all sorts of roles, from sales executive all the way to country manager. After spending five years as country manager, he was ready to move on to the next chapter.
A former banker turned entrepreneurial executive, he has played a key role in Saudi-based Food-tech and FinTech platform Foodics’ successful expansion in Egypt. Since leading Foodics in 2021 as country manager, Zahran has increased the company’s recurring revenues and customer base tenfold, making it one of the leading food-tech companies in the country.
In less than three years since entering the local market, Foodics has worked with some of Egypt’s leading restaurants in Cairo and beyond, in governorates and cities such as Dahab, Aswan, Minya, and the North Coast. It plans to further expand across all of Egypt’s governorates by providing innovative technologies and solutions to empower food businesses to fast-track their growth in the market.
Co-Founder & CEO Grinta
Co-Founder & Chairman Seha Healthcare
Mohamed Azab is active in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, where he sits on a number of investment committees and boards. He is a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor in both Egypt and the US. He is an endeavor entrepreneur and board member at Endeavor Egypt.
Azab obtained both his BA & MBA in Investment Management from Washington State University and Owners President Management program at the Harvard Business School. He is a Harvard Alumni and a visiting guest speaker for Seha Capital HBS case.
Seha is building an integrated healthcare platform in Egypt with the vision of transforming healthcare services in the country. It has invested in diagnostics, specialty centers and hospitals.
Grinta is modernising the pharmaceutical supply chain and empowering independent pharmacies across Africa through a B2B market place.
Inji is a seasoned economist & management consultant with over 17 years of experience in both fields. On the government policy side Inji has been the project manager for the development of the Egypt Vision 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy, as well as being the lead strategist for several projects undertaken by the Egyptian Ministries of Trade & Industry, Investment, and Planning. On the enterprise development side, Inji has worked across corporations and consulting firms in Egypt and the UAE in order to develop company strategies, launch new products, redesign the organization and re-engineer business processes. In that capacity Inji has worked with the real estate, fintech, food, chemical, plastic, furniture, automotive, engineering and retail sectors.
Inji co-founded Acumen Consulting, a boutique management consulting firm in Egypt which is concerned with improving the business environment for SMEs and ensuring their integration into the global value chains. Inji leads assignments in the fields strategy, innovation, investment and business planning, organization development and design, operational efficiency and marketing and branding for both policy makers and enterprises (predominantly family businesses).
Most recently Inji joined Mastercard as a Senior Managing Consultant in the Advisory team for MEA; leading projects in financial inclusion, digital transformation, loyalty and banking innovation.
Inji is also a serial mentor and angel investor in health-tech. She is the Lean Startup Co. ambassador to Egypt and sits on the advisory board of the National Employment Pact (founded by GIZ).
Inji is an economist with an MBA in finance, and a Stanford Graduate School of Business degree in corporate innovation. She is currently enrolled in an MIT supply chain management degree.
Tarek El-Kady is a leading entrepreneur and angel investor in his native Alexandria, Egypt. Born and raised in Alexandria, Tarek is the Executive Chairman of KD Group, a group of marketing and advertising agencies serving various clients in the Middle East and North Africa. Tarek is the founder and CEO of Techne Inc. and also the founder and chairman of Alexandria Business Angel Network (Alex Angels) & founder and chairman of The Mediterranean Business Angel Investment Network.
Tarek is passionate about helping young people start their businesses. As Founding Curator of the Global Shapers Community Alexandria hub, he spends part of his time giving to the next generation of business owners in the region. Tarek was awarded by the American University in Cairo’s Venture Lab in recognition to his efforts as one of the prominent contributors to the entrepreneurial ecosystem for their outstanding support.
He has been recently appointed as Senator at the Grand Assembly of the World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF) Senator Elkady will represent Egypt in the Global Startup Committee of the Grand Assembly in 2020
Laila Badawi is an architect, graduated in 2007 from Cairo University
where she held a teaching and research position for the following 3 years while
she got her Master of Science degree in Building Technology. She also pursued a
design career with Shahira Fahmy architects from 2008 to the end of 2013. Upon
receiving the Hassan Fathy Design Award, Badawi started acquiring projects as a
freelancer until she started her practice "Grids Architects" in 2017.
Grids Architects has been recognised in Cairo Design Award for 2 consecutive
years 2017 and 2018 and most recently DNA Paris Design Award for architecture
2019.
Ismail Hafez is the Chief Business Officer at Rabbit, which he co-founded in 2021. He most recently served as the Regional General Manager at Kazyon, one of the largest retail players in Egypt, where he led a 1200 people strong team running over 150 stores nationwide. Prior to that, he held leadership roles at Dorra Group and Orange, where he ran marketing efforts across 5 countries in the Middle East.
Ismail is a well-seasoned business and people leader, with over 18 years of experience spanning the retail, telecom, real estate, FMCG and F&B industries.
Ismail holds an MBA from HULT International Business School, and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with a Marketing specialization and a minor of Economics from the American University in Cairo.
Ismail is also a serial entrepreneur, launching and managing several F&B ventures since 2007!
Said is currently a Partner at Global Ventures. Prior to joining Global Ventures, Said was COO of the e-commerce platform, Jamalon, where he led the company’s operational efforts and played a pivotal role in helping the company raise its Series B round. Prior to that, Said was COO at EFS Facilities Services leading the security services business and EFS's activities in Jordan. Said also previously held the position of CEO of Groupon UAE, where he was responsible for managing and sustainably growing Groupon’s Local, Goods and Travel business lines’ revenue across the UAE through the acquisition of new merchants. Before Groupon, Said worked with Deloitte's strategy consulting team, as well as SHUAA Capital as an AVP in the CEO's Office, in addition to previously working in private equity at the firms Dubai International Capital (including Jordan Dubai Capital), and Abraaj Capital. Said holds an MBA from INSEAD, France.
@Boilingice | Serial Entrepreneur | Business Angel | CEO | C-Suite Advisor | Mentor | Board Member | Winner: StartupChile, StartupBrazil, FrenchTechTicket | Have raised over $100 million in funding ... Gets Things Done!
Mahdi Al Olabi is the founder and CEO of R2S Logistics, an end-to-end eCommerce enablement technology and operations provider for eCommerce merchants in Egypt. R2S provides logistics tech and embedded fintech solutions to support eCommerce growth in Egypt and soon in more emerging markets. Launched in 2016, R2S has had five successful years of growth and success in last mile delivery services and now is offering storage, fulfillment, last mile delivery, parcel pick up and drop off network, returns management and COD remittance solutions for sellers of all sizes. R2S is focused on supporting the growth of the eCommerce ecosystem in the region which will in turn lead to the growth of many micro and SME’s and entrepreneurship in Egypt and African continent in this space.
Mahdi has more than twenty years of hands-on management experience in eCommerce operations, in North America and the MENA Region. Previous to launching R2S, he managed the setup and scaling of Souq.com between 2013 and 2015 as its Head of Operations in Egypt. He started his career in the eCommerce logistics field in Toronto, Canada in 1998, and was part of dynamic start ups indigo.ca and grocerygateway.com
Mahdi is passionate about driving eCommerce innovations and customer centric solutions to both merchant and consumer, that are sustainable, efficient, economical and disruptive. Recently, he led the launch of the region’s first eCommerce training Academy for women entrepreneurs in eCommerce which plans to empower and support 1,000 female Micro and SME’s within the next 3 years. Other interests that are key on his agenda for the next phase are: creating jobs in the sector through training, development of both youth and entrepreneurs, working on sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions for eCommerce logistics operations, and using eCommerce to support local production and exports from Egypt.
Bassel joined the valU team in January 2022 as our Chief Operations Officer. Bassel was part of the Dean’s List of Honors when he graduated in 2010 from the American University in Cairo. He majored in Mechanical Engineering & minored in Business Administration. His first job was in Procter & Gamble (P&G) was Distributor Operations Finance Manager where he managed a $600M business at the time. He then transitioned into a Commercial Finance Manager role where he was responsible for the Baby Care, Feminine Care, Shave Care, Oral Care & Batteries business in Egypt & the Levant countries where he was responsible for all commercial financial aspects for the business. After spending 4 years in Egypt’s P&G office as part of the Near East organization, Bassel went to P&G’s E-IMEA HQ office in Geneva as the India, Middle East & Africa (IMEA) for Baby Care Product Supply Finance where he was responsible for the full supply chain which included 5 plants in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, South Africa & India. After 2 years in Geneva, Bassel moved one last time with P&G to their regional office in Dubai where he was responsible for IMEA Skin Care & E-IMEA Personal Care business which operated in 13 countries. In 2018, Bassel joined Uber Eats as their first full time employee in Egypt. After helping the team launch the business in Egypt, Bassel led the operations for two years and was responsible for Courier, Eater, Restaurant & Marketplace operations. Bassel then joined Amazon’s Ultra Fast Grocery team based out of London and led the 3rd party grocery business which operated in the UK, France, Italy, Spain & Germany. He then joined Minly, the first passion economy start-up in the region which raised $3.5M of seed funding from leading regional VCs (4DX, B&Y and Global Ventures), as a late co-founder, Chief Operations Officer and interim Chief Commercial Officer.
A proven business leader in local/multinational organizations with almost 20 years of track record in growing businesses, brands and people.
Able to work in different cultural environment. strong experience in major function such as Marketing, Sales, Business development . . . etc. able to manage and motivate people to overcome the various business challenges utilizing the valuable communication and managerial skills.
Expert in planning, implementation and creating dynamic Marketing/Brand strategies that engage consumers and grow market share. Analytical, problem solver and Result-oriented with demonstrated success in turnaround.
Strategic marketing expert with 10+ years of digital experience in growth, demand generation and engagement strategies across different verticals and regions.
He's been immersed into teaching and academia for over 10 years delivering special topics in international marketing, digital advertising, and marketing management courses for university undergrads and Marketing/Communications professionals.
Anastasios is a highly versatile senior technology & innovation global leader, with 20+ years’ experience on building 100+ people teams, developing loyal customer relationships, growing ARR up to $253M, transforming cost structures and software development lifecycle.
His primary focus has been Business Development, Growth, Scaling up, Project Management, Operations and Software Engineering. He is deeply rooted in the Europe, USA and India markets on Fortune 1000 companies and Startups. Currently he is Vice President of Business Development at AccoliteDigital, however he has worked as Director of Operations for Sword Group, he has been CTO in 2 startups and lead Business Development for Crossover, which revolutionized remote work with over 5500 hires! He has successfully built and managed Agile teams in the past and is very comfortable with the complexity of corporate governance processes and stakeholder management.
He often participates in conferences and events, giving speeches on Growth, Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence, Fintech, startups, remote work and agile management.
His academic background is in Software Engineering (MSc) and Business Administration (MBA) and he is certified from PMI and IEEE. He is an active mentor at Google, MIT Forum and an avid Marathon runner.
Mr. El Akhdar founded LimeVest Partners, a USD 100 million Egypt-focused private equity manager, in 2017. He is the Managing Partner and a member of the investment committee. He is responsible for deal sourcing, investment evaluation, origination, operational oversight of portfolio companies, and exit strategies with a focus on the overall firm management and strategy.
Mr. El Akhdar was previously a Partner with BPE Partners (formerly Beltone Private Equity) since 2008 where he led the firm’s team building efforts and was responsible for fundraising, deal sourcing and origination, operational oversight of portfolio companies, and exit strategies. He led BPE Partners’ investments in Madinet Nasr Housing and Development, Total Egypt, PGESCo, and Pickalbatros.
Mr. El Akhdar is a board member of the Housing and Development Bank (2020-Current), Taamir Investment Holding Company (2021-Current), Egyptian Resorts Company (2022-Current), NSA Diagnostics (2020-Current), Dar Al Teb for Medical Services (2018-Currrent), Eye Speciality Centre (2019-Current), ArtPharma for Pharmaceutical Products (2021-Current). He also held board memberships of BPE Partners (2008-2016), Madinet Nasr Housing and Development (Ticker: MNHD.CA) (2008-2016), Total Egypt (2013-2016), Pickalbatros Holding and Arabiya for Investments (2009-2012), Metalart (2008-2016), and Arabiya for Investments (Ticker: AIND.CA) (2015-2016)
Prior to joining BPE Partners, Mr. El Akhdar was at American Capital Strategies, one of the largest US publicly-traded alternative asset managers. He started his career as a management consultant with Abt Associates.
Mr. El Akhdar received his MSc in Finance from the George Washington University School of Business and his BA in Accounting and Economics from the American University in Cairo.
Shehab comes with 17 years of extensive experience in customer happiness & operations management, customer journey design & implementation, strategic planning & execution, business transformation & governance model, people Management, talent management & leadership.
Shehab is experience of global leadership at scale in different industries (Telecommunication, Logistics , Supply chain, E-commerce & Fin-Tech, focus on the whole customer life cycle.
Shehab joined Vodafone Group Shared Services in 2007 where he had different roles among which was leading scaled operations, Vodafone AUS, NZ, Qatar & UK Offshore operations and partner management.
Shehab joined Aramex Egypt Transportation, Logistics, Supply Chain and Storage in 2018 managing the whole customer life cycle for B2B & B2C since the on-boarding until churn by building a contact strategy which includes all the stakeholders applying the RACI model with agreed service level for each stage in the customer life cycle generating multiple continuous improvement & cost optimization initiatives and ensuring tangible savings from operational plans as multiskilling.
Shehab joined Homzmart E-commerce a One-Stop-shop platform specialized in home goods and furniture sector through visual content technologies in 2020 as VP of customer operations.
Shehab joined Moneyfellows Fintech company trusted & convenient Money Circles in 2021, his role entailed being the primary responsible all customer journey design for our strategic objectives with full accountability of performance management, people management and customer experience, overall relationship to ensure the implementation of the B2B & B2C customer happiness strategy, also design and implementation of a clear top level engagement and governance strategy including regular partner review forums. offer first class communication skills and ability to translate strategy into actions, change operating models and improve overall customer experience.
Shehab controlled overall CH budget and oversee 350 FTE staff, with C-level/board advisor on business excellence initiatives; shaping top-tier decisions & responsible for the new customers still being a loyal customers.
Graduated from the German University Of Cairo In July 2017, Started his career in the digital healthcare startup Vezeeta providing a personalized patient experience through digitization and automation of the healthcare industry.
Then joined Roche in 2019 holding different roles in Oncology working on establishing the value of precision medicine and realizing personalized cancer care, currently holding the position of lung cancer Patient journey partner responsible for improving lung cancer patients' outcomes in Egypt and transforming Patients' lives to be empowered, heard and unhindered.
Crossfit Coach at Revolt Fitness, fulfilling the aspiration to bring value for people in order to lead healthier lives.
Mrs. Nagla Mohamed Bahr
Managing Director
Ms. Bahr is the Managing Director of the Credit Guarantee in Egypt (CGC Egypt) since
2015. Ms. Bahr is the chairwoman of (EMGN) the European Mediterranean Guarantee
Network.
Ms. Bahr has more than 30 years of experience in economic development, impact
assessment, macroeconomics, pricing economics, behavioral economics, financial
economics, financial advisory & consultancy, Rating, Research & feasibility studies and
strategic planning with a focus on emerging markets development. She has a special
expertise in MSMSs access to finance and development with a special focus and
proficiency in structuring, establishing, and managing guarantee schemes through
systematic structure and application of innovative products and models. She led and
supported different projects and researches of MSMEs sector development, strategy,
thematic and sector work in the context of sustainable development, and application of
business oriented approaches.
Ms. Bahr has B.Sc. in Economics and a Master degree in Professional Economic
Development.
Ms. Bahr set on several private and public sector Boards, as well as different Evaluation
& selection International committees for SMEs and Start-ups. Ms. Bahr was awarded as
one of the top 50 most influential women in Egypt for 2019.
Bahia Alyafi has more than 14 years of experience in consulting and is currently responsible for Innovation advisory services at Alyafi IP Group. She focuses on Intellectual property consulting including innovation index, brand strategy, innovation strategy, strategic portfolio development, commercialization and alignment of Intellectual property objectives across organizations. She has extensive experience in handling local and international clients managing the innovation cycle from planning and creation to sale and or purchase.
Experience
She graduated from the American University of Beirut in 2006 and upon her graduation she moved to the United Kingdom and worked at Grant Thornton in the corporate finance department. She was instrumental in several transactions, including the an acquisition of a piping business a disposal of a real-estate development business and the the debt restructuring of multiple educational institutions. Throughout her tenure at Grant Thornton, Bahia worked on assessing and evaluating companies for potential acquisitions and restructuring opportunities on behalf of clients.
Bahia then joined PwC as an associate in the audit department, where her expertise was in insurance, oil and gas, not for profit, food products and retail. She was continuously promoted on a fast trajectory and transferred to the transactions services consulting department working in due diligence, valuation and financial in the Middle East and Africa.
Following her tenure at PwC, Bahia Joined Alyafi IP Group, to restructure the IP department and set up the intellectual property consulting department which services local and international clients with innovation and intellectual property services locally and regionally. She has set up multiple offices around the middle east region building relationships with local businesses and government officials. She has led multiple IP consulting matters in a range of industries including; automotive (Ferrari SA), high end fashion (Valentino) entertainment (Formula 1), publishing (TPR), education (Becker) hospitality (IHG), medical (illumina) and technology (WeChat). She then launched Easy Trademarks as part of the innovation initiative which aims to protect, grow and maintain trademarks in high growth markets via an online accessible platform.
Bahia has passion for meeting people and has delivered multiple trainings and talks about innovation and intellectual property in the region.
Professional memberships:
Co-Chair - Global Advisory Council; International trademark Association (January 2019-December 2021)
Advisory board member – SAIP Saudi IP Authority
Secretary – Intellectual Asset Management team (MARQUES)
Licensing Executives Society – Member
Salma Shahin is the Head of Marketing & Communications at Thndr. Prior to joining Thndr, she was a Regional Account Director at IMPACT BBDO Dubai. Salma led on a number of acclaimed campaigns recognized in global & regional award shows, including Cannes Lions, Dubai Lynx, MENA
Effies, Clios , WARC & D&AD.
She has well-rounded experience in integrated communications, starting her career in Public Relations & Social Media at Omnicom’s FleishmanHillard in
Washington DC. During that time, she worked within the crisis communication & brand marketing departments on global accounts.
Salma is a University of Maryland, U.S.A graduate, holding a bachelors degree in Communication Studies.
Bassem joined A15 in 2022. Prior to A15, Bassem was an investment professional at Helios Investment Partners, the largest Africa-focused private investment firm that manages funds totaling $3.6 billion. Before joining Helios, Bassem was part of the Telecoms, Media and Technology Investment Banking team at J.P. Morgan in London. Bassem started his career with KPMG as part of the Advisory function.
Bassem holds a Masters in Finance from the London School of Economics and a Bachelors in Business Management from the Aston Business School.
Nataly is an investment manager at Seedstars, leading the efforts in MENA and Pakistan. Previously, Nataly worked with several leading VCs in MENA, overseeing e-commerce, fintech, and logistics startups across multiple stages and regions. She also worked on value creation operations for portfolio companies and LPS, while also contributing to impact investment practices and measurements for seed-stage and unicorn startups.
Sameh is the Founder and CTO of zVendo, the latest e-commerce product of Business Boomers, a platform that enables merchants to create their own online store and mobile apps with localized integrations and Arabic support. Sameh has extensive work experience with several local, multi-national and startup companies in the e-commerce and information technology fields for more than 20 years and has been focusing on e-commerce for the past decade through developing e-commerce platforms, products, services, and End-to-End solutions to meet the daily challenges of the field for more than 100 retailers
Ben Harburg is a Managing Partner at MSA Capital, a global investment firm with over $2 billion in assets under management. Mr Harburg also leads MSA Novo, the emerging markets focused franchise of MSA. Mr. Harburg has over 14 years investment and operations experience in the United States, Greater China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. He started his career with the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Harburg was a Fulbright Scholar at Freie Universität Berlin and a Neubauer Scholar at Tufts University. He sits on the Board of Directors of the National Committee on US-China Relations and the Asian Cultural Council.
CEO at Mintrics (social video analytics platform), Co-Founder at ThePlanet (Digital Creative Agency) and ThePlanet Productions (Original Digital Content Creator). Board member at Safarni; an NGO that facilitates travel for the underprivileged. Part of the solution.
With 10 years of experience in the field, Habiba Helmy is a veteran in the startups and entrepreneurship support field in Egypt and MENA. In her current role as the Innovation Lead at Arab Bank Egypt, Habiba runs multiple activities, initiatives, and pilot projects with the goal of accelerating Arab Bank’s digital transformation journey. She does this through conducting due diligence on promising investment opportunities in Fintech companies in Egypt and leading the implementation of POCs and Banking as a Service (BaaS) offerings. Additionally, she conducts activities aimed at fostering an innovation culture through engaging staff internally in design thinking workshops as well as internal incubation programs to develop ideas into implementable banking solutions.
In 2020, Habiba headed Womentum, the MENA region’s first acceleration program focused on women-led tech startups. During her time with Womentum, she designed and directed a virtual accelerator program for women led-startups operating in different industries and geographies.
Prior to Womentum, Habiba headed the non-financial arm of EGBANKS’s youth banking platform, MINT, as the Hub Director where she launched MINT Incubator and created multiple skills development programs for the bank’s youth client segment.
In 2016, Habiba received the Chevening award and acquired her MSc. Degree in Management from the University of Bristol, UK, where she focused her dissertation on women entrepreneurs in Egypt.
Before leaving Egypt for her master’s degree, Habiba served as an Entrepreneur Selection and Growth Manager at Endeavor Egypt, a non-profit organization focused on developing the economy through supporting and strengthening high-impact entrepreneurs. During her time at Endeavor, she managed a portfolio of 9 multi-million dollar SMEs where she helped grow these companies.
Habiba also served as the Country Lead in Egypt at MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) Pan Arab, a non-profit affiliated with MIT University. During her time at MITEF, Habiba introduced the Social Entrepreneurship Track as part of the MITEF Arab Startup Competition, the biggest startup competition across the MENA region. She also established MITEF’s partner network in Egypt and organized the competition & Final Award Ceremony in Cairo with 300+ attendees from 10+ countries.
Prior to joining MITEF Pan Arab, Habiba briefly worked with the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program (EIP) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) on creating boot camps for early stage entrepreneurs and on the launch of the AUC Venture Lab, the first university based accelerator in Egypt.
Habiba graduated with high honors from AUC where she double majored in Communication & Media Arts and Psychology.
Mohamed Sekkina is the General Manager of talabat mart, the leading local q-commerce platform in the region, delivering everyday essentials in 20 mins.
Prior to heading tmart Egypt in November 2021, Sekkina acted as Country Manager for tmart UAE, Head of Commercial Operations, and Market Launcher, where he lead the launch of talabat mart through building a network of over 30 dark stores across the region.
His early career days were pillared in multinational FMCG giant, Procter & Gamble, where he spent over four years leading Pampers’ supply chain in GCC and Pakistan, among different other roles within the company. In his tenure in P&G, he achieved record-breaking +$44M sales improvement for BabyCare, $36M for Fabric and HomeCare, and oversaw an intricate supply chain involving tens of plants.
Before shifting his career to management, Sekkina worked as a Software Engineer and Teaching Assistant at GUC. Sekkina holds a BSc in Computer Engineering with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence from the German University in Cairo (GUC), where he completed his thesis in the German Center for AI.
Sekkina is an avid padel player and also a foodie who not only appreciates a good meal but also enjoys cooking one.
Graduated from the American University in Cairo with highest honors & worked at P&G as an assistant brand manager handling DTC at the age of 22. When I became a mother at the age of 24, I realized there was a huge market gap when it comes to supporting new moms. Even though motherhood is one of the oldest professions, with all these ever-growing online chunks of information, in this fast-paced world, there wasn't a single comprehensive, tailored support system for new moms in Egypt. This was the discontinuous shift moment when I realized change was needed, this is when Rahet Bally was born.
Rahet Bally—which translates to “peace of mind” in Arabic—was born in August 2015, not long after my son.
As of early 2020, more than 4 million women in Egypt have been connected to Rahet Bally’s services, which encompass financial, physical, intellectual, and social support.
Rahet Bally Supports All Mothers—and its Employees
Beyond reaching more millions of women through one of its four pillars of support, the company employs an all-female staff. This is unusual in Egypt, where it is hard to find women accountants and technicians. We have almost 100 women working full time in the company divided between our headquarters and our other locations. The company is mother-friendly, too. Employees can work from home any time and take advantage of flexible maternity leave, making it possible for mothers to get a decent job with a market-competitive salary.
Founding Partner - Creative Industry Summit
Managing Partner - The Worx for Events
Egypt Representative - Lions - Global Festival of Creativity
Co-Founder - The Nu Digital Awards
Egypt Chapter - Women Economic Forum
Accomplishment driven and marcom guru with 23 + years of experience in the marketing communication field. Salama showed interest in advertising through her love of commercials since she was a child as she used to tape-record TV commercial and play them over and over, to dissect, study, memorize and sing.
Growing up with the belief that communication can break every barrier. Salama followed her passion and began her career working as a Dubbing Director at Media Concepts where she dubbed several Disney Original cartoons. From there, she moved publishing where she assumed the role of Editorial Associate at Egypt’s first English lifestyle Magazine Cleo (AKA Enigma Magazine).
Salama entered the advertising world, when she joined Lintas (AKA Lowe) known as Lowe, later moved to Grey, then Bates. She later joined Synergy Advertising, when Salama joined it was a startup and during her 10 years, she was a big part of driving the agency to becoming one of Egypt’s leading Advertising Agencies. She later moved to Animation Advertising where her main role was to setup the Client Servicing Department and as well as train and get the team running efficiently. In 2010 she joined a startup group called Breakthrough, where she managed both the Advertising & the Digital companies.
In December 2014 Salama established The Worx for Events, redefining the marketing, advertising and events landscape in Egypt with her business Partner and Event Management Expert Neamat Khalil.
Salama and Khalil managed to take the market by storm, with the platforms they created, built and introduced to the market, such as:
Establish Creative Industry Summit, The Mena Region’s leading platform for showcasing & Celebrating Creativity.
Awarded by Cannes Lions, the Global Festival of Creativity to be their Official Office and Representative in Egypt.
Brought to Egypt, the global platform, Women Economic Forum, bringing to Egypt over 800 female leaders from 75 countries
Finally, and most recently, launching The NU Digital Awards Egypt’s and the Mena Region’s first homegrown digital awards aiming to award and celebrate all work and professionals in the digital sphere.
Salama & Khalil are a true example of partnership, success and women leadership, together they build extraordinary experiences.
All the above falls in line with the vision of growing and evolving the industry in Egypt as well as in putting Egypt back on the map of Creativity & Event Destinations.
Social Media Accounts:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maisalama/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maisalama/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/maisalama
Over 25 years of experience in brand building, marketing, business development, and sales in large multinational and local corporate companies in Egypt and across the MENA region.
Yassin has worked with over 400 brands as a business consultant to strategize their expansions, develop plans, increase sales growth, formulate brands, and direct their communication, besides founding more than 8 startups, from which one was fulling acquired by a group of investors in 2020.
He began his extraordinary career at two Fortune 500 corporations, IBM and P&G, where he learned from the best multinational players in the world, He then went to the GCC to oversee the Burger King and Applebee's brands, and soon after... his track record of success led him to become the regional marketing director for BURGER KING Middle East and North Africa.
Yassin has a long history of entrepreneurship that began in 1998 with restaurants and catering businesses, then moved on to the tech industry and established one of the first IVR mobile service support companies in Egypt, and by 2012, he introduced the concept of Buy One Get One through his company (Win-Win Business Development) alongside 7 other startups, where he opened the door to more than 400 brands mainly F&B to serve more than 1.25 million consumers, the extraordinary success of BOGO plus attracted investors and led to successful acquisition for it.
During the COVID-19 crisis, Medhat launched a non-profit initiative called (نجاحكم يسعدنا) to assist startups and SMEs by providing marketing advice, business consulting, and coaching in order to help them stay in business and thrive after the crisis, the initiative went viral and more than 1000 startups & SMEs have been in contact with Medhat Yassin to this day and more than 60 enterprises have been coached and mentored by him in person.
Certified mentor, consultant, and expert in EU - GIMED, and EBRD
Founded Food360 the F&B business enabler, a firm that specialized in F&B concept creation, turnaround, and F&B project management.
Motivated by his passion to help & connect with people, Medhat has Founded (Cairo Business Community) a business initiative that aims to create a collaborative business environment, based on knowledge sharing, and exchange of experiences and business relations in order to support and develop entrepreneurs in Egypt and the Middle East.
Medhat Yassin's exquisite work has been recognized numerous times by local and international media, as he has been interviewed by numerous television channels including CBC, DMC, CNBC Arabia, Nile News, and many more television programs and radio stations.
He is known for being the main player in most of the successful F&B concepts and mega projects in Egypt.
Mehmet Emin Okutan has completed his undergraduate degree in Management with a concentration in Marketing from University of Maine and MBA from Bilkent University in Ankara Turkey. He is the cofounder of Viveka Incubation Center: the first private incubation center dedicated to cultivation of technology based startups since 2010. Through Viveka Emin has accomplished to run several international programmes : Women Entrepreneurship Pre-Accelerator Program in Medinah, Saudia Arabia. He also mentored Sub Saharan startups with the business plan competition of Islamic Development Bank. Emin is one of the facilitators in Founder Institute targeting global minded startups. Currently he is running EIT KIC ClimAccelerator East Mediterrenean programme supporting startup and industry collaboration. He has invested in five startups in field of edtech, sustainability, hardware.
Experienced professional in startup and corporate investments. Supporting funds, HNWI and companies to successfully close more than 60 deals in private equity and venture capital.
Skilled in negotiation, ability to engage, communicate and influence multiple stakeholders (including C-suites executives, industry leaders and advisors), budgeting, business planning and innovation management.
Hana graduated with double majors of Business Administration concentration Finance from AUC and Medicine from Ain Shams University achieving highest honors in both disciplines. Following her passion for both Medicine & Finance, she joined Elaj Group in 2020, given its specialization in investments in the healthcare sector allowing Hana to utilize her educational background of both disciplines. During her tenor at Elaj, Hana founded the data analysis department thus significantly improving the patient experience. Additionally, she played a pivotal role in the establishment of Tawasol Holdings for Financial Investments in 2021 to be the investment arm of Elaj Group and to act as a holding for Elaj Group’s current and future investments. Currently, Hana acts as the Investment Director of Tawasol Holdings who leads and directs the investment team focusing on identifying, analysing, and executing the investment opportunities. Hana led the very first investment of Tawasol in the startup scene through investing in Valify Solutions where It is foreseen as one of the most potential startups with a great impact and game changer in the regtech industry.
Fabio Maria Montagnino is the Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at The Cyprus Institute. He is a polymath with an academic background in physics of biological systems and computational science, and scientific activity in the field of solar energy and sustainable built environment. Since about thirty years he's been promoting open and impactful innovation ecosystems through the generation of science-based start-ups, the development of technological services and the implementation of knowledge transfer actions in European and Mediterranean regions, where he has been leading a large number of transnational projects and actions.
Open People Network (OPN)! OPN is a group of angel investors helping accelerate the growth of early-stage startups through The Supporters Fund and PitchitSeries. Jeffery is a lifelong entrepreneur with a proven track record of building companies and reinventing existing businesses. Working with a list of great startups to enterprise clients over the years. Jeffery is a mentor, coach and loves to climb mountains!
Background:
• Multiple degrees: Post grad (1yr), Seneca College (3yr), York University (3yr) CompSci(2yrs)
• Software Engineer/Ecom Mngr: Loblaws (1999-2007)
• CEO/CTO: Hardboot Inc, Dev resourcing (Offices: PK, PH,CAN,EGY)
• 7 Angel groups & screening: York, Spark & GTAN, Equation, Keiretsu
• Real-Estate: Single/Duplex conversions
• 70+ companies Invested
Areas of Investment: Deep Tech, Real-estate, Bitcoin, Retail, & Fintech.
Khaled Lababidi is an Operating Partner at Arbor Ventures, a FinTech focused Venture Capital firm operating across MENA, South East Asia and North America.
Prior to Arbor, Khaled has held various senior positions at banks such as BNP Paribas, FAB and HSBC.
Khaled received his B.Sc in Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto, and an MBA from Oxford University.
Dr. Hala Hattab has fifteen years of experience in the field of entrepreneurship. She is Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship at the British University in Egypt, researcher trainer, mentor, and consultants with attempts to be an entrepreneur.
In 2008 Dr. Hattab joined the British University in Egypt as a lecturer in Entrepreneurship and later was promoted to Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship. Through her 11 years at the BUE, Hala taught various business courses. In 2013, she developed a program in entrepreneurship that aims at preparing students to be entrepreneurs themselves, including ideas generation, opportunity recognition, business planning, among others. Since then, she is fully dedicated to teaching entrepreneurship and innovation to both Business and Computer Science students.
Upon joining BUE, Dr. Hattab was appointed as the Program Manager for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor – Egypt and authored three reports about entrepreneurship in Egypt for three consecutive cycles. She is an active researcher and published several researches, articles and reports in different internationally recognized journals and presented her research work in both national and international conferences. Dr. Hattab is a member of the editorial boards of different journals a regular reviewer for entrepreneurship-specialised journals and conferences. She is a founding member of Middle East Council for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship.
As a trainer and a mentor, Hattab has worked closely with 100’s of startups across different countries applying different entrepreneurship methodologies and is a lead trainer for many programs with focus on social, and sustainability issues. She served as a judge in business plan competitions across the MENA region and sets in the selection panel of different organizations to interview their prospect entrepreneurs.
Hala has been working with different international organizations on consultancy basis to carry out different activities related to entrepreneurship and innovation in Egypt and Middle East. She has worked with Nathan Associates Inc., Legatum Institute, IDRC and USAid.
As a Chemical Engineering graduate, she started her professional career as a business development officer in an engineering consultancy company, MWHAJ, which is a joint-equity company owned by both Jordanian and International Consultants. In 2005, she was promoted to Business Development Manager. During her five years in MWHAJ, she worked closely with governmental associations and International donors and was heavily involved in business practices, including bidding (financial & technical), evaluating proposals, market analysis, new business opportunities, etc.. . Her work covered the MENA region
Ambitious Digital Transformation Lead with over 14 years of diversified experience of marketing, medical, commercial, and digital in the pharmaceutical industry with a track record of success driving new launches, new ideas, and crafting digital strategies either in Egypt or international assignments in Asia cluster and Global functions Passionate about leading business transformation through innovation, resilience and customer-centricity.
Nagaty is an emerging markets' venture builder, investor and tech-entrepreneur with 15 years of experience in tech-entrepreneurship, He is currently the founder and ceo of " pie" the leading " M and A" for startups firm in Egypt the co-founder of KLIVVR ( Egypt'a first digital agent banking platform) co-founder/advisor of Halan , Halan is Africa's largest super app and egypt's first unicorn ( raised 200M usd) and Egypt's most funded app in 2020 according to Forbes middle east, and most funded 2020/2021. Prior to co-founding Halan, Nagaty served as Regional Director at Careem, the Middle East's number one ride hailing application recently acquired by Uber for more than $3 billion. He also sits on the board of several Tech companies inlcuding Koinz, Robusta, Checkme, Drowzy. Earlier, Nagaty, started his career at Fawry in account management and business development since 2012 till headed the BD ( fawry was the first tech-company to ipo in egypt reached 2B usd val in public markets) as well as starting Egypt'a first food and beverage fund in 2014 he is also an investor in several multi- stage startups including Sokna, breadfast, waffarha, gameya, sokoon he is also an advisor and investor in disruptech ( Egypt's largest fintech fund) and founding partner in cash cows ( a startup incubator and fund)
Nagaty has completed the CXO Academy program at INSEAD, France, and a B.Sc., in Electronics Engineering from the American University in Cairo, Egypt.
Hany Sewilam is the Founding Partner at AJA Venture, CMO at N&S Investment Group, and CEO of ITEX. He has extensive strategy, operations, and marketing experience across the technology, media, SMEs, products, and services sectors.
He is an innovative thought leader, a revered educator, an accomplished author of over 3 books, a well-traveled speaker, and a trusted consultant to the world’s most recognized corporate brands.
He loves marketing, BD, and sales and leads many marketing strategies and plans for many companies around the world.
Over the past 15 years, Hany has provided business consultancy to over 8,718 startups and businesses in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and helped them succeed and grow even more! Most of them jumped to the growth stage through his advice and his business mentorship.
He was most recently the Founding Partner and Business Development Head of AJA Venture, working closely with leading global and regional companies and the startup and VC ecosystem. He has advised Fortune 500 companies as a senior consultant with AJA Venture and led teams at Creative Sense, Pulse Group, Jobardo, SuperLady, and Orkanza while working in the U.S., Middle East, and Africa.
Hany holds an MBA, DBA, and two bachelor's degrees in business administration and finance. He is a board member of ENTR in Silicon Valley and The SuperLady Enterprise Forum.
Hany is a regular speaker at major regional events on eCommerce, Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship, and startup issues.
Hany Sewilam has secured standing as one of the best angel investors and co-founder with great business thinking and the ability to transform ideas and dreams into plans that achieve profits, successes, and achievements
Developed in 2007, the Application started as an All in one solution system integrator.
current working with top-notch Brands to provide high-end technology integration for elite clients and institutions all across Egypt
The official certified distributor for KEF Speakers, Philips Dynalite
Signify Solutions, Philips lighting
Ilkay Demirdag is an award-winning Investment and Impact Strategist with 24 years of experience working in multinational companies, conglomerates, banks and private equity funds in Turkey, the UK and Bahrain. She leads important initiatives to maximize value creation for all stakeholders, transform responsible and impact investments into the mainstream, and ensure sustainable economic development.
Her expertise comprises the spectrum of Equity Transactions (Private equity fund establishment and management, Fund raising, M&A, IPOs, Impact Investments), Debt Transactions (Project finance, Debt funding and Bond issuances), Strategic Planning (Deal origination, Business development, Asset / portfolio optimization, Project management), Investor Relations and Sustainability (Strategic Planning, & Execution, Setting ESG Targets & Performance Management, ESG reporting, Index & Rating preparations, Advocation and Leading Impact). She primarily covered and analyzed regulated markets (energy, telecom, infrastructure) in developed and emerging markets.
She holds BSc and MSc in Architecture from Istanbul Technical University and MSc in Economics from University College London. Ilkay is a Mindfulness Trainer and a Professional Coach. Ilkay Demirdag actively takes part in NGOs. She is currently a Supervisory Board Member at TUYID, Impact Council Member at Impact 2030 Turkey, Board Member at ITU Alumni Association and Founder and Board Member at Impact Circles Foundation.
More information: https://ilkaydemirdag.com/
The first Egyptian girl to create content for games and CEO for a Saudi organization called Sky Rockets, and a creator of gaming content
Fadi has more than 20 years of experience in telecom and
digital product development. His Academic background includes an MBA from Maastricht School of Management, BSc of Telecommunications Engineering from Alex University, and another diploma in project management from Cambridge University.
Ismail Moustapha Sarhank is the Deputy CEO of IBAG-Western Union and oversees the money transfers operations and all other related corporate business since 2018. He is also an executive board member of IBAG and a non-executive member of Sarhank Investment Group.
Prior to IBAG, Sarhank held the position of Director of Operations at IBA Media and was the driving force in transforming the business model from an Ad based model to copy sales and cash flow positive model, in addition to converting printed magazines into electronic publications issued in a modern technical format during his time to save the long accumulated losses of the company at the time..
His strong belief in the use of artificial intelligence has driven him to introduce machine learning in the company's logistics and operations, which had a positive impact on increasing revenues by 15% annually, and improved the business cycle expanding the business horizontally and vertically while holding the position of Director of Business Development in the arm responsible for Western Union's global operations since 2015.
Throughout his career, Sarhank maintained strong relationships and partnerships with the Central Bank of Egypt and other industry players further expanding the reach of IBAG and the business.
A graduate from the American University in Cairo, with a BA in Business administration and minoring in Economics. Ismail Sarhank’s father Moustapha Sarhank has been a solid inspiration and mentor in leadership, management, and business excellence.
Dr. Waleed Sadek is the Founder & CEO of PaySky, the leading digital payment solutions provider founded in 2017. With a forward-looking vision and ambitions to redefine and democratize the digital payment ecosystem.
PaySky fostered partnerships with different entities as central banks, banks, financial institutions, and telecom operators to provide them with its latest technology in the Middle East and Africa. The company has presence in more than 10 countries namely, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Pakistan, Libya, Sudan, Uganda, Botswana.
As a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in digitizing the financial services sector in Egypt and the Middle East, Dr. Sadek established and led several fintech startups.
Prior to setting out on his entrepreneurial journey, Dr. Sadek has been sought after for his strategic vision, process-oriented finesse, and his ability to drive innovation within both young and mature businesses. He joined Visa from 2004 to 2008, where he held multiple leadership positions, including the position of Head of the Innovation and New Technologies Department for the Middle East and North Africa. He was also appointed the manager of Visa Global Strategy for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA).
Moreover, Dr. Sadek established several companies and served as a Board Member of BITEL EMEA, as well as of Wind Technologies. He is a renowned subject matter expert in the domain of digital financial services & payment systems, and has shared in developing technology standards and market regulations in electronic payments domain.
Despite graduating from Ain Shams University's Faculty of Medicine in the year 2009, Sadek chose to pursue his passion in the field of information technology.
Where he would develop innovative solutions in the fintech industry and enable everyone to use it to facilitate their lives and help the economy to grow and prosper.
Ahmed Khalil is the General Manager of Tabby in Egypt. Khalil joined Tabby in April 2022 to set up, launch and scale Tabby in Egypt as part of the company’s regional expansion plans.
Prior to joining Tabby, Khalil led Uber’s Egypt business as General Manager, previously leading the Middle East and North Africa Operations team at Uber, overseeing the markets of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Lebanon.
Before that, Khalil worked in the financial services sector covering Egyptian and regional publicly-listed companies.
Khalil graduated from the American University in Cairo with a Bachelor’s in Accounting and holds an MBA from IESE Business School at the University of Navarra in Spain.
Ahmed Magdy is a Fintech & payments expert leader with +15 years of experience in corporate and payments industry, Ahmed played different vital roles in his last ten years journey in the payments domain, and was part of shaping the digital payments and fintechs acquiring business scene in Egypt through a demonstrated history in the financial industry, acquiring business, e-wallets, cash management for B2B and FMCGs, e-commerce and digital payments solutions.
Ahmed is the VP and Co-Founder for Geidea expansion in Egypt since its inception and journey start in 2020, which is today one of the top payment acceptance providers in Egypt with its tailored end to end solutions, with a clear vision to help partners and merchants to manage and grow their business efficiently.
Ms. Zedan has spearheaded various challenging transitional initiatives. She offers over 30 years of experience in the design and delivery of relevant strategic directions based on the active engagement of her beneficiaries and workstream sponsors, throughout the Middle East and Africa. She is recognized for interventions that became embedded within varied government and international development bodies, paving the way, through opinion leaders and policy makers, to spread awareness, promote evidence-based reform, and shape public opinion. Throughout her work experience, she has focused on a combination of best practices from various disciplines and has spent the majority of her career in strategic regions around the world, to foster lasting impact using frameworks and processes necessary to create and support system-wide change for disadvantages communities. Focusing on clear actionable roadmaps to generate insight, identify relevant needs, and drive execution through integrated and accountable mechanisms, Ms. Zedan works closely with key stakeholders to exchange perspectives, and identify emerging opportunities and key challenges, in the context of evolving economic, social and political transitions- to boost internal and external support and impact. Her entrepreneurial leadership has received global recognition and awards for exceeding customer expectations in achieving fiscal bottom-line results through her ability to establish and maintain strong alliances to leverage opportunities, and lead and motivate teams to strengthen institutional capabilities and accountability.
Director of the Intellectual Property Commercialization Office at iPARK. Seasoned industry, investment, entrepreneurship, business development, IP, innovation, strategy, and finance professional with more than 20 years of leadership experience. Engineered and executed technological alliances across multiple sectors including Jordan's largest patent-based investment deals. Member of numerous technical and advisory boards at academic and private institutions worldwide. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Expert in IP policy and management. PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from Nottingham University.
He is a co-founder of the NilePreneurs initiative in 2017, Developing the innovation challenges and the incubation programs. Currently he is the Associate Director and Head of business Incubators program at NilePreneurs initiative, IECC, Nile University. He is supervising 5 sector focus incubators (Hardware and Software incubators in different industrial sectors).
He is an Assistant professor teaching Entrepreneurship at Engineering School. Nile University. He got his M.Sc and Ph.D degree in Management Of Technology (MOT) from Nile University with a focus on Personal traits affecting the success or failure of the Egyptian Entrepreneurs.
He had more than 18 years of practical experience working with Entrepreneurs, Startups and SMEs in and out of Egypt. He is the founder of Entrepreneurship unit in ministry of trade and industry in 2012 during his working for 12 years in the Ministry as head of technical support and Entrepreneurship unit supervising 13 technology centers working in 13 industrial sectors. Also, worked in Private sector, NGO, University, and he had his own startups for 4 years.
He is working as Innovation and Entrepreneurship consultant support entrepreneurs, startups and entities as mentor and consultant to build their business model or system and also, matchmaking with investors.
Ahmed Mokhtar is a corporate innovation professional who navigates the waters between different industries, seeking to use his varied experiences to bridge the gap between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the corporate world.
Over the past years, his work has included strategic business development, start-up mentorship, and corporate innovation. In particular, he has been designing, facilitating, and delivering innovation projects that aim to instill intrapreneurial cultures in corporate settings. As for his entrepreneurial endeavors, these include co-founding the first coworking space in New Cairo and being the General Manager of a renowned Egyptian web & mobile development house.
He backed up his experience with a Masters degree in Innovation & Entrepreneurship from MIP Politecnico Di Milano (in Italy) and Solvay School of Management and Economics (in Belgium).
He currently works with SODIC on their corporate innovation program to put in place an innovative and intrapreneurial culture in their organization.
Tawfik Mahmoud
Managing Director - AFS Egypt
Tawfik is a strategic business leader and digital payments expert with a proven track record that spans over 22 years of professional experience in the field.
Over the past 16 years he has held senior roles at various international organizations including Managing Director of JumiaPay, Vice President of Network International, and General Manager of PayTabs, where he has been responsible for leading and developing digital payments, card payment solutions for both Acquiring / Issuing and Merchant services and eCommerce business across the board.
With a strategic focus on advancing payments acceptance in Egypt, and in his current role as the Managing Director of Arab Financial Services in Egypt – AFS (Egypt), Tawfik is responsible for leading the company’s strategy in Egypt, growing the team across the country, supporting its growth and scaling Egypt’s merchant clients across all sectors and industries.
In this capacity, Tawfik is building up a unique digital payment processing business model to empower the digital economy with frictionless payment solutions that are convenient, safe and easy to use. Throughout, his focus is on building trust between consumers and businesses and thereby boosting the financial inclusion and digital transformation in Egypt and Africa as a whole.
Tawfik holds a bachelor degree in social work. In addition, he obtained TLP certification from Harvard Business School as well as business planning and strategy certifications from Emirates Institute for Banking and financial Studies (EIBFS).
Digital Transformation enabler with solid marketing, strategy, consultancy, and teaching
background. My experience has a diversity of corporates, SMEs, and startups. Passionate about digitization, automotive, fintech, and marketing drives me to contribute in organizations’ digitalization with the purpose of value addition and revenue growth.
Dr. Hosam AbouElDahab is a Fintech and Digital Financial Services Expert, with 20+ years of experience and hands-on in the IT industry carrying out different technical and business roles in this era, managing more than 50 projects/ Programs which materialized his experience in Digital Banking & Digital Transformation, Core and Islamic Banking, e-commerce, e-payment systems and financial inclusion strategies.
He has a wide multinational experience working in Fintech Ecosystems supporting financial inclusion in more than 25 countries across Africa and worldwide.
he also has several certificates such as financial inclusion from CBE (Central Bank of Egypt), PMP, ITIL and CMMI in addition to achieving his MBA in e-commerce and lastly achieving his Doctoral of Business Administration as well.
Fadi Antaki- Founder & CEO at TFK
Fadi Antaki the Founder & CEO at TFK, is a veteran tech venture builder and investor. He has invested in the region’s leading and fastest growing tech startups.
Antaki’s entrepreneurial experience enabled him to mentor and guide many entrepreneurs to overcome their challenges in management, generating traction and fundraising. Being an entrepreneur at heart; he founded TFK.me in 2020, the leading digital partner for Fashion brands in Egypt which is a curated Fashion marketplace having a portfolio of more than 200 partner brands and 135K+ customers.
His purpose is helping Fashion entrepreneurs grow and sustain their brands by offering them all the tools and services needed for their digital transformation to sell online so they focus on enhancing the quality of their products and collections.
As the General Partner of A15, and during the period from 2015-2019, he led the teams of 19 portfolio companies across 17 regional offices with more than 1,000 employees. Antaki turned the corporate structure of an Orascom company OTVentures into a lean VC as A15 by decentralizing all functions and creating synergies across all companies. Overall A15 succeeded in conducting 7 exits crowned by MENA’s first dragon exit which is TPay exit to Helios Investment partners in 2018, the Otlob exit to Rocket Internet in 2014 and A15’s largest dragon exit which is Connect Ads exit to Aleph holding in 2021.
Fadi Currently sits on the boards of companies in Egypt, Mauritius, Dubai, Singapore and USA. He supports those companies with extensive market and domain knowledge, networks, and strategic operational support impacting their business growth.
Antaki was graduated from the American University in Cairo with a Business Administration Major
Hani is a leading Egyptian Business Designer and Innovation Consultant bringing a decade of experience in preparing executives and entrepreneurs to become innovators. He specializes in designing and delivering fun and interactive workshop experience, mentoring startup founders, and joining innovation teams to facilitate prototyping and validating customer-centric business models.
Since 2012, Hani has been inspiring the right mindset with thought-provoking keynotes on the latest in innovation and Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship, volunteering 1000s of hours mentoring early-stage startups, and engaging the Egyptian ecosystem with his blog and articles. His main aim is to teach entrepreneurs to learn by doing, investigate alternatives, appreciate experimental learning & value evidence over opinion. His mantra is:"Invest in entrepreneurs' mindsets, and a successful startup is only a matter of time."
Rafeh launched Cubit Ventures and Founder Institute Egypt, sits on Falak Startups board, is an advisor to Egypt Ventures and Loyal VC, and led one of the largest consulting firms in Egypt.
He is an experienced triple-digit track record executive, entrepreneur, and management consultant where he advised numerous companies of all sizes on growth, turnaround, and business restructuring strategies.
I have been fortunate enough to enjoy an 16+ years' successful commercial career growing companies.
Most recently managing Digital Virgo Egypt and supporting the sales in the GCC area, bringing the best-in-class services to light and assuring the best profitability and brand image by providing various Value-Added Services, payment gateways such as Direct Carrier Billing DCB / DOB and Performance based digital marketing campaigns through our Ad Tech Agency "Addict Mobile".
Previously, I was acting as the lead point of contact for any and all matters specific to Mondia clients in Egypt, and before so I was in charge of different portfolios in one of Orange group affiliates in AMEA region; Mobinil in Egypt (formally Orange Egypt now), I also had the chance to observe the Gulf market for almost one year working for TIMWE TECH in Doha as a marketing manager responsible for all marketing aspects of the Value Added Services (VAS) for the mobile operator Ooredoo Qatar.
After business hours: Cairo Runners Co-Founder and a singer at Cairo Celebration Choir.
Ghannam is a certified business and strategy consultant and has 15 years of experience in Private Equity, Venture Capital and Direct Investments. He spent the majority of his career in the Private Equity field where he managed a US$ 51mn private equity portfolio at Egypt's largest private sector bank Commercial International Bank (CIB) including direct investments and funds.
Later, Ghannam played a pivotal role in the creation of CIB's Corporate Venture Capital firm “CVentures" dedicated to investing in early stage startups in addition to leading the formulation and implementation of CIB’s expansion strategy in Africa which was translated into the establishment of CIB's representative office in Ethiopia; the bank’s first cross border presence in Africa.
Before joining Flat6Labs, Ghannam was appointed as a Director at CVentures, where he was a senior member of the investment team leading the firm’s portfolio management activities including all aspects of the investment process including deal origination, assessment, execution and business development.
In April 2022, Ghannam joined Flat6Labs as a Principal, the most active startups investor in the MENA region, managing Egypt portfolio and fund operations. Ghannam manages the US$ 10mn fund investing in innovative technology entrepreneurs in Egypt. The portfolio consists of 90+ companies including Healthtech, Edtech, Fintech, E-Commerce and Logistics startups.
Aside from his main roles, Ghannam provided mentorship to 70+ startups at Flat6Labs, AUC Venture Lab VC4A, and RiseUp in the areas of business strategy, financial advisory, investment readiness, fundraising plan and valuation.
Ali is the head of young enterprise finance department for the German government in Egypt with GIZ through it's project Promotion of Access to Financial Services for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Egypt (PAFSME) to Improve access to finance for young enterprises (startups), the project supports the development of risk capital investors such
as angel investors and venture capital firms, which offer young entrepreneurs an alternative way of mixed financial and mentoring support.
F. Ramzi Asfour, MD is a US trained physician. He is board certified in Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine and is also certified in Functional Medicine (a systems-based healthcare approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease).
Dr. Asfour has worked internationally at the World Health Organization and with Columbia University. With greater than 20 years of hands-on experience both internationally and in the U.S., Dr. Asfour has embraced tech in medicine as a tool to expand quality healthcare.
Ninety percent of his interactions with patients and healthcare facilities are technology-based. From mentoring and supporting a functional medicine clinic in China to supporting U.S. rural hospitals, nursing homes and schools Dr. Asfour is using technology to expand quality care.
Dr. Asfour’s core values are creativity, thinking outside the box, and offering solutions to support physicians and health care systems in their quest for excellence. Presently, he is the President of Praxis Infectious Diseases who specialize in remote infectious diseases services and the President of Capsid Consulting who specialize in infection control and prevention for nursing homes, schools and universities as well as businesses.
محمد عكاشة
ً یُــعد محــمد عــكاشــة آحــد رواد الــتكنولــوجــیا الــمالــیة والــتحول
الـرقـمي فـي مـصر. ویـتمتع عـكاشـة بـخبرة تـزیـد عـن ٢٥ عـامـا
في قطاعي الاتصالات وتكنولوجیا المعلومات.
بـدأ عـكاشـة مسـیرتـھ الـمھنیة فـي شـركـة رایـة عـام ١٩٩٥ ،ثـم تـدرج لـیشغل مـنصب مـدیـر عـام
شـركـة رایـة لـتكنولـوجـیا الـمعلومـات. فـي عـام ٢٠٠٦ ،تـقلد عـكاشـة مـنصب رئـیس قـطاع
الـتسویـق بشـركـة فـودافـون حـتى عـام ٢٠٠٩ .خـلال عـملھ بشـركـتي رایـة وفـودافـون قـام عـكاشـة
بإطلاق العدید من المبادرات الناجحة في قطاعي الاتصالات وتكنولوجیا المعلومات.
فــي عــام ٢٠٠٩ ،قــام عــكاشــة بــتأســیس شــركــة فــوري لــتكنولــوجــیا الــبنوك والــمدفــوعــات
الإلـكترونـیة ”فـوري“ وشـغل مـنصب الـعضو الـمنتدب حـتى عـام ٢٠٢٠ .فـي عـام ٢٠١٩ ،قـام
ً ثـانـي أكـبر شـركـة فـي
عـكاشـة بـطرح أسـھم شـركـة فـوري لـلاكـتتاب الـعام وتـعد فـوري حـالـیا
الـبورصـة الـمصریـة. فـي عـام ٢٠٢٠ ،قـرر عـكاشـة تـأسـیس صـندوق دیسـربـتك مـصر،
ً مـنصب الشـریـك الـمؤسـس والـتنفیذي لـلصندوق، ویـعد صـندوق دیسـربـتك
حـیث یـشغل حـالـیا
مصر آحد انشط صنادیق رأسمال المخاطر المتخصصة في مجال التكنولوجیا المالیة.
ً عـضو مجـلس إدارة
شـغل عـكاشـة عـضویـة مجـلس إدارة عـدد مـن الشـركـات الـكبري، وھـو حـالـیا
الشركة المصریة للنقل والخدمات التجاریة ”ایجیترانس“ وعدد من الشركات.
حـصل عـكاشـة عـلى درجـة الـبكالـوریـوس فـي الـعلوم تـخصص ھـندسـة الـكمبیوتـر مـن الـجامـعة
الامـریـكیة بـالـقاھـرة، وكـذا درجـة الـماجیسـتیر فـي إدارة الأعـمال مـن جـامـعة اسـلسكا الـفرنسـیة.
وقد شارك في العدید من الدورات التدریبیة طوال مسیرتھ المھنیة
Yasser El-Bendary
A serial entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Update Venture Builder.
Yasser holds a B.Sc. in Engineering and Master Degree in Marketing and have 35 years of experience in management, business development and marketing in diversified industries.
He is the the Founder of innovative projects like;
DISCO ديسكو
discounts and cash back on everything
http://discoapp.ai/
disco is an AI powered super app which allows users to save more through personalized offers on products they like, and by giving them the ability to monitor their everyday expenses to improve their budgets.
In compliance with personal data protection laws, disco asks consumers to upload pictures of their expenses/purchase receipts (in-store & online) in return for loyalty points that can be redeemed for cash.
Kourassa الكُراسة
your small enterprise resource planner
https://kourassa.com/
A a cloud-based mobile app that offers all-in-one store management solutions by supplying the core business elements of POS, ERP, and CRM to both online and offline small businesses.
elKourassa provides a digital trackable experience among the whole value chain, while also facilitating relationships between vendors, stores and customers.
Dokroma دقرمة
make real-time buying decisions
https://dokroma.com/
The place where you can quickly find the brands and products you like at the best prices based on people’s purchases and reviews. Do2roma is a search engine that gives any business a new way of interacting with consumers while promoting their products.
InsightX
it is all about data
https://insightx.ai/
A first-party data platform that measures the performances of brands, merchants, and products.
Powered by AI, InsightsX’s smart interactive dashboards provide competitive analysis and retail audits that allow decision-makers to know their brands’ market shares and to have a better understanding of how their products perform in the market.
Data is Oil but Data Democratization is the Real Fuel, and we at InsightsX work on democratizing the data. This enables everybody in any organization, irrespective of their technical know-how, to work with data comfortably and feel confident talking about it.
G-Cards
Offers a large variety of gift cards, with a focus on gaming, that can be bought from the website directly or from vendors near the customers’ residences, bringing more convenience to the gift card market.
Gamivent
An Egyptian platform that organizes online and offline esports events, giving Egyptian gamers the chance to demonstrate their extraordinary abilities and go from zero to hero. Gamivent employs its superior administrative capabilities in the tech fields to arrange hassle-free events that bring fun and explode with potential.
* Mom's Food; 1st Egyptian food processor that exports premium home-style products to the specialty food industry in the USA, Canada, and Japan.
* Shaklak Aklak; a CSR portal work on raising awareness about healthy diet and wellness through understanding the nutrition fact labels.
Yasser is a Board of Trustees at Alhassan Foundation for Differently Abled Inclusion and board member in other leading Egyptian NGOs
Amr Radwan is a pharmacologist & development practitioner with industrial expertise. He led process innovation & R&D in several pharmaceutical & manufacturing industries, coordinated programs for technology development at several international agencies & has coordinated 20+ EU & UN-funded projects. He also supervised several funding schemes for R&D and innovation in MENA & has served as a board member of several international funding programs. He is currently EU National Contact Point for the European Innovation Council and the European Institute of Innovation & Technology. He has industrial pharmaceutical background, holds a PhD in Pharmacology, MBA and diplomas in international marketing, investment management and intellectual property rights.
Hala Riad went to law school in England UK at The University of York. She then came to Egypt and became part of the Egyptian Bar. Hala founded Hekouky in 2020 with her co-founder Mayy AbdelBary with the goal of: Making The Law Accessible to All Entrepreneurs.
Hekouky offers you the simplest way to register your company and trademark as well as fulfil your tax services online.
Professor of ophthalmology, Ophthalmology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria university, Egypt.
Former Head of Ophthalmology department
Chairman of Delta Ophthalmological Society
CEO of Roaya Vision Center.
Reviewer of more than 10 international ophthalmic Journals.
Published 110 papers in international journals
H index 13 more than 450 citations
Mohamed Khattab is currently the EVP b_labs & Digital Commerce at B.TECH where he manages B.TECH’s Ecommerce, Customer Experience, Data & Analytics, and B2B business after 7 years at B.TECH. Mohamed graduated in 2014 from Northeastern University in Boston with a Major in Business Administration with a focus on Finance & Innovation. Soon after Mohamed joined B.TECH with a mandate to build a digital business on top of its retail business in the form of Ecommerce which has now become a multibillion pound business as well as its Consumer Finance business by offering the first fully digital end to end consumer finance experience in Egypt.
Account Director at Tarek Nour Advertising; An Advertising Creative Advocate with Account Management experience for more than 8 years, Donia has a passion for advertising, developing creative marketing campaigns for many clients has been her strong-suit. Her expertise stems from handling different prestigious accounts such as CIB, Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Savola, Birell, Dolce , Glaxo Smith Kline, AGM, valU & NBE.
Yahia is a serial entrepreneur who has spent all of his professional life building hard tech technology companies, including, among others 360imaging a leading company in the field of computer-guided surgery, and Atomica AI, an AI start-up in the field of Digital Surgery.
Mohamed Aladdin is a Principal at Global Ventures. He's looking after Global Ventures investments and portfolio in North Africa and the Levant and runs the on-ground operations out of the Cairo office. Aladdin comes from a European Venture Capital background with investment experience across the EU, US, and Southeast Asia. Before joining Global Ventures, Aladdin was Investment Associate at Allianz X in Munich, sourcing and executing late-stage and growth deals across five main eco-systems related to the insurance industry. Aladdin has also worked for Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners in Hamburg as part of the European venture capital team investing in B2B SaaS solutions across the EU and the US. Prior to Venture Capital, Aladdin worked on the operating side with multiple early and late-stage Berlin-based startups in the HealthTech and FinTech space. Aladdin holds a Master of Business Administration and Engineering from Berlin University of Applied Sciences and a B.Sc. in Engineering Mechatronics from the German University in Cairo.
Meryl is the Co-Founder and ECD of Merf, a homegrown independent ad agency that launched its operations in Egypt on 2021, and has since launched acclaimed branding projects and advertising campaigns; partnering with top brands.
Meryl is an advertising veteran with 30+ years of multinational ad agency experience, 30+ creative awards and extensive brand building expertise with more than 50 local and international brands.
Her most recent post prior to establishing Merf was the Regional Executive Creative Director - Mena of Seven; a multinational independent ad agency that is focused on emerging markets, Meryl was assigned the Launch of Seven’s Cairo’s office on September 2019, where she added 9 accounts to its portfolio of clients within 6 months, while managing its creative departments across the region.
Having worked with most of the global ad agencies, her previous to the Seven role was ECD at Momentum Egypt (part of McCann Worldgroup and MCN), as the creative lead to relaunch Momentum to the positioning of a Total Brand Experience Agency early in 2016, becoming a full solutions provider to its clients, and expanding its scope of operation, where she took the lead on a pool of international and local brands within the new Momentum Egypt set up, such as Emirates NBD, Arla, Peugeot and L’Oreal.
This came after a long journey in the advertising industry that has started in Saatchi & Saatchi in 2001, passing through JWT Cairo - formerly Bonus Euro RSCG, Strategies - part of BBDO Network, FP7/McCann, it also included a period of going independent, where Meryl Co-Founded 622; a homegrown Boutique Agency (2013-2015).
Across her journey, Meryl has worked on a very rich and diverse portfolio of clients including; Batelco - Emaar - Etisalat - The Egyptian government (Egyptian environmental affairs agency - ministry of state for the development of civilization and slums) - Orascom El Gouna - United Nations (UNDP - UNHCR) Nestle (Nescafe - Nido) Mansour group MMID (Palm Hills Developments - Crédit Agricole) - Unilever (Lux - Lipton - signal) - Cadbury (Cadbury Dairy Milk - Cadbury Biscuit) - Nile Radio Productions (Nile & Nogoom FM Radio Stations) Procter and Gambel (Ariel - Pampers) - Paints (Pachin - Jotun) – Shell - Financing Solutions (Contact Cars - Alianz Insurance) - HSBC - Vodafone - Coca Cola.
Meryl is a board of directors member of the One Club for Creativity,
Instructor and board of directors member of Cairo Ad school
Named one of the most influential women in the media industry in the region by Brand Berries publication in 2018.
I am pharmacist graduated in 2011
Started my career in Novartis pharma, worked in commercial field (sales and Marketing) for 7 years
then I decided to shift to FMCG field to have diversified experience in Marketing, also FMCG is a very rich field when it comes to Marketing
I worked in Kellogg's for 3 year as trade marketing manager and brand manager for noodles category
Then now I am working as Senior brand Manager in Eva Pharma for 1 year responsible for multivitamins and supplements line
Nourhan Ayman Wahdan is a Creative Director and co-founder of pew. design bureau. In only 5 years time, she has lead her studio towards becoming one of the leading brand consultancies in the MENA region; having worked with household names like Google, YouTube, Unilever, Nestle & Vice and built brands from scratch for home-grown startups that earned them billion dollar valuations. Nourhan’s design work is largely shaped by her interests in philosophy and art - yet her creative leadership is characterized by empathy and goal-oriented research. This seemingly unlikely combo is how she can translate experimental & innovative ideas into highly effective strategies & communications. Along with her everyday business; she maintains involvement in academic circles. She mentors young talent in collaboration with the German University in Cairo & Berlin and organizes design workshops with SYNC School. In 2019 she was invited to speak at RiseUp, the largest entrepreneurial summit in the MENA region. She’s also a Yale BPCL alumni.
After developing YouTube’s first-ever experiential event in the region & seeing her work for SWVL displayed on the world’s tallest building and on Times Square billboards, Nourhan has set her eyes on more global growth. She recently moved to Los Angeles where she continues to expand her team and clientele.
Ahmed Saleh is currently the head of Strategy and Innovation at NilePreneurs. His role involves setting the strategic directions for the initiative and helping Egyptian companies and entrepreneurs grow their businesses through various services. In 2017, Saleh co-founded the NilePreneurs initiative, developing its five-year strategy and growth plan for its programs, budget and impact over the years.
Saleh has over 16 years of multi-sector experience with a focus on entrepreneurial ecosystem development, Innovation, R&D as a Service, Entrepreneurship, ICT and Digitalization. He took various roles in, innovation management, strategic management, consulting, technology strategy, business development, and program / project management. In addition, Saleh has strong international experience where he conducted business during current and prior posts in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Ahmed Saleh holds a BSc in Electrical, Electronics and Communication Engineering from Cairo University, and MSc in Management of Technology from Nile University. Saleh’s research is focusing on digital transformation strategies for businesses, developing frameworks that guide the transformation agenda within companies.
Mazen Nadim - Co-founder & Managing Partner, 8 years of experience in investment banking, Mazen was previously an investment banker at EFG Hermes as well as an entrepreneur with two partial exits. He has led FV investments in Aydi, Flextock, as well as Rabbit.
Current position: Professor of Innovation and Technology, CITY College, University of York Europe Campus, Chairman of the South East European Research Center (SEERC) and Business Angel Investor
Professor Ketikidis has over 30 years of experience in management, education, innovation, research, and competitive research funding and very solid networks as a result of this experience. His expertise lie in (responsible) innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, triple helix, (impact) investment, regional development, supply chain management and health informatics. Prof. Panos also served as President and Board member in several profit and non-profit associations supporting and mobilizing the knowledge triangle (research, business and education) to facilitate innovation.
He is Co-founder of HeBAN - Hellenic Business Angels Network (2015-present); Executive Committee Board Member of EBAN - The European Trade Association for Business Angels, Seed Funds and Early Stage Market Players, (2018-present); and Member of the Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Committee – Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce (2015-pesent).
Finally, Prof. Ketikidis is the Chief Editor of the International Journal of Innovation & Regional Development (IJIRD), and Founder of the International Conference for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Regional Development (ICEIRD).
Omar Radwan, CFA, FRM is the Chief of Staff of of Misr Capital the Investment Banking arm of Banque Misr where he joined in November 2018.
• Leads the corporate strategy and management teams that delivered a uniquely successful turnaround.
• Manages customer-facing teams that succeeded in growing Assets Under Management over 35x in 35 months to close to EGP40 Bn and growing mutual funds under management from 3 to 15 prompting Forbes to place Misr Capital among the top 30 Asset Managers in the Middle East.
• Manages capacity planning and work excellence of a market leader in the Egyptian Capital Market.
• Leads introduction of new LoBs, new revenue streams and digital transformation.
• Supervises main lines of business: Asset Management, Investment Banking & Private Equity.
• Supervises management of growth in IT systems, policies, compliance, governance & risk.
Prior to joining Misr Capital and backed up with major industry expertise Mr. Radwan held the following positions:
• Non-Executive Vice Chairman of Arab Finance Securities Brokerage and Managing Director for Investment and Finance at Porto Group (2017-2018). Also, he was a leading member of HC Securities and Investment (2005-2017) where he headed the Asset Management Department at HC Securities and Investment (2012-2017). He was a key member of HC’s Management Committee responsible for strategic planning and coordination of Investment Banking, Asset Management, and Securities Brokerage activities.
• Head of Asset Management at HC, leading the largest investment team in Egypt with over 20 finance professionals that managed 15 top performing bank-sponsored mutual funds in addition to over 30 segregated portfolios and increased number of funds under management from 4 to 15 through negotiating, structuring, launching and marketing 10 new Egyptian funds and 1 offshore Hedge Fund managed out of London.
• The Chief Operating Officer of Holland Park Capital, London – United Kingdom, (2010-2012) the UK-based asset management subsidiary of HC, a Fund Manager at Atlas Investment Group, a subsidiary of Arab Bank (2003-2005 in Dubai. Added to the above Radwan joined EFG-Hermes Asset Management Team (1997) where he was the Managing Director of Egyptian Fund Management Group, SAE (2002-2003) and Vice President of EFG-Hermes Asset Management Regional Mandate 1999-2003. He served as board member in several asset management subsidiaries of EFG-Hermes.
• Joined Cairo Angels, the leading Angel Investment Club in Egypt and is invested in several startups including a medical software, a pizza restaurant and a real estate listing website.
Professional Affiliations, Accolades and Tutoring activities include:
• Member of CFA Institute and CFA Egypt Society.
• Professional Instructor in fields of Investment, Risk Management and Derivatives at the Egyptian Investment Management Association (EIMA) since 2009.
• Teaching Assistant, Microeconomics, Economics Department (AUC), Spring 1996.
• Elected twice by regional peers among Power 50 List of the most influential fund managers across MENA, published by London based Mena FM magazine, 2012 and 2013.
• Delivered numerous training sessions in fields of investment, finance, risk management, mutual funds, derivatives, marketing and regulations in several locations across Egypt.
Professional Designations and Academic Achievements include:
• CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) by CFA Institute-USA, 2004.
• FRM (Financial Risk Manager) certified by Global Association of Risk Managers (GARP-USA), 2012.
• First Intake of the Graduate Diploma in Digital Transformation by Paris ESLSCA Business School with GPA of 3.96/4.00, 2020-2021.
• Certified Director by Egyptian Institute of Directors in association with IFC, 2019.
• Oxford Fintech 6week Programme by Said Business School of The University of Oxford with a final grade of 90%, 2022.
• BA in Economics and a minor in Computer Science – graduating with high honors (Magna Cum Laude) from the American University in Cairo, 1997.
Mahmoud Abdelmageed is a business leader and entrepreneur by day, and a digital content creator by night. Known as Mowaten Motafa2el (The Optimistic Citizen), Mahmoud creates Arabic video content that helps people be the best version of themselves, as highlighted in best-selling books around the world.
He is the CEO & Founder of DNAAYA, an enterprise technology solutions company founded in 2016. A big picture visionary with a pulse on people, Mahmoud identifies talent from marginalized communities, builds their capabilities, and leads them to deliver mega tech projects.
Mahmoud holds a Masters of Science from the California State University in Sacramento, and a Bachelors of Science from the Arab Academy of Science and Technology. He is married with two children and one big dog.
Karim Amer is a co-founder and Head of AI at VAIS, an AgriTech Egyptian startup. He previously worked at Siemens Healthineers Technology Center, NJ, USA worked on the development of cutting-edge AI models that can be used in multiple clinical applications which turned into 3 patents (pending approval). Karim won several international AI competitions and has become the first Kaggle Master from Egypt, among a few in the region and top 1% worldwide.
رئيس تطوير الأعمال والشراكات في شركة كلاسيرا العالمية للتعلم الذكي، استشاري التعليم الإلكتروني والتحول الرقمي في جامعة بدر ورئيس قطاع الأنظمة الذكية(CIO) في شركة ESI المالكة لمجموعة مدارس الفيوتشرز، رئيس الإدارة المركزية لمركز إعداد القيادات التربوية بوزارة التربية والتعليم (سابقا)، مدير عام الادارة العامة للتعليم الالكتروني (سابقا) بوزارة التربية والتعليم، مديرعام للادارة العامة مركز المعلومات ودعم اتخاذ القرار بالأكاديمية المهنية للمعلمين (سابقا) وعضو اللجنة الوطنية للاستخدام الآمن للإنترنت. خبير المحتوى الإلكتروني، ومدير تنفيذي لعدة المشروعات. تصقلني مجموعة واسعة من الخبرات في المجال التربوي، التدريب والتنمية المهنية، تكنولوجيا التعليم والتعليم الإلكتروني، تصميم قواعد البيانات و لغات البرمجة الخاصه بها، التحكيم الدولي في مجال تصميم قواعد البيانات، الجودة والاعتماد للمؤسسات التعليمية للما يقرب من 29عاما. قادرة على العمل بدافع المبادرة الذاتية، وكجزء من فريق العمل. اتمتع بالمهارات القيادية المتضمنة إدارة وتطوير وتحفيز فرق العمل لتحقيق أهدافها. بالاضافة الى القدرة التحليلية المتميزة، والتصميم ومهارات حل المشكلات. مع الحفاظ على معايير الجودة العالية.
Experienced Healthcare Executive with more than 15 years of demonstrated history of working in the
private as well as the public healthcare sector around Africa & the Middle East.
Skilled in Healthcare strategy, clinical governance, healthcare operations, medical equipment & diagnostics, digital transformation & healthcare innovation, EMR & HIS, telehealth, remote patient monitoring & wearables, Emergency & preventive Medicine.
Native of Egypt and holds a Bachelor degree in Medicine & Surgery from Ain Shams University asu.edu.eg as well as a Master’s Degree in business administration majoring in logistics of Healthcare management from aasts.ac.ae , Egypt.
• Currently the General Manager for Al Futtaim Health Egypt, a healthcare subsidiary from the Dubai based Al Futtaim group.
• Co-founded and served as CMO for OneHealth by AXA. one-health.com is a healthcare provider present in Egypt, Nigeria & expanding in Africa; offering medical services whether it is in physical branches via state of the art medical centers or virtually through 24/7 access to teleconsultation via digital channels.
• Former Chief Medical Officer of Nile Badrawy Hospital, which is part of Cleopatra Hospitals Group. cleopatrahospitals.com the largest private Healthcare organization in Egypt.
• Former Hospital Director of The Women Hospital thewomenhospital.com located in Egypt.
• Former Medical Director of Surgery Hospital at King Saud University Medical City medicalcity.ksu.edu.sa located in KSA.
• Former deputy Chief Medical Officer at Saudi German Hospital in both Jeddah, KSA & Dubai, UAE branches. saudigermanhealth.com is the largest private Healthcare group in MENA.
• Former Medical Unit Manager at Dar Al Fouad Hospital, which is part of Alameda group. alameda-hc.com is the second largest healthcare provider in Egypt.
Karim is a strategy and sustainability advisor, and angel investor working at the intersection of sustainability and innovation. He recently joined the sustainability team at Roland Berger’s Dubai office after working for more than 7 years with Strategy& (part of PwC) in Canada, the US and the Middle East.
As an investor and mentor, Karim currently supports social entrepreneurs and startups in several sustainability areas including circularity and recycling, environmental education, conservation, and ESG/sustainability solutions and software.
Karim previously co-founded and managed an award-winning business in sustainable and educational travel based in Canada. During that time, he ran expeditions at 30 destinations on 5 continents, met incredible people, discovered the most beautiful natural wonders of our planet, and provided life-changing experiences to thousands of travelers.
His curiosity and passion for innovation also led him to complete a PhD in strategy and innovation management at Polytechnique Montreal and to take part in one of the largest Management research projects in Canadian history with research missions around the globe including Switzerland, China, Taiwan, India, France and California. He also developed and coordinated an entrepreneurship course at McGill University in Canada.
Karim is also an outdoor and wilderness aficionado and loves taking his kids on adventure trips whenever possible.
Omar El-Barbary is experienced in various youth and student development aspects such as advising on education options, trainings, education events, in addition to educational opportunities for students, exchange programs, professional development programs, etc.
having worked in several education related organizations, Omar El-Barbary have developed a unique and global outlook regarding education and development in general. he has special expertise in youth development, dealing with people from all backgrounds, ages and walks of life. he is organized, results oriented, hard-working, dedicated, and creative with problem solving.
Deena is an Assistant Professor in the Architectural Engineering Department at the British University in Egypt. She holds a degree of BSc., MSc., and Ph.D. from Cairo University. Her research interests are focusing on digital fabrication process, parametric design, computational design, additive manufacturing techniques, and 3D Printing and robotics in both education and construction. She perused a postgraduate program from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) in 3D printing in Architecture with clay in 2021/2022.
Hisham Mohamed Aly – Chief Information Security Officer - More than 10 years of experience in cyber security
- ITU Cyber Security Expert (UN Organization)
- Formally named to the IFSEC Global “Top Security Influencers for 2020”
- Member in Blockchain Committee
– Central Bank of Egypt (CBE)
- Public Speaker
- Blockchain expert
- Fintech expert
- IoT expert
Awarded:
- CISO of The Year - Arab Security Conference 2018 , 2020
- CISO Of The Year - IDC 2019 , 2020 & 2021
- CISO RISING Star - Arab Security Conference 2019
- Covid-19, Superstar Global CISO Award 2020
Mohamed Rafea is the Founder of OrderCaptain.com, and Co-Founder of Bey2ollak.com. Under his leadership of Bey2ollak.com, it reached more than one million registered users and was recognized as the best app in Egypt in 2015. Prior to founding Bey2ollak, he had over 7 years of experience in the IT sector where he has been exposed to a wide range of projects and clients in his posts in IBM, ITWorx and Infinity. Mohamed has a BSc in computer science and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from The American University in Cairo (AUC). Mohamed is an alumnus of the esteemed Endeavor network, after being selected as one of the high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets. He was also awarded the Distinguished Young Alumni Award from AUC in May 2015.
Senior IT professional offering more than 20 years of global IT, CIO and project / portfolio (PMO) management experience within healthcare, manufacturing, retail, insurance, financial, and consulting services. Results focused leader and “big picture” thinker with record of managing global IT organizations and delivering large-scale, mission critical projects on time and on-budget. Demonstrated ability to develop trusted relationships with peers and senior executives.
Ahella El Saban is currently Co-founder/ Chief Commerical Officer for Exits.me the first online investment marketplace place in MENA which connects startups and SMEs with potential buyers and investors. She is also the Chief Marketing Officer for Pie Consultancy a boutique Mergers & Acquisitions firm in MENA. Additionally, she is the founder of Lumas Global, a firm working with youth, entrepreneurs, and businesses in helping to bridge the skill-related gaps through customized training and Market research projects focusing on online digital consumer behaviour. Previously Ahella worked for several years in academia at The British University in Egypt within the Marketing discipline before moving into the B2B ads Marketing team at Google MENA, helping businesses in digital transformation and consumer insights. After finishing her MA from Durham university in consumer behaviour and marketing, she is currently a PhD researcher at London South Bank University with a focus on consumer behaviour. She has been actively working within the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Egypt for several years in projects and programs that help equip young and growing entrepreneurs to successfully achieve sustainable business models within their markets.
A Preston University (London) graduate with a Bachelor of Science (B.S) in Accounting and Finance and 15 years of experience working in the Banking and Financial industry. I started my career at Ahli United Bank London, then moved to Egypt to work at CIB for 10 years holding the position of Assistant Vice President. I successfully founded Venture Partners Advisory (debt advisory firm) in 2017 and the company was able to execute deals worth EGP 5 billion as of the date and awarded Egypt Deal of the Year with Bank Misr in 2019 by IFN Malaysia. Currently, Venture Partners Advisory is mandated for deals worth EGP 14 billion. I also attended the Fintech Programme at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
Mohamed El Dallal is a serial Entrepreneur currently the Co-founder and CEO of "Innovideas LLC. for Marketing & Advertising". Co-founder of" Dcodes LLC. for software solutions", and Co-founder and board member of "Techne Summit", a yearly international conference aimed at supporting and encouraging technological entrepreneurship in Egypt.
Earning his BSc degree - Computer & Communication Engineering-, MBA holder specialized in International Business, a researcher in the digital marketing field, currently doing his DBA specialized in Entrepreneurship.
He has conducted hundreds of talks/Panels /workshops at 25+ countries about his Entrepreneurship, Marketing, business developments. also working on Marketing consultations for a couple of Egyptian SMEs.
Mohamed is also an avid volunteer, participating with several NGOs, project, and youth initiatives both national and international since 2009. He is currently a Global Shaper Alumni –an initiative from the world economic forum-, Member of the Egyptian junior business association (EJB), Rotarian as well as an IEEE Region 8 (EMEA) Entrepreneurship Initiative team leader, IEEE Entrepushisp 2021 steering committee member, and IEEE Region 8 Action for Industry committee corresponding member.
Minoush is Founding Partner and CEO of Mezzan, an investment management firm that is launching Egypt and North Africa’s first gender smart private equity fund. Minoush enjoys over 24 years of experience in the field of investment management and banking and was previously the Managing Director and cofounder of Union Capital Partners which launched and managed Egypt’s first SME focused private equity fund. She is an independent board member of the HC Securities and Investments, a leading regional investment bank, and a board member of Sanda microfinance and Bedaya mortgage finance company as well as the Cairo Angels Syndicate Fund and served as a non-executive director of both the board and the centralized Investment Committee, of the government owned Holding Company for Metals.
Minoush held stints with Citigroup as a Resident Vice President for North Africa in their corporate finance division, a manager for HSBC investment banking operations in Cairo and was a Financial Analyst at the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs International in London, part of the European Mergers & Acquisitions team. In 2005 she served as an Assistant to the Chairman and of Head Corporate Finance Division within Egyptian Capital Market Authority in Egypt until December 2007 and has been part of the team leading the introduction of a new takeover chapter as well as working on a comprehensive reform plan for the division.
Minoush was the founding president and former chairperson of the Egyptian Young Bankers Association, an Egyptian non-governmental organization that caters for the progression of young bankers from 2003 until her resignation in 2008. She was also selected by Business Today Magazine as the 2nd ranked Young Executive under 40 in Egypt in 2003 and was Valedictorian at her graduation commencement at the American University in Cairo from which she holds a B.A in Economics and International Relations. In June 2016, AUC awarded her the Distinguished Alumni Award at the annual spring alumni meeting.
Minoush has been on the Forbes list of the Most Powerful Women in Africa since 2011, she is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders, Class of 2015 and serves on the Forum’s YGL Global Community advisory board since 2021.
Minoush is a Certified Corporate Director by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority in Egypt, a life long learner committed to corporate governance, value creation and sustainability. She has strong governance, finance, private equity, regulatory, capital markets, investment, M&A and ESG experience.
In 2019, Hithem Ahmed Joined Cegedim as an Architect and was then assigned as CTO for Cegedim Egypte. Hithem's mission is to create an engaging system where engineers know clearly their business units' purposes and their company values and integrate that fully into their technical decisions and their daily routine. Hithem Ahmed holds Master's degree in business information technology from MDX, He has around 20 years of experience in different domains including governmental, Banking, and Healthcare solutions, Hithem has deep experience in Solutions Architecture and Agile Leadership for organizations, Hithem is also a certified agile instructor participating in Agile communities in the Middleeast to spread knowledge and experiences about agile software development awareness and adoption.
Efficient Vision is a New York based company focused on delivering business solutions and applications. We execute on our vision of efficiency while leveraging the best technology possible to help business move forward. We care about businesses and their growth path. We see ourselves as a business partner rather than just another vendor on your list. Your business success is equally celebrated within our organization.
Having graduated from Cairo University with a bachelor’s degree in Communications and Computer Engineering in 2016, Mostafa El Katatny has been working in the Telecom field for six years. He is currently working as a Senior VAS Engineer at Ericsson Egypt. With a creative passion for film and entertainment, El Katatny is also an entrepreneur who launched his own private business “Kataflam” in 2021, which is a card game and a digital platform that revolve around Egyptian movies and series.
Adham got more than 14 years of experience in the field of Project Management, Sales, Business Development and General Management. He is currently the Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at Checkme Health App.
Adham worked in various corporations like Vodafone, Samsung, Bupa and AXA Egypt. Then he decided to go to the startups side joining Robusta studio in 2018 and then Co-Founded Check me back in 2020.
At Checkme they helped more than 100,000 customers with multiple health care services such as (Lab Home Visit, Patient Guidance, Scan Center Booking and Medicine Delivery)
Adham is a MBA holder from ESLSCA Business School class ’18 and did an independent course at Harvard Business School with the title “Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies” 2022.
Mrs. Heba EL Dessouky
Interior Architect
linkedin.com/in/heba-el-dessouky-66691019
Graduate of Fine Arts, Helwan University Cairo, 2002, and with over 20 years of consultancy & management experience in local and international firms.
Heba has initiated several interior architecture units in several consultancy firm and currently heading the interior design management team in an international real estate firm.
Heba obtained her PHD in “Setting an evaluation tools that can lower energy expenditure and increase human well-being in the interior renovation process of office buildings in Egypt” in 2020.
Heba has participated as a speaker in several conferences tackling the energy saving expenditures and its design challenges as well career summits.
Heba is also a certified career coach and a member of the AUC architecture advisory board.
Aya has 14 years in tech industry and helped tens of companies and startups to enhance their software delivery process, launch their products, build their tech teams and achieve their business goals within desired time frames. Aya acted as a CTO for more than 5 years in FinTech and Health care sectors before starting Talents arena, a platform that helps company build and scale tech teams.
Ahmed Sobeih, the Founder & CEO of Jeel App and a social entrepreneur with the aim of creating positive changes in society, backed by wide experience in media production, marketing, management, and entrepreneurship.
In 2015, Sobeih started working on the Jeel content with a group of enthusiasts who believed in the idea and value of Jeel. Then, in February 2020, the beta version of Jeel App was launched with this rich edutainment content.
Sobeih chose this field to invest his time and effort in because he touched the urge for safe, edutainment content for children and parents, especially in the MENA, where the majority of the available content is translated or localized.
Now, after around 7 years of hard work, Jeel App is witnesses prominent sucess and its team is continously to place the app where it deserves.
I build & fix brands!
20+ years of experience in brand and retail strategy across emerging markets. Worked on brands/ companies such as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Trident, Oreo, Blu Tech, Tang, HSA, Oriental Weavers, Raya Foods, Minlo, Taghzeya foods, The Grocer, Valley Water, and Orange.
Dahlia left corporate life in 2015 to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit with her brand & retail strategy consultancy- FWD.
Apart from consulting, she is passionate about public speaking and sharing knowledge. She rolled out a series of TALKs such as creating brand stories, winning in-store, Gen Y & Gen Z psyche for strategic comms, Innovation, Category Management, product is not a brand, branding in Ecommerce, keeping your brand alive, the untold stories of neuromarketing, winning communication.
She was previously featured as a keynote speaker at Brand Summit Cairo, Retail Summit MENA, Research world forum Dubai, ESOMAR Singapore.
She heads the MarketersOfEgypt community group which she created in 2005. A judge in SuperBrands Egypt, a mentor at Cheri Blaire foundation in UK empowering women in startup businesses in developing markets, a Mentor in FI Egypt chapter, and a Member of Neuromarketing global society (NMSBA).
Her youtube channel: FWD Consultancy
Ahmed is CEO at Gameball. Before Gameball, he spent 10+ years working in multiple technical and commercial roles for multinationals and startups. Ahmed worked previously in Egypt, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Qatar and managed the execution and delivery of multi-million dollars projects to clients like Aramco, ExxonMobil, Sabic, Petronas, Total, Braskem and many others. As a business consultant, Ahmed consulted and mentored startups in Egypt, UAE and Canada as well as technology corporates.
Ehab Yousef- EXECUTIVE PROFILE
As the Area Head of Northern Europe for Roche, I am committed to our vision to achieve better outcomes for more patients, faster. To enable this, I support my teams to partner with healthcare systems across the region to solve problems and address the complexities of today’s healthcare environment. We together are champion of new ways of working and operating systems that allow teams to be agile and courageous, support innovation and create true value for customers and patients. Having worked at Roche for nearly a decade, I am excited to be a part of building a future where every person can benefit from personalized healthcare.
I bring more than 30 years in General Management, marketing and sales functions across the Middle East, Europe and Asia Pac and have experience in different therapeutic fields, including neuroscience, oncology, women’s health, erectile dysfunction and diabetes. As such, I have built a strong network of opinion leaders throughout my career.
I am most excited about managing change and bringing together diverse groups of people to make the most of different capabilities and backgrounds. I have proven experience in problem solving and turning difficult situations into success stories. This has also contributed to a proven track record of delivering growth.
I am proud to have accomplished a six-month Harvard Business School (HBS) Executive General Management Program, graduating with participants from 42 countries and 44 industries.
Prior to leading marketing at Thndr, Nelly started her career as one of the early joiners of the digital marketing scene in Egypt. She gained experience in various agencies that eventually led her to Mo4 where she worked on launching Uber Egypt’s digital platforms. She was then referred to join the Uber marketing team and became one of the first people to join their team in Egypt. She was an integral part of the team who grew the Uber brand in Egypt to be among one of the only ones in the world with extremely positive brand sentiment scores, having Egypt be the only country in MENA where brand sentiment surpassed competition. She launched and grew Uber Egypt’s social media channels’ following to be the largest in all of Uber EMEA before being promoted to lead social media and content for Uber in MENA. Inspired by the economic opportunity a platform like Uber provided for millions of people—Nelly is excited to continue to build the Thndr brand narrative and make investing accessible and available for everyone in MENA.
Antti is the co-founder and CEO of Pyypl - the international payment technology company and financial services provider using blockchain in its core systems. It enables digital payments for the 1 billion smartphone users in the Middle East and Africa who are financially underserved.
Prior to founding Pyypl in 2019, Antti Arponen previously worked at Virgin Mobile for 13 years as country CEO, group COO and group chief digital officer for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Antti and his team, some of which are now "Pyyplers", built the challenger mobile operator business from scratch, transforming the telecoms industry from traditional models into digital. Virgin Mobile has won multiple digital and user experience awards in the Middle East and Africa, and reached the same customer satisfaction levels as Uber and Apple in the region.
Prior to Virgin, Antti spent 10 years in high-growth technology businesses at Yahoo!, Telia, Zed, ABB and ACN, living in Amsterdam, London and Helsinki.
Antti studied Finance at Helsinki School of Economics, and Telecoms Engineering at Helsinki University of Technology.
Co-Founder and CEO of iSchool.
10+ Years of experience in the Education sector in different roles. Previously Managing Partner of Integrated Solutions Company, and board member of a sustainable development plant.
MBA in Strategic Management from Autonoma De Barcelona, BSC in Computer Engineering from Mansoura University.
MAK is an Award-winning Architect/Designer, Designer to 5 of Dubai Newest Landmarks. His works got exhibited in 12 countries, from which the RIBA HQ in London.
Mak journey began with the Architecture & RIBA I BSc course at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Egypt, from which he graduated in 2011 with first class honors and at the top of the class. The highlight of this course: in 2010 when he was chosen for the RIBA President’s Medals Student Award for his project entitled ‘Extreme + Connective Hub; Guyana’ which was subsequently exhibited at RIBA London, UK, and in exhibitions in six other countries.
While completing RIBA II at the same academy from 2011 to 2012, He was fortunate to work under first architect of the Middle East, Bernard Khoury, in his practice of the same name in Lebanon. This remains the most important and formative engagement in his architectural life. A single page in a moleskin on which he recorded some of Khoury’s words is a prized possession: “Your drawings inspire me a lot.”
From 2012 to 2014, Mak worked for Dar group, one of the largest engineering firms in the world and sister company of, amongst others, Perkins+Will. There, most notably, He was given the opportunity to work with architecture veteran, David Hansen. At Dar group, He was also the lead designer for the 700 USD million Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Architecture Museum.
From 2014 to 2020, Mak have been employed by Ae7 in its Dubai office. He have worked on 32 projects at Ae7. These projects have taken me around the world – to the US, China, South Africa, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Qatar and Egypt – and above terra firma: He was the lead designer on what will be the world’s highest residential tower and fifth highest tower – Dubai One Tower – taking the project from pre-concept to sketches to schematic design. Other key projects at Ae7 for which he was one of the main designers include the USD 8.3 billion Meydan One Development (which includes the Dubai One Tower) and the Dubai Water Canal which promises to be the centerpiece of Dubai attractions.
In 2020, He joined DLR group as part of their MENA leadership, Leading several projects across UAE & KSA.
In 2021, He launched his own practice / design studio KDSV from Dubai Design District focused on design innovation, placemaking & experience design.
Jacques Marco is the Founder & CEO of Axis Pay, an Egyptian fintech working on increasing access to financial inclusion by building digital products to help increase accessibility to payments, money transfers, savings, and credit. Prior to founding Axis Pay, Jacques co-founded Raseedy - Egypt's first independent mobile wallet and successfully exited it in late 2020 to MNT-Halan.
Eman Elbana is a visual artist, working at the intersection of social design, environment and arts. She is a professor at Helwan University in Cairo and fellowship with Arizona State University in the USA. Elbana is also the Founding of Nuweiba Mosaics, a social design project helps the Bedouin women in South Sinai, she is also a jury member at the AIMC ( The contemporary mosaic artist association in Ravenna). Elbana has exhibited and curated design and art internationally and has published widely on the relation between art, social design and environment.
Signify is the world leader in lighting for professionals, consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. Our energy efficient lighting products, systems and services enable our customers to enjoy a superior quality of light, and make people’s lives safer and more comfortable, businesses more productive and cities more livable.
Mohamed Algawish an electrical and electronics engineer.
Studied entrepreneurship and business management at Kelley School of Business - Indiana
University.
Co-Founder iSchool is the first accredited Egyptian African EdTech startup by the
International STEM organization, an online coding platform for 6 to 18 years old students
that offer 1:1 or 1:6 live coding classes in artificial intelligence, data science, game
development, VR, and AR, with more than 9,000 graduates in 10 different countries helping them
to start a technology-based career, freelancing, or even launch their own startups.
Global Startup Awards Northen Africa Founder of The Year 2021.
Selected in HolonIQ’s list 2021 of the Top 50 Best & Most Promising Edtech startups in the
The Middle East and North Africa.
Chosen as Speaker at the Websummit Conference to talk about educational technology
under the title “Future of Education” 2021.
1st Place Winner in the AIM UAE startup pitching competition 2022.
EdTech Leadership Award 2022 by EdTechDigest.
Bett London Global Edtech Speaker 2022.
Hassan is a Digital Consultant and Entrepreneur. 25 years of technology and digital business consultancy within the Middle East and Africa; He is motivated to set the vision, and successfully deliver technology, digital, and culture transformation that meet business strategies and enhance customer experience He has delivered mega digital transformation programs in Health, Education, ICT, Hospitality and transportation sectors He is currently leading eHealth which is the technology and digital operator for Egypt’s universal health insurance system. Hassan is an angel investor and member of AUC angels , as well as a mentor in AUC VLab startup and Entrepreneur incubator
A digital marketer specialized in marketing technologies, web developments, emerging technologies and solutions.
Tamer El-Raghy is the Founding MD of the Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF); a $58 million impact Agri VC fund and the world’s first equity fund designed to build the climate resilience of African smallholder farmers utilizing blended finance. Tamer has more than 20 years of private equity, venture capital, M&A, entrepreneurial, and innovation experience in Africa, the Middle East, the United States, and Europe. He held 9 patents, earned an MBA from the New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business, a PhD in Materials Engineering from Drexel University, and a BSc in Metallurgical Engineering from Cairo University.
Mohamed Abdelrahman is the Professor of Mechanical Power Engineering at the department of mechanical Power Engineering at Helwan University, Egypt. Over the past 30 years, he has been teaching, conducting research at Helwan and other regional Universities, and has been providing engineering consultations to local and regional industries. During the past decade, Mohamed has made a number of significant contributions to the two fields of higher engineering education and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in Egypt. In appreciation of his research efforts, Mohamed now is the president of Misr International Technological University.
Building brands & personal connection one click at a time, 10 years of experience in multiple geographies and roles in North Africa & Levant, currently in Unilever as a member of the Customer Development Leadership Teamt, MBA in Marketing, Certificate in Digital Commerce in Columbia business School, Certificate in e-Commerce from the world renowned econsultancy.
Expertise in Digital Commerce, Planning & Forecasting, Innovation & Customer Relationship Managment
Graduated from Pharmacy and Biotechnology from the GUC, Khorshid started his career in Roche in the Commercial department. He later ventured into the tech scene with Careem Bus and then Breadfast heading the Operations & Business Development departments respectively. Combining his gained tech experience with his pharmaceutical background, Khorsihd returned to Roche as an Innovation Partner to fulfill his passion for creating an advanced patient journey.
🎙️ Professional Bilingual Esports Commentator & Streamer🎙️ Commentator / Influencer for @RiotGames MENA. @TFTesportsEMEA AND A RANDOM PIECE OF HYPE OVERLOAD!
Ahmed is a software engineer passionate about learning techniques and sharing his knowledge with others, he is specialized in mobile development mainly in flutter, he is fluttering around since 2019 and helped hundreds of people to learn more about flutter through his sessions and courses around the different cities of Egypt and around the world through online conferences
Maged Harby Rashwan
General Manager – EdVentures
Graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree from the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, Ain Shams University in 2007, Started his career as Google Adwards Professional. Then, Joined Nahdet Misr Publishing House in the Rights Department in 2008 and then was promoted to be the head of the department in 2012. Maged was responsible for getting the needed licenses for products and/or services from the most popular and famous companies in the world such as Disney, National Geographic, Discovery, and more than 140 national and international companies. He was managing the team to achieve the department’s and company’s goals on time and with the best results.
At Nahdet Misr, Maged received many courses and guidance, especially in negotiations and project management. He joined several mega projects in Egypt and the Arab Countries and perfectly handled them. He traveled to many countries in Europe and GCC and was subject to different business cultures during his travels including the USA, China, Italy, Lebanon, Germany, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
On the grounds of his 15th year of business management and achievements, he was nominated by the CEO of Nahdet Misr for Publishing House in 2017 to be the Operations Manager of EdVentures Corporate Ventures Capital that has been established in 2017 and specialized in the field of Education and EdTech. Then promoted in 2019 to be the General Manager of EdVentures.
Maged has received several different types of courses and certificates such as Establishing Incubators and Corporate VCs, Certified Innovation Manager, Professional Management, Supply Chain Management, International Trading, and Children Publishing. He also received several courses and certificates in soft skills, especially negotiations, and business ethics. These courses and certificates have been provided by renowned international and national well-known originations such as USAID’s SEED (Strengthening Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development), China Arab States Technology Transfer Center, Brooklyn Academy, AKADEMIE DES DETSCHEN BUCHHANDELS, UNIVERSITAT LEIPZIG, Goethe Institute, and AmCham.
Gastroenterology & Hepatology Doctor turned to Digital Health Transformation in pursuit of enabling the Personalized Healthcare model by obtaining better quality of Clinical Information to help build Data Driven Care Plans and discover new treatment options all while empowering patients and doctors using unique Customer Experience and Patient Engagement Tools
Ezz is an experienced investment analyst with event planning experience. He is currently employed as a Senior Investment Analyst at Alexandria Angels Network. He has participated in the closing of eight deals totaling $5 million and screened more than 500 startups over the last year and a half. He has a certificate in electromechanical engineering from Alexandria University and is currently pursuing an MBA at the Arab Academy for Technology and Maritime. He has been working in the startup scene since 2018 and decided to focus on venture capital and private equity industries starting in 2020.
GP in Climate Resilience Fund (CRF) based in Egypt & Denmark. CRF Invests in MENA tech-enabled & nature- enabled solutions that mitigate against climate shocks to our food systems. A Veteran of the MENA food sector investment ecosystem, with over 25 years of agro experience and a serial investor in exciting, passionate and game changing ventures ranging from alternative foods - deep tech. Also helping to bridge the Agri knowledge gap as well as linking EU companies to MENA opportunities (and v.versa) through tailored agri-consulting services.
Hadeer is a marketing professional turned content creator because of COVID quarantine. 2 years and 1.5 million followers later, she is playing both sides of the influencer marketing industry.
Ali specializes in the corporate and commercial department.His transactional experience includes drafting and negotiating various contracts such as SAAs, E-Commerce, E-learning, Fundraising Contracts. He also specializes in all legal procedures relating to the incorporation, establishment, registration, and reorganization of companies in compliance with the relevant laws and regulations. Additionally, he handles numerous corporate matters including procedural matters such as licensing, corporate procedures, and government related matters at different governmental bodies.Ali holds an LLM from University of Mansoura and is an active member of the Egyptian Bar Association since 2019.He is fluent in Arabic, and English.
I love making suitable ads for the consumer, not for me.
23 years of launching and globally scaling ground breaking technologies. Completed an Exec. MBA from London Business School in 2021 focused on Entrepreneurship and VC. As a strategic buyer with a multi-national firm mentored and then acquired several startups allowing seed stage investors to achieve 50X exits. Worked and lived in 12 countries including China, the UK and Mexico. Recently joined Alexandria Ventures as a Managing Partner with the objective of identifying and supporting Egyptian startups to become customer centric, data-driven and deliver 50X returns for investors.
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