Silicon Valley’s Tech Community Helping Egypt Rebuild After Mubarak

Silicon Valley-based Non-profit Brings Entrepreneurs, Thought Leaders and Investors Together to Jump Start Egyptian Innovation and Economic Growth

SILICON VALLEY, CA, and CAIRO, EGYPT March 21st , 2011 – TechWadi, the Silicon Valley-based non-profit organization working to promote entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, today confirmed the successful launch of an unprecedented drive to mobilize the Egyptian expatriate community to help rebuild Egypt following the dramatic ouster of 30-year President Hosni Mubarak in what has come to be known as the Egyptian youth’s “Facebook Revolution.”

“This exciting and vital initiative couldn’t come at a more pivotal moment in modern Egypt’s history,” said Dr. Ossama Hassanein, veteran Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Chairman of TechWadi. “While the events of the preceding weeks have been both thrilling and inspiring, Egyptians will face some tough challenges building a sustainable and successful economy in the years ahead. We look forward to bringing top leaders from the United States and the MENA region together, rolling up our sleeves, and getting to work.”

On March 20, 2011, TechWadi and hundreds of Egyptian leaders gathered in Cairo’s El Sawy Culturewheel for “Masr Ya Om”, translated as “Mother Egypt”– a broad push backed by TechWadi and local organizations to mobilize expatriate Egyptians to offer a helping hand in the current transitional period. Together, local leaders engaged in discussions with international experts in tourism, health care, education and politics, focusing on concrete steps to help navigate vital formational times ahead.

Organized by Ziad Aly, CEO of mobile services company Alzwad, the conference made heavy use of social networking including popular Facebook groups, causes, and pages to “crown-source” the Egyptian peoples’ ideas and problems and bring them to light during the expert panels. “We discussed the vision of Egypt” Aly said, “our objective was not brainstorming, nor proposing big ideas, nor strategizing, we gathered to articulate what we are capable of doing for Egypt right now.”

The next day, on March 21, TechWadi co-hosted the “Egypt Rising” Forum in partnership with the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program (EIP) of the AUC School of Business. Similar to Masr Ya Om but smaller in size and more focused in scope, TechWadi focused on developing targeted stimuli for economic development through entrepreneurship and included the participation of successful Arab expatriates as well as regional thought leaders in education, business, technology, and health care.

The Rising Tide event panelists included Wael Ghonim, the Google marketing executive who became a leading figure in Egypt’s pro-democracy demonstrations; Dr. Magdy Ishak, Chairman of the Egyptian Medical Association in the UK; Dr. Ahmed Fadil, president of the American Egyptian Medical Association; Nader Iskandar, CEO of EME International; Ahmed Alfi, Chairman of Sawari Ventures; Hazem ElWissimy, Managing Director of Plug and Play Egypt; and Dr. Hanafy Meleis, Chairman of Palmetto Capital, as well as Ossama Hassanein and Ziad Aly.
The event program covered many high-impact initiatives to jump-start the economy, centered around five complementary tracks that have a direct impact on innovation and entrepreneurship:

Mentorship, focused on connecting the knowledge and resources of the expatriate community to rising entrepreneurs in Egypt and the rest of MENA. Mentors coach entrepreneurs in business practices; act as sounding-boards for new ideas; and may provide access to strategic partners. The speakers for this session included Nader Iskandar, CEO of EME International, and Ossama Hassanein, Chairman of the Rising Tide Fund and of TechWadi. “The key issue of mentorship is the desire to give and take from both sides, the mentee wants to learn continuously and the mentor constantly wants to give of his own resources and capacity” Iskandar emphasized. The session provided examples of mentorship from perspective of top entrepreneurs, profiled top TechWadi 100 mentors, and offered a sneak peak at the groundbreaking new MentorCloud platform for connecting today's leaders with tomorrow's innovators, developed in partnership with Silicon Valley-based startup Parjanya, Inc. and launching in April 2011.

Health care, where an all-star panel of leading expats shared their initiatives, experiences, perspectives and expectations on improving the quality of health products & services in Egypt. Panelists included Dr. Magdy Ishak, chairman of the Egyptian Medical Association in UK, Dr. Ahmed Fadil, President of the Egyptian American Medical Association, and Dr. Hanafy Meleis, President of Palmetto Capital. “Let’s compose a team that constitutes anybody who has to do with the healthcare system in Egypt and expatriates from the U.S., let them put their thoughts together, and study the deficiencies. Then, each deficiency will be assigned to a task force, who can give deliverables with timetables. If we did so, in ten years, we will rebuild the health care system in Egypt”. Dr. Fadil proposed “patching from the top is not going to work, pampering things from the side is not going to work either, we need to rebuild from the bottom up”.

Incubation, focused on transplanting successful incubation models to Alexandria and Cairo and building a world-class business accelerator ecosystem. Silicon Valley incubators bring together top startups, investors, corporate partners and mentors to create a support infrastructure for entrepreneurship. With Plug and Play Egypt, established in partnership with Silicon Valley’s leading incubator and accelerator, this infrastructure is being created on Egypt’s home soil. This session discussed and agreed on the approach to select entrepreneurs for acceleration both in Egypt and Silicon Valley. Speakers included Hazem El Wassimy, Managing Director of Plug and Play Egypt (and an alum of both MIT and McKinsey) and Sherif Makhlouf, Founder and Chairman of the Boost Business Incubator. “I have an idea [: how about pushing] people to invest or donate LE 100 legally in startups which will assist in building economies and creating real jobs [...] instead of financing investors, you will be financing workers” Makhlouf said.

Education, focused on effective partnership between top universities and other educational organizations to help provide future entrepreneurs with the skills necessary to start and grow successful businesses. During this session, leading academics and educators engaged with Egyptian counterparts to help bridge the gap through boot-camps, curriculum enhancements, education for employment, and management of large infrastructure projects. Professors from across the US held video-conferences with Egyptian counterparts, led by: Ahmad Ghoniem (MIT), Khalid Mosalam (UC Berkeley), Tarek Zohdi (UC Berkeley), Jeff Shamma (Georgia Tech), Nasr Ghoniem (UCLA) and Mahmoud Hussein (U. Colorado).

And finally, Venture Capital, focused on developing the financing infrastructure for Egyptian startups and helping them expand their international networks. This session presented to entrepreneurs and participants the key issues related to financing Egyptian startups, including key terms, challenges, and opportunities. This session was led by Ossama Hassanein, a veteran Silicon Valley VC and Chairman of the new MENA-focused Rising Tide Fund; Ahmed Alfi, Chairman of Sawari Ventures; and Ziad Aly, CEO of Alzwad Mobile Services.

Paraphrasing US President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address of 1863, Ossama Hassanein declared: “55 days ago, our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, brought us a new Egypt, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are born free. Now we are engaged in a great socio-economic war, testing whether or not that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can endure.”

About TechWadi
TechWadi is a Silicon Valley-based non-profit organization building bridges between the United States and the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region to promote entrepreneurship, support innovation, and foster economic development. From its early beginnings as a gathering of Arab American technology professionals in Silicon Valley, TechWadi has evolved into a powerful global platform for cooperation and collaboration – with members and events spanning across the US and MENA. With deep roots in California’s technology community, TechWadi is playing a unique role focused on entrepreneur education and mentorship, connecting business leaders and investors with the next generation of MENA region innovators.

About AUC School of Business
The American University in Cairo (AUC) is a premier institution of higher learning. The university is committed to teaching and research of the highest caliber, and offers exceptional liberal arts and professional education in a cross-cultural environment. AUC builds a culture of leadership, lifelong learning, continuing education and service among its graduates, and is dedicated to making significant contributions to Egypt and the international community in diverse fields. Chartered and accredited in the USA and Egypt, it is an independent, non-profit, equal-opportunity institution.

TechWadi.org
255 Shoreline Drive
Suite 520
Redwood Shores, CA 94065
(650) 530-0307
Roham Gharegozlou
roham@techwadi.org

This release was published on openPR.