During August, I was appointed President of Cairo ToastMasters Club, being involved with the community of entrepreneurs in Egypt, running Egypreneur, a very entrepreneurial future is in the making now for Cairo ToastMasters Club.
I’ll be doing a lot of promotions to ToastMasters and want to expand the membership of its members beyond the club to starting new clubs all around Cairo.
Never had to upper Egypt before, this statement was broken last August with a 12 hours visit to Nag’ Hamady, Qina in Upper Egypt surrounding by a group of bright young men creating the future of Egypt and Upper Egypt while working on S3Geeks one of Egypreneur projects.
Had a very fruitful experience discussing the future of S3Geeks, best approach to building an entrepreneurial community in upper Egypt while enjoying one of the most delicious meals I ever had.
Since April 2010, I had been serving as VP of Public Relations at Cairo ToastMasters Club. The only ToastMasters Club in Cairo and during this period, I’ve utilized different social media channel to establish the image of the club and generate interest within this group to join ToastMasters while keeping members updated.
Today our ToastMasters Page I started on Facebook has 600 users and we have more than 180+ followers on Twitter, beside 8 videos produced from speeches within the club.
I was invited by Dr. Yasser Hosni of Nile University to give a speech about successful bootstrapping in Egypt at Nile University. An excerpt of the presentation is available below.
Yasser Hosni, Ph.D., PE. President, Int. Assoc for Mgt. of Technology (IAMOT) www.iamot.org Co-Chair IAMOT 2011 Conference, April, 10-14, 2011 Miami Beach, Florida, USA
Fellow IIE, Professor Emeritus University of Central Florida
Participated in building and pitching a new tech company called SmarTech during The Art of Business Creation Workshop Graduation Simulation at Cairo University
I attended Ideavelopers event and directed a question towards Mr. Naguib Sawiris in response to comments about Egyptian Entrepreneurs, following up from the event, I prepared a proposal for a potential partnership with their ventures for some of my projects, extensive presentation developed can be found below:
During July had been my first experience directly communicating with investors to raise funds for my business, I had been having my friend Karim from Easy-up do it for me and we already got 6 investors interested but per the regulation of the Nilex I needed 25 to incorporate based on the model we had been working on. But to accelerate things up, I had the chance to be in the position myself.
I consider the experience to be overall positive and I learned a lot from it. made a few mistakes; but normal for first timers I presume.
I did postpone launching the business web-site and start executing the business model till I get the funds I need – as I might need to optimize or even change the business model during negotiation , which put me in the position of doing “nothing” for the time I was mainly focused on raising the funds only.
Also role playing, looking at the situation from the investors’ point of view and asking myself the questions I’m expected to be asked during the meetings could have made a difference. Something I need to work on for upcoming opportunities.
As a big fan of ReWork I completely believe in their point of view expressed in “Outside money is plan Z”. Yes, I wish I’d go forward with no outside money, but it’s just feels exhausting for a long time. ReWork state the following reasons on why to consider outside money your plan Z:
You give up control
“Cashing out” begins to trump building a quality business
Spending other people’s money is addictive
It’s usually a bad deal
Customers move down the totem pole
Raising money is incredibly distracting
I really believe in these points even stronger now, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t need plan Z sometimes.
And I also believe in this as much too:
What were your first experiences raising funds? What tips would you advice a young entrepreneur to take into consideration while going through his first incorporation experience?
While getting ready to launch my company Al-Adham Web Solutions I was looking for inspiration about successful web companies. I didn’t need to go far from some tools that became essential to me. I’ll take you through a short introduction to the Two web companies I’m inspired with while thinking about my start-up.
Through Egypreneur I’m seeking to establish a support network for sharing ideas and experience for those who started, starting or planning to start their own businesses. And for those who want to watch and learn too until they have a chance to get their hands dirty..
Professional website design for a divorce expert, using valid XHTML & CSS and JavaScript. Use of self-hosted WordPress blog with design matching the site’s overall design.
Professional website for a student activity during 2008, using valid XHTML & CSS and Access Database for storing and retrieving students’ data. Dynamic functionality using PHP.
This group is the first step in establishing an online community for Egypt’s design professionals that will offer a communication and interaction portal that will help design professionals in Egypt excel in their careers and businesses and open opportunity for collaboration too, Insha’ Allah.
As a web pro, I decided I had to have my own web log, keeping in touch with people I know online and making contain my writings and contribution in it, that’s what I do at abdo.me my personal blog.
That blog is going to be my contribution to the development community, DeveloperMan is considered my developer brand, you know it’s sort of representation to my childhood SuperPower dreams; SpiderMan, BatMan, SuperMan, so thought to start with DeveloperMan.
As my entry in the contest to win a trip to Celebration of Entrepreneurship conference in Dubai, I posted the following video asking Mr. Arif Naqvi CEO of Abraaj Capital about supporting a network of shared workplaces in the region. I had been using the Hub Cairo and discussing its vision, objectives and future with Ulrike the founder of the Hub Cairo.
I firmly believe that the idea can be transformational not only in Egypt but in different parts of the MENASA region as Abraaj Capital defined it.
Hope to meet Mr. Arif Naqvi for our 5 minutes interview and discuss it further and very much looking forward to expanding my connections during the conference and get more information and experience about entrepreneurship in the region that will come in handy while working on Egypreneur
Also, very much looking forward to be a part of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt through Egypreneur. We’re having some progress that will be announced soon.
As the views does count in winning the contest I’d appreciate your RTs, likes and spreading the video as much as you can.
s a part of Google Ebda2 Crash Course to entrepreneurs who passed the competitions initial phase, I would like to share the resources I mentioned during the presentation and chat more about project management and available tools.
I wanted to strengthen on the fact that project management for entrepreneurs should be approached as a very simple subject to get stuff done, by then project management for a startup entrepreneur is not a complete body of knowledge to educate – at this stage – but it’s only about deliverables.
Designed, launched and managed a Covid19 Business Continuity Emergency Response for Egyptian CEO, the page for the campaign can be found at: https://www.egypreneur.com/covid19/
Tech Entrepreneur, engineer, teacher and researcher.
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"A vigorous, trustworthy and meticulous hard working man. He was the principal organizer of the event"
"Inspirational, motivational and mind-broadening entrepreneur. He is surely one of the “multis”; multi-talented, multi-tasking and multi-discipline – all governed by a great vision and seamless implementation."
"Abdo is a wonderful ambassador for Egypt as he is a warm, compassionate and caring man."