MEET THE SPEAKERS
An international line-up of inspiring professionals, entrepreneurs, innovators and investors who will share their secrets and insights on how to grow successful ventures and access international markets
Ahmed Huzayyin
Dr. Ahmed Huzayyin holds a PhD in energy systems from the University of Toronto and a MSc. & BSc. Electrical Power Eng. from Cairo University. He manages the Eco-Industrial Department in Chemonics Egypt Consultants.
His research and consultancy experience focuses on development of clean technology markets in MENA region. He has experience in serving numerous startups and large firms in managing growth and increasing competitiveness. He has worked extensively on access to green finance as well as policy development.
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Ahmed Yassin
Ahmed Yassin is the cofounder and Marketing strategist of Banlastic Egypt. He finished his B.sc of Electromechanical Engineering, Alexandria University and he is now working as solar ambassador for solar city co. and is a Solar engineer in Egypt .He established a new platform called SOLAREGY to network all factories in Alexandria on a special basis to use clean energy as alternative to fossil fuels. Ahmed is working extensively at the development field through various programmes that promote development and SDGs.
He is the “Young Mediterranean Voices”(YMV) ambassador since 2019, after attending EU – Malta leadership training. He started the plastic pollution movement initiative in the YMV programme to create a plastic free-zone for Mediterranean basin countries. In late 2019 he Founded the 1st Med. Green transportation & E-Mobility Conference. Ahmed is also the current chief strategy councillor, trainer, moderator at MAC Club for Social Development , He had been advocating for climate crisis and was engaged in many projects around that cause and is also a member in “Egypt Ban Plastic” Coalition.
Ahmed Yassin is the Current Chief Strategy Councilor, Co-founder and trainer at Make A Contribution Club, a CSO which works in the social development at the prospect of contributing with the general community and widening the integration of various backgrounds.
As part of active participation in debating and dialouge , He is an active contributor ,debater ,Moderater and a keynote speaker in Erasmus Virtual exchange platform.In addition being an alumni to several national and international programmes under the auspices of European union.
Moreover, He started developing the NGO platform to add the dialogue as an important key of socializing and engaging more abandoned sectors via Contribution programmes. Also,He founded the Model of UK Parliament simulation programme which had a successful impact in Alexandria to introduce the moderated discussions to the youth.
Alain Tubiana
Alain Tubiana is an international expert and consultant on cluster management. He has 9 years of experience as cluster manager in the Information Technology (IT) sector. In the past nine years he has conducted more than 40 missions for cluster organizations as well as governments and the European Commission both in Europe (France, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia,Lithuania,Turkey, Russia…) and abroad (Lebanon, Morocco, Mauritius, Tunisia, Algeria, Comoros, Madagascar, Seychelles and three French Overseas Territories, New Caledonia, La Réunion and Mayotte).
He works on public policy design or advice and cluster initiative support. He has trained more than 180 cluster managers on site and through distance learning. He has contributed to activate 14 cluster initiatives in various sectors like textile, automotive, IT, mechanics, creative industry, energy efficiency, agro-food, chemical industry, cosmetics and logistics in 9 different countries. He developed several projects to facilitate the technology transfer from laboratories to companies and has a strong experience in business support for SMEs. Alain Tubiana also has 20 years of experience as a consultant in economic development strategies for territories and project management. After studying public law and journalism, he started his professional career as communication officer.
He is head of the Master programme in Cluster Management at University of Strasbourg and lecturer at Kedge Business School.
He is member of the European Commission Expert Group on Clusters.
Asma Shabab
Asma is an award-winning strategist, and helps companies, governments, and social institutes futureproof their missions by transforming their business models with the adoption of exponential technologies.
In her previous role as a Marketing Leader for IBM’s Watson Internet of Things and AI solutions, Asma established herself as a thought leader, speaking at numerous public forums on AI and IoT. Before IBM, Asma was involved in public policy, behavioral change, brand, marketing and political campaigns.
Asma is a Fulbright Scholar, the most prestigious and competitive fellowships in the world and sits on the Board of The Mobile Marketing Association, MENA and CMO Council MENA and speaks frequently on Digital Business and Innovation Strategies, Diversity and Gender Parity, Customer Experience and Communication Strategy.
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Audrey Nakad
Audrey Nakad is the co-founder and CEO of Synkers, a mobile education platform that connects learners to highly qualified private tutors and mentors.
Her vision is to build the largest self-regulated community of knowledge exchange. In 2019, she was listed on Forbes 30 Under 30.
She sold her 1st startup, a painting business in Montreal while she was 18. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance from Concordia University, Canada.
Bassam Falah
Founder and CEO of Innovest Middle East, an IncuVestment firm that invests in emerging Startups and SMEs in the Middle East Market, through Capital Injection and Value Creation.
With investments in startups in Dubai, Jeddah, Erbil, Baghdad and Beirut, Innovest Middle East has now an investment portfolio of ventures in the Tech, Services, and Retail Business. Before making the leap towards the entrepreneurial world and founding INNOVEST Middle East, Bassam spent 12 years on the corporate side.
His last role was as a Regional Business Head of CPW Middle East – a joint venture between Nestlé Middle East and General Mills, and prior to that as Head of Marketing – Dairy Business Unit at Nestle Middle East, and earlier as Consumer Marketing manager at Nestlé Philippines.
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Bassem Dghaidy
Bassem Dghaidi is a Solution Architect at GitHub, where he helps enterprise customers deliver their strategies, engineering vision and optimize their software development life cycle to make the best out of GitHub’s rich features.
Bassem comes from a software engineering background with over 12 years of experience in the industry.
Before moving to the Netherlands, he contributed to the design of Lebanon’s leading software engineering boot camp, SE Factory, featured in The Guardian, TechCrunch and Forbes. He also led the architecture and implementation of enterprise solutions in FinTech, the transportation and logistics industry across The Netherlands, USA, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Lebanon.
Before that, Bassem was the head of an R&D division in a Beirut based digital agency, designing applications in natural human interfaces, computer vision, and machine learning.
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Carla El Maalouli
Carla (@CMaalouli) works at Twitter as the Head of Business Marketing for the Middle East and North Africa. Her function focuses on communicating the value of Twitter to the marketers and agencies that it serves and establishing Twitter as an indispensable partner to its clients’ business success.
Carla has over 10 years of experience in marketing strategy, digital marketing and brand management acquired in roles serving the MENA region. She joins Twitter from Connect Ads, a digital advertising solutions provider, where she was the Brand Manager at the company. Prior to that she was Brand Manager at Chalhoub Group, where she managed all marketing and media strategies ranging from planning, ATL & BTL advertising, PR, events, product development and research in GCC. Previously, she managed the client portfolio of DMS (member of Choueiri Group) in their digital media sales and marketing division.
Carla holds a Bachelor of Science in Advertising and Marketing from Saint Joseph University of Beirut.
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Cecilia Wessinger
Cecilia Wessinger is an entrepreneurial ecosystem builder and founder of Mass Collaboration. Her current role supporting ecosystem building practitioners as a consultant with the Kauffman Foundation unites her dedication to empowerment and equity, with her love of community culture. As a certified Cultural Competency and Unconscious Bias facilitator, she moves conversations beyond diversity and inclusion to connecting, engaging, and belonging.
Her entrepreneurship path led to winning start-up competitions, and she also served as a former lead organizer of the Kauffman Foundation’s 1 Million Cups, SXSW Pitch Advisory Member and a multiple year US delegate to the Global Entrepreneurship Congress. In addition, she co-founded the Future Agro Challenge USA.
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Christine Francis
An inspiring leader in her own field of Leadership and Culture Transformation with a passion for working with entrepreneurs, organizations and advancing women in business.
Backed with a collective experience of 24 years within the world of business both locally and internationally, Christine is driven by making a difference in the lives of the clients she crosses path with. In her personal journey, she has developed first-hand experience of how to lead and navigate change and transition from within. Be – Live – Transform, is at the heart of the work she does to ensure they are value’s driven both in life and at work, to leverage impact beyond success. Christine’s qualifications in Coaching and Mentoring are from the Institute of Leadership and Management “ILM” UK which she obtained with distinction. She is a certified consultant specialized in Leadership, Culture Transformation and Change Management, aimed to develop values driven organizations from the Values Centre UK.
She is also a certified Social and Emotional Intelligence coach with the Institute of Social and Emotional Intelligence, USA. She is a lead facilitator with the Mowgli Mentoring with whom she facilitates accredited 360-degree mentoring programs in the MENA region.
She is a Certified Facilitator to deliver the Women on Board and In Business Leadership Program with International Finance Corporation IFC, in addition to being certified by Cornell University in Women in Leadership.
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Christine Harb
Christine Harb serves as the Vice President of Marketing at Visa Inc. and is responsible for building Visa’s brand strategy across Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA). In her role, she oversees integrated media and creative campaigns, drives operational efficiencies and fosters Visa’s digital transformation and rollout of innovative products and solutions. Christine is highly positioned executive in the marketing and digital industry with more than fifteen years of experience.
Before joining Visa, she served as Global Luxury Lead and Head of Marketing MENA at Facebook. Earlier, she has held different leadership roles at top-class marketing brands such as Nike and Red Bull.
She holds an MBA from IE Business School and a Masters in Marketing from Panthéon-Sorbonne Paris I. Christine is a strong advocate in education – she is part of a career advisory board and regularly supports students and young specialists with their professional decisions.
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Constantin Salameh
Constantin has a 35-years track record in funding and transforming corporations and MSMEs across the world as the CEO of HP Financial Services in EMEA and Asia Pacific (1984-2003) and as the CEO of global investment groups such as AMS Group and Al-Ghurair Investments (2004-2014).
He joined Stanford’s Graduate School of Business SEED Program in 2015 and provides advisory and funding services to Stanford SEED social SMEs in both East and West Africa.
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Corine Kiame
Corine has been Investment Manager at IM Capital since April 2015. She supervises the matching and insurance capital process and manages the work of the analytical team. Corine is responsible for IM Capital operations, including deal sourcing, investment project evaluation and valuation, business models validation, value creation and mentoring in investments, and supervision of exits from investments.
Prior to joining IM Capital, and for more than 9 years, Corine was a Director at SHUAA Capital psc Dubai, UAE. In 2006 and 2007, she worked as an assistant fund manager on several regional funds representing USD 1 Billion in assets under management, covering fifteen Arab markets.
Corine holds a Masters in Finance from Paris IX Dauphine in Paris, an Executive Education Certification from Harvard Business School with emphasis on Private Equity and Venture Capital, an Executive Certification from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with emphasis on Venture Mentorship, is a member of the Lebanese League for Women in Business, and a member Seeders LWAF Business Angels group and Rising Tide Europe 3.
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Cyrille Najjar
CEO / CTO and Co-founder at Sensio Air – Start X founder. Former UCL and Cambridge University Teaching Fellow.
With over 20 years of experience in product development, Cyrille Najjar has built and scaled IOT and healthcare devices currently deployed in over 200 cities around the world.
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David Magboulé
As a strategy and innovation consultant, David founded LabtoMarket, which aims at facilitating innovation and entrepreneurship in healthcare and beyond, helping scientific knowledge from researchers and early start-ups go to market.
With over 15 years experience across the full scope of the health sector (Biotech, Pharma, Medical Devices) and a global network of contacts, David is currently working with Governments and Innovation Ecosystems to promote entrepreneurial ventures.
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David Uhlíř
David Uhlíř (*1971) currently holds the position of Chief Strategy Officer at South Moravian Innovation Centre, a leading innovation centre in Czechia. He is responsible for the development of its new strategic initiatives and for the management of the regional innovation strategy. He joined JIC in 2010 while he was instrumental in establishing JIC back in 2003.
Over the last 20 years he worked in different positions in regional policy, research and innovation policy in Czechia and also at the European Commission.
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Declan Gordon Carroll
With over 30 years experience in economic, industrial and enterprise development in Ireland, Europe, Middle East, Africa, South America and CIS, his experience includes 17 years with the Irish Development Agency (IDA) one of the world’s most successful foreign direct investment (FDI) and enterprise development agencies.
Founding CEO of SEBIC an EC BIC. He has assisted directly in the strategic development of over 700 business development investment proposals (300+ start-ups), raising €150m+, establishment and mentoring of incubators and accelerators and design and development of physical facilities such as science and technology parks, innovation centres, and industrial, economic and tax free zones (>€500m).
He has worked in the design, formulation, development and implementation of both policy and support initiatives on behalf of EU, EIB , EBRD and other IFIs.
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Dina Naser Harakeh
Dina Nasser Harake assumed the role of ambassador for Global Compact Network Lebanon GCNL in 2016, where she has strenuously committed herself to working towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aligned with the principles of the UN Global Compact in the areas of Human Rights, Environment, Anti-Corruption and Labor.
After two years of successfully representing the GCNL within both the global network and externally vis-à-vis companies, governments and the media, Dina was appointed as the Executive Director. Dina oversees and executes the Global Compact Network’s strategy, value proposition and associated programs. She manages strategic partnerships with other UN agencies, governmental bodies and international organizations and advances thought leadership in areas of corporate sustainability. Dina is an expert in thought-leadership in current and emerging areas of corporate sustainability.
For the past two years, Dina showed excellence in the oversight of different GCNL workshops, seminars, and conferences that attracts innovative solutions to the Lebanese private sector in terms of the 17 sustainable development goals, the latest being the Making Global Goals Local Business Middle East. She guides the network’s programs and initiatives related to women empowerment, youth, anti-corruption, human rights and more.
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Emmanuel Noutary
Emmanuel Noutary joined ANIMA Investment Network in Marseille in 2006 to develop the network’s activities in support for innovation. He has since created and managed several major projects on the promotion of investments and their impacts for the territories, on the development of the private sector, the mobilization of talents from the diaspora and the development of clusters.
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Eyad Latif
Eyad has spent most of his time helping startups and their investors across a number of different industries — including artificial intelligence, connectivity systems and solutions, fintech, autotech, healthtech, e-commerce, edtech and cleantech. His clients include Saudi Technology Ventures, BECO Capital, Middle East Venture Partners, Swvl, Sary and Nana.
As a San Francisco native and two-time UC Berkeley graduate (both for undergrad and law school), he feels like he comes by his work naturally: in short, he was always encouraged to think outside the box and help people change the world.
After starting his career with Latham in San Francisco, he moved to the Middle East for the year-round sunshine and to support the massive technological disruption sweeping the region. Outside the office, he spends as much time as possible with his wife and two kids. When he has free time, he indulges his inner political junkie and undercover Trekkie.
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Fabio Maria Montagnino
After a degree cum laude in physics and a fellowship in experimental and computational biophysics at the University of Palermo and the Italian National Research Council, he moved to the industrial sector, where he managed both R&D and internationalization processes.
For the last twenty years, he’s been promoting open innovation models through the generation of knowledge-based startups, technology scouting and knowledge transfer actions in more than 30 project, dealing with various entities of the European innovation ecosystem (EEN, EU-BIC, EIT EU Living Labs). He directly established two incubators, and contributed to the implementation of many hard and soft infrastructures for innovation, as well as to the transfer of approaches and methodologies to EU partner countries in the Mediterranean area. He is considered among the European leaders of innovation ecosystems by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.
In the last decade, his interest has been focused on the holistic combination of creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation, towards the sustainable development perspective.
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Giorgio Mosangini
Giorgio Mosangini, MSc in Political Sciences from Université Libre de Bruxelles and MSc in Development Studies from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Team Leader of Green Entrepreneurship and Civil Society at UNEP/MAP-SCP/RAC.
Giorgio has 20 years’ experience in the International Development Sector in the MENA and Latin America. He has coordinated projects related to sustainable entrepreneurship, civil society strengthening, local and rural sustainable development and gender equality.
He’s author of several publications and methodological guides on Sustainability, Evaluation, Decentralised Cooperation and Social Communication. At SCP/RAC he set up and coordinates the initiative for sustainable business development The Switchers Support Programme.
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Hassane Slaibi
Hassane Slaibi is the CEO and co-founder of Band Industries, the music tech startup behind the Roadie automatic guitar tuners.
Roadie changed the way people tune their guitars and is endorsed by music legends from bands like Queen, Drowning Pool and Tim McGraw among others. Roadie won some prestigious awards such as TechCrunch Disrupt Audience Choice Award, the BLC Tech Innovation of the Year and is one of Amazon Launchpad’s products of choice. So far, the Roadie Tuner family of products raised over $1,000,000 on crowdfunding site Kickstarter and is sold in over 120 countries.
Hassane has absolute pitch and developed the original audio algorithm behind Roadie.
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Heath Naquin
Heath has 20+ years executive experience in business development and organizational growth in the university, startup, government and investment sectors globally. He established relationships with funding agencies at an international, federal and regional level to advance organizational research agendas. He has particular expertise interfacing with venture capital, private equity, industry, agency and university entities to create new partnerships .
He has experience with top level creation and administration of complex programs as well as development and leadership of global entrepreneurship, technology transfer and startup ecosystems.
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Ingrid Schwaiger
Ms. Ingrid Schwaiger is the Deputy Head of Regional Co-operation in the Southern Neighbourhood, DG NEAR (Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations) of the European Union, in Brussels since November 2015.
An economist by training, she has worked in the European Commission for more than 20 years, focussing on external relations. She has dealt with different economic and political issues, development cooperation, financial instruments as well as geographic responsibilities in the Eastern Partnership and the Southern Neighbourhood, including in the EU Delegation in Algeria.
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Jasjit Singh
Jasjit has been an INSEAD professor since 2004. His expertise includes Strategy, Innovation, Sustainable Development, Purpose-Driven Business, Impact Investing and Impact Evaluation. He regularly speaks on these topics, and also advises entrepreneurs, philanthropists, investors and organizations on how to best manage their societal impact.
Jasjit has written numerous articles for leading journals and case studies that have won prestigious awards. He earned a PhD in Business Economics (Strategy) at Harvard Business School and an MA in Economics at Harvard University, having earlier obtained a BTech in Computer Science & Engineering at IIT Delhi and a double-MS at Georgia Tech.
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Johnny Boufarhat
Located in London, Johnny Boufarhat is the founder and CEO of Hopin, an online events platform used by well-recognized organizations including the Wall Street Journal, United Nations, Dell, Slack, CNBC, GitLab, and many more.
Boufarhat started Hopin in 2019 and in less than a year, scaled the company to over 1.5 million users and 30,000+ global events. With two seed rounds of funding and a recent $40M Series A, Hopin continues to scale quickly, solidifying itself as the industry leader in virtual events.
When Johnny is not working on Hopin, he is an avid food and health enthusiast and enjoys keeping up with world news.
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Karim Safieddine
Karim Safieddine is the founder and CEO of Cinemoz.com
He founded Cinemoz following a career in Film & TV production and distribution, mainly spent between Working Title (Universal), Magnolia Pictures (NYC) and Miramax (NYC), as an international sales agent, negotiating premium content licensing for the EMEA and digital platforms.
Karim holds a Master’s Degree in International Law from the Sorbonne University in Paris, along with a Master’s Degree in Film Business and Management from the City University of London, during which he wrote a thesis on digital content and media distribution in MENA territories.
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Karyl Akilian Momjian
Karyl is the Director of Marketing and Business Development with the responsibility for increasing the impact of the Alliance’s communications, providing institutional support to members on Women’s Market program development as well as supporting the expansion of the Financial Alliance for Women.
Prior to joining the Alliance, Karyl worked for 12 years at BLC Bank, Lebanon, where she served as the Head of Product Development until she was assigned Head of Brand Management in 2013, leading the strategic planning process for the Bank’s brands to build the brand equity. She played a fundamental role in developing, implementing and overseeing the execution of We Initiative, the Women Empowerment program launched in 2012 by BLC Bank. During her years managing the We Initiative, she was a speaker at numerous international conferences and in 2016, was selected as one of the Global Banking Alliance for Women network’s “All-Star instructors”. Throughout her years at BLC Bank, she has trained more than 50 banks around the globe on how to develop a Women’s Market Program.
Karyl holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and an MBA from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. In 2016, she received the AUB Computer Science Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award.
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Laura Lecci
Laura is responsible for overall strategic coordination of EBN’s activities: initiatives, team, resources and finances. She is also directly involved in EBN’s participation in EU and international funded projects.
Working at EBN since May 2012, previously Laura was a Project Manager and afterwards COO. She animated the Bioeconomy Special Interest Group of the network and managed most part of the EU funded projects in this topic, mainly focusing on supporting research projects in the ICT sector to start up and scale up.
She also coordinated for EBN the Startup Europe project WeHubs, the 1st European network of women web entrepreneurs’ hubs.
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Laurent Pépin
Laurent Pépin got a Ph.D in Genetics from University Orsay (Paris-Saclay). He was a researcher for 3 years at the laboratory of INRA in Jouy-en-Josas and CIRAD of Guadeloupe, then he did a 3-year post-doctoral stay at NIH, Bethesda, USA dedicated to molecular and cellular biology.
Laurent then joined a star-up in Clermont Ferrand developing a natural dye. Then, he worked in various commercial and industrial companies first as scientific support for high throughput sequencing then in different position in sales, marketing and Business Development in molecular and haemostasis diagnostic and for Contract Research Organisations in preclinical and genomics services, always in international positions.
Laurent has brought to Genopole his experience and network of more than 20 years at the national and international level with from start up to big pharmaceutical companies. Laurent joined Genopole at the end of October 2013.
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Maged Farrag
Farrag is a digital media evangelist, founded his first company Mega Media in 1994 to become Egypt’s leading multimedia service provider. His work extended to cover innovative use of technology in advertising, communication and cultural heritage documentation.
He has received numerous advertising and content awards. In 2013 he co-founded Fifth Dimension–5d, a merger of 5 companies working in complementing aspects of digital and marketing domains to become a one stop digital marketing agency.
Being the creative and innovation director of 5d, he introduced augmented reality applications, game development, hologram projection and Virtual Reality as well as many innovative digital installations. In 2016 he co-founded 5dVR, a company specialized in creating VR/AR content and experiences.
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Maissa Abou Adal Ghanem
Maissa is the 3rd generation of a family business. She has been heavily involved in the Group’s transformation journey since 2010. She is now CSO & member of the BOD & IAC. She is passionate about change management, sustainability and social impact.
Maissa has acquired a breadth of experience across 3 continents for understanding diversity, cultures, and the power of building ‘bridges’ and connecting people. She recently graduated from the AMP – IESE Business School.
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Marcel Drije
Marcel Bruno Dridje is a seasoned European Sales Executive with substantial field experience helping IT and Telecom startups in the US and EMEA. He 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 startups (Quantum, Andrew Networks, Pluris, Corvis, Ascend and Airespace).
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 startups ready to expand their sales and marketing 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.
He is a British citizen, and the President of Sophia Business Angels, an EBAN Board Member, a Mentor at The Camp Aix en Provence in France, a Mentor at the ISA BICC Cork in Ireland, an Executive Coach, a Business Angels trainer, as well as an International Business Dev and GTM Strategist.
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Maroun Chammas
Maroun N. Chammas is a successful Lebanese entrepreneur with activities ranging from Oil and Gas, to Telecom and F&B, as well as Technology and Innovation.
He entered into the world of entrepreneurship when he was only 12. His entrepreneurial drive led him and his brother in 1995 to become pioneers in Lebanon’s digital frontier, by establishing the first internet access company: Data Management, now known as IDM, and in 2018 by acquiring and reinvesting in Cablevision the largest content and TV broadcasting company.
Today, whilst representing the third generation of the Chammas family to become the vice chairman and general manager of MEDCO Holdings – the number one national oil and gas downstream company, and through his role as Chairman and CEO of Berytech since 2003, he plays an active and key role in shaping the ecosystem of Lebanon that nurtures and supports Lebanese innovation, venture capital and entrepreneurship.
He presides over several local and regional associations and was named Top Lebanese Business Leader and Innovator by Forbes Middle East, part of their Lebanon Top 100 special issue.
He launched the Maroun N. Chammas Recognition Award in 2018 to stimulate, recognize and reward technology innovation and excellence in sports in Lebanon.
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Mathias Fillon
Mathias Fillon is the Coordinator of the European initiative THE NEXT SOCIETY, which aims to support innovation ecosystems in 7 countries of the Mediterranean region (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine).
He joined ANIMA in 2014 to lead projects focusing on mobilizing economic talents within Mediterranean diasporas for the benefit of entrepreneurial ecosystems in the countries of origin and establishing economic attractiveness strategies.
For the past ten years, Mathias has been working on the issues of diaspora, entrepreneurship and innovation in the Mediterranean and Africa and held various positions of Project Manager in NGOs and international organizations.
He holds a master’s degree from Bordeaux University in Development Program Management.
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Mohab Anis
Mohab Anis is an Engineering Professor at the American University in Cairo, CEO at INNOVETY; a leading innovation management consulting firm and Principal at IXL Center North Africa & Levant.
Mohab loves helping companies build new business opportunities, and has consulted widely in the areas of innovation strategy. This includes auditing organizations’ innovation capabilities, intellectual property strategies, business planning, startup and SME operations to scale up, technology transfer, and go-to-market strategies. Mohab spearheaded innovation and industrial strategies for 9 MENA governments. In 2018, he overlooked the ICT for development roadmap for Swiss Terre des Hommes in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.
Mohab holds a PhD in Computer Engineering from University of Waterloo (2002), an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University with a concentration in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (2008), and a Masters in Management Sciences with a concentration in Technological Innovation (2008).
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Mohamed Nabil Kash
Mohamed Kash, has hands-on experience in e-commerce strategy, logistics & last mile operations, Intellectual Properties, IP strategies, Technology Commercialization, and business models design.
Kash attended his masters of science in Intellectual Capital Management at Chalmers University in Sweden and he consulted several cases in commercializing university research, developing technology standards, using different licensing structures, packaging concepts and Soft-IP, developing and commercializing virtual products, patents landscaping, IA assessments, drafting patent claims, license agreements, and trademark usage policies, and constructing IP-based business models.
Kash is experienced in using IPRs, contracts, business relations, license agreements, and business plans as tools for new business creation.
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Mohammed Al-Jafari
Dr Aljafari is the Director of the Intellectual Property Commercialization Office at iPARK, the Royal Scientific Society. He is a seasoned strategy, industry, investment, entrepreneurship, IP, innovation, and finance professional.
With more than 20 years of experience in Innovation, her has engineered and successfully executed technological alliances across multiple sectors. Dr Aljafari is a member of numerous technical and advisory boards at academic and private institutions worldwide and is a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Expert in IP policy and management. Dr Aljafari has a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Nottingham University.
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Nadine Asmar
Nadine Asmar began her journey with Mowgli Mentoring as a mentee and since 2012 has become lead facilitator for Mowgli leader-mentor programs across the MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa. With an international experience of more than 20 years in business strategy, human resources management, she has led teams, launched brands and worked in volatile markets.
Today, she is a Leadership for Impact catalyst and enabler by building capacity of executives and entrepreneurs to make positive changes for themselves, organization and society at large. She trains and coaches impact ventures on business modelling, scale up, innovation and investment readiness, leadership, cultural transformation, targeting youth, women, leaders and community-based organizations, implementing IES/INSEAD empowered programs. She has worked with numerous local, international organizations and academia such as Berytech, GIZ, UNDP, UNESCO, ILO, MSI, AUB, AMIDEAST, Al Fanar, CSR Ahli group, LLWB, Lebanese Red Cross, Alinov, Medafco, MAVA foundation, IES, public ministries and municipalities and local organizations.
Nadine is a graduate in Socio-Anthropology and Master in Business Administration from AUB, Marketing focus from the American University of Dubai. She has been awarded the Soraya Salti Social Impact Scholarship for INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship program and she is certified as an Emotional Intelligence Assessor from Six Seconds, Effective Partnership Management from Maastricht school of Management and WeAre Squared UK Google Digital Marketing.
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Natasha-Christina Akda
Natasha-Christina Akda advises entrepreneurs, businesses, and organizations in the arts, private enterprise, and the non-profit sectors on considerations and issues arising from corporate structuring, strategic development, international cross-border transactions, and governmental affairs.
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Ned Jaroudi
Executive with cross-border experience of successfully establishing new functions/divisions for private and public sector organizations like AWS, Intel, and UAE Prime Minister’s Office. Also worked for five startups with successful exits.
Ned has served as founding Board Member, United Nations ICT Arab Task Force; Board Member, Young Arab Leaders; founding President, Stanford UAE Alumni Club. M.S. from Stanford University, B.S. from Northeastern University, and Exec. Ed Certificate from INSEAD.
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Philip Bahoshy
Philip Bahoshy is the founder and CEO of MAGNiTT, the first venture data platform serving founders and investors across emerging markets.
Raised in the UK with Iraqi origins, Philip obtained an MBA from INSEAD in 2013 and a B.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics.
During his time in Dubai, Philip worked at Oliver Wyman in the Financial Services practice for three years, followed by nearly three years at Barclays Wealth working as Chief of Staff to the CEO, advising on strategic initiatives. Philip has lived in the UAE for more than twelve years and is passionate about developing and cross-pollinating entrepreneurship ecosystems across emerging markets.
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Rachel Freeman
Rachel Freeman is Executive Director and Chief Growth Officer of Tyme Global. Tyme Global is both the technology and solutions firm powering Tyme Bank, the first digital bank in South Africa with now 2.4 million customers.
Rachel Freeman is an experienced and internationally recognized financial expert, particularly in the areas of financial inclusion and innovative financial technologies. Before joining Tyme, Ms. Freeman served as the IFC Financial Institutions Advisory Manager for Asia since 2014.
In her role, Rachel was one of the founders of AFIN and the APIX Platform. Since 2001 she had several senior positions at IFC in Central Asia, Africa and Asia. Prior to joining IFC, Rachel was involved in several entrepreneurial ventures in the US and Russia She holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Business School and a degree in International Politics and Economics/Russian from Middlebury College.
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Rami Alame
Graduated from New York Law School with a Masters in Financial Services Law, Rami joined Cadwalader LLP in NYC before coming back to Lebanon to launch Lexyom, Inc a legal Tech Startup providing international Legal Services Online.
Rami is a serial entrepreneur, speaker, and lawyer.
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Ramy Boujawdeh
With close to two decades of international experience in management in different disciplines, Ramy has amassed diversified knowledge in the fields of change and quality management, operations, and entrepreneurship support programs.
With a strong business mindset and a firm commitment to achieve excellent, Ramy is an Angel Investor and actively advises early-stage startups in Lebanon. Ramy holds a B.S. in Agriculture Engineering from the American University of Beirut, and a M.S. in Business Management and Economics.
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Ricardo Fernandez
Ricardo is currently Managing Director in Spain for Limehome a company leading the digital revolution in the hospitality industry to define new standards in convenience, comfort, and design. Ricardo has more than 9 years in technology startups. Previously he had several roles including Chief Sales and Marketing Offer at Prodigy Finance, Chief Operating Officer at Bitcarrier and founder of Profitail involved in Sales, Ricardo has invested in several startups and has more than 20 years of experience in consulting, corporates and startups
Ricardo has a long career in consulting as General Manager at StepOne Ventures helping spanish startups grow, Senior Manager at KPMG Advisory in Madrid, Consultant at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Madrid, and previously at IBM Consulting and Accenture in New York City.
Ricardo has an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau and Singapore where he received a Scholarship from Fundación Rafael del Pino, and a double B.S. with Honors in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from the University of California in Berkeley.
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Richard Phan
New Process & New Product Program Director at HP, Handspring, Palm (Silicon Valley) Mobile app Start-up founder in 2011 (France) Closed startup in 2014
Founded Inventhys in 2015, now 25+ employees in France, delivering IoT & IA projects for large brands and accounts in France.
Rob Trice
Rob Trice is the Founder of Better Food Ventures and The Mixing Bowl. He is leveraging his fifteen years of experience in mobile, internet and telecom venture capital to pursue the application of information technology to food and agriculture challenges.
Better Food Ventures makes seed stage investments into startups that are harnessing the power of information and communications technology to make positive impact now. The Mixing Bowl is a forum to link food, agriculture and IT innovators.
Rob previously worked at international VC funds, including Swisscom Ventures, SK Telecom Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners and Nokia Venture Partners (now BlueRun Ventures).
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Robert Garita
Robert is a Costa Rican architect specialized in Advanced Architecture, Digital Fabrication, Abstract Art, and Social Innovation. He has a master’s degree from the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, a Diploma in Digital Fabrication from the Fab Foundation, and is a Certified Innovation Manager from the University of Leipzig. In the past two years, Robert has increased his art exhibitions, especially in some of Doha’s most important museums and art institutions.
Passionate about photography, art, and any design strategy and collaborative action that allows the development and management of processes and projects of social and innovation impact.
He currently works as Operations Manager of IbTECHar Digital Solutions, a Qatari company leader in educational technology, selected by the committee of the World Economic Forum as one of the 100 new companies in the MENA region that is shaping the 4th Industrial Revolution (4iR).
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Rudy Shoushany
Rudy has a wide experience in Information Technology Field in the financial sector with over 20 years of experience which gives him the ability in Assisting organizations.
His specialties are ICT Cybersecurity, Governance, Compliance, Strategies, and emerging technologies in Digital Transformation.
Rudy is a graduate from Boston University in Digital Transformation strategies and Certified professional with many achievements and awards skilled in executive leadership & Coaching.
He has been active speaker, Board Member, coach and mentor for startups and has been Lately selected as top 50 Global Thought leader and Influencer.
Rui Coutinho
Firestarter. Agent Provocateur. Strategist, innovation and science manager, professor, researcher, mentor and entrepreneur.
At Porto Business School he is the Executive Director for Innovation and Growth, where he coordinates in-company executive education, innovation, entrepreneurship, consultancy and intelligence activities and programs that try to look at the future to anticipate and understand what’s next for businesses and individuals.
He is the co-Director of the Executive MBI and professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Executive MBA and Magellan MBA (full time, international program).
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Stephan Morais
Stephan Morais is the founder and Managing General Partner of Indico Capital Partners (www.indicocapital.com), a leading venture capital firm based in Portugal.
Indico focuses on software as a service, artificial intelligence, internet of things, fintech, cybersecurity and digital companies, targeting investments at Pre-Seed to Series A level. Founded in 2017, the team at Indico were previously behind the majority of the Portuguese global tech success stories, as investors and entrepreneurs.
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Salah Awad
Salah Awad joined Berytech in November 2019 as the Accelerator Program CTO and is currently leading the ACT Smart Innovation Hub initiative as Deputy Program Director. He has an overall 15 years of experience in software development and 5 years of experience in technical and functional product management.
Salah believes that technology plays a big role nowadays in business development and marketing. He, therefore, developed his skills and expertise in the AdTech industry and consulted with many SMEs in Lebanon and the GCC in this field in the last couple of years.
Salah’s role as CTO at Berytech involves mentoring startups, helping them to grow and develop and overseeing each startup’s project implementation. He also helps guide program members on the path to building finalized products and ensuring they are ready for the market. He is working on establishing partnerships and launching tech community initiatives that would support both the Berytech Fab Lab and the organization.
Salah has a passion for working with impact-driven startups, particularly in the sectors of agritech, cleantech, and socialtech. He is confident that with teamwork and a great network of mentors, the incubation venture will be definitely enjoyable and successful.
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Sayed Munaf Ahmed
Munaf is on a mission to build and grow profitable businesses at Zomato. Trained as an Auditor, he has a unique background in Business Development, Sales, Marketing, and Consulting across industries as diverse as Banking, Retail, and Construction. After receiving his Masters in International Finance from Kingston University, London, his entrepreneurial spirit led him to set up a retail chain in London’s Camden Market specializing in Fast Fashion.
Currently, he manages the growth of the Online Ordering Business for Zomato in the Middle East along with leading strategic initiatives.
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Tarek A. Elkady
Tarek El Kady is a leading entrepreneur and angel investor. Executive Chairman of KD Group, founder of Techne, Alex Angels & The Mediterranean Business Angels.
He is Senator of Egypt at the World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF).
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Tina Chikhani
Tina Chikhani began her career in 1996 with Khalil Fattal & Sons (Distribution company in Lebanon) as the Brand Manager for luxury Perfumes and Watches.
After 4 years in this post, Tina moved to the Foods department within Fattal where she was appointed as Brand manager on Cadbury chocolate and Antonio Amato.
In 2003 Tina moved to Cadbury Adams Middle East where she was appointed as the Chocolate Category Manager for the entire Middle East region.
Tina went on to join Unilever in 2006 as the Brand Manager for Vaseline and Deodorants for three years. She then added to her portfolio the Hair and Oral care category and became the Marketing Manager in Gulf for Hair, Oral, Deos and Home Care. In 2010 She was appointed as the Marketing Manager Home & Personal Care (HPC) across North Africa & Middle East, driving synergy in deployment and scale to Unilever innovations across the region.
In early 2011, she was promoted to Marketing Director across all Unilever categories (Home & Personal Care (HPC) and F&B, the position she held for 2 years before being appointed the Country Director of the Levant region managing the full Unilever business across the 4 countries.
Following her stint in the Levant region, Tina came back to the Gulf to build a strong shopper connect and brand equity in store helping strengthen the brand positions in the Gulf market in the capacity of Shopper & Customer Marketing Director, she also led the Sales Department for the Unilever Gulf Business as Customer Development Director and was as well, appointed General Manager on the Joint Venture business of Unilever in UAE from 2018 till mid 2020 and today she leads the Ecommerce team across MENA.
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Tony Feghali
Tony Feghali graduated in 1998 after studies in ICT from USJ and Paris6, specialized in Cybersecurity and participated in many research projects in the field.
Lecturer at USJ since 2000 and CEO of P.O.Tech, a group of companies providing various services and technologies with a focus on Cybersecurity and IT Governance.
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Vitaly Polekhin
Vitaly Polekhin is the President of International Investor Organization INVESTORO aiming and focusing on early stage investment deals in startups and scale ups around the world.
Vitaly Polekhin is an active angel investor and was named Angel Investor of the Year in Russia. Since 2016 he serves as a Board Member of the European Trade Association for Business Angels, Seed Funds and Early Stage Market Players (EBAN).
Vitaly is a founder and head of the SKOLKOVO Business School Investor Club.
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Youmna Naufal
Youmna Naufal is the Executive Director of the “Lebanese Youth Forum,” previously titled “Lebanese Student Society,” a Beirut based foundation focused on giving Lebanese youngans an opportunity to articulate their vision by preparing them for their professional endeavours and connecting them with the right stakeholders.
Naufal is also the Producer and Host of “Y Chats,” Lebanon’s first up close and personal discussion show in English where guests cover a range of political, social and cultural topics, and success stories are highlighted. Y Chats is meant to give hope and a voice to the young generation facing obstacles in the country.
Previously, she was the Head of the English News division at Future Television (broadcast throughout the GCC) where she was tasked with producing and anchoring the daily news bulletin and conducting live interviews with political figures and analysts.
To date, Naufal has interviewed more than 600 figures including Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange, former US Senator John McCain, Author of Science Lucy Hawking, UN Special Representative for Iraq Nikolay Mladenov and Brazilian Football Legend Ronaldinho.
Naufal has participated and moderated more than 70 high level panels, most recently in Davos where she took part in panels regarding the evolution of political Islam as well as the role of the public sector in attracting millennials.
Naufal received her MA degree in International Relations/International Business from New York University in New York.
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Nagi Salloum
Nagi Salloum is an entrepreneur, a business growth mentor, trainer and advisor to 300+ Fortune 500 companies and startups from several top global accelerators, including 500 Startups, YC, Techstars, Stanford, StartX and dozens more. His clients have exited or raised an estimated $100M+ in capital.
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Feel free to get in touch with Ms. Tala Saleh, Berytech’s senior programs officer, by sending an email to tala.saleh@berytech.org
Berytech © 2020 · Euro-Med Scale-Up Innovation Day