So, how would #ImpactLab do Impact Assessment to #ElMashrou3?

Well, after my last journal on: Among criticism from entrepreneurs, USAID-funded Bamyan Media launches Egypt’s first Reality TV Show. Some of my colleges at Egypreneur, thought it’s close to how it would look like as an Impact Lab report, especially as I confessed a background they feared the report might be criticized based on, and they mentioned as we don’t get hired for doing these impact assessment projects anyway, I would use this personal publishing platform to introduce what impact assessment is and how we usually go about doing it.

Can be an educational bit until we have some serious work to do. I will just take the last post regarding the TV Show as an example.

Do you know that all these comments and negative feedback from entrepreneurs might be actually irrelevant? All these talks about the format and selection of entrepreneurs might not be the variables that matter at all?

Why?

Because scientifically speaking anything that you design, you design it to achieve a specific output/goal/impact, right? In order to graduate this output, you have lots of variables or ingredients to introduce as an input, correct? And you have a process to go through to get this output.

Then anything that human designs can be analyzed into:

Input >> Process > Output

It’s like your Mama’s Pizza. The delicious or awkward Pizza your mama prepares at different occasions, if your Mama decides to impress you with your own favorite type of Pizza, that is the taste you had is the output, the result, the impact..

Which might actually change and you might not like it at some point but it remains alright…

If your Mommy’s goal/output changes from making you, your own favorite type of Pizza into hosting a party with 50 of your friends, and there is not enough input, make it ingredients, budget, time, helping hands for diversity, your Mama will make a standard Pizza, you might not really like it, but your Mama actually did a great job if you properly assess the feedback of the majority of those who were intended to like the Pizza.

If your friends go crazy about your Mama’s Pizza, you might suggest to her to start a Pizza shop, actually, If I were you I would suggest to handle the business end, communication, marketing/branding, sales and she just need to create this awesome Pizza and of course you get like 60% stake in the company, your Mama is too kind I know, anyway…

If your Mama is so confident about her ability to visualize the best Pizza that people would want to come to her shop for (Output) and she’s a genius at picking the right ingredients (Input) to make this specific output, and she is so skilled at handling the (Process) of turning the well selected input into a delicious output. Please, give me a call, I can offer you a deadly ecommerce platform to boost sales and I want want stock in your Mama’s Pizza Shop thingy.

Got that?

This simple analogy applies to anything you use, the car you drive, the kitchen machine, the robots, all in all are creations that achieves a specific output once they are given a specific input and they are designed in a way to transfer this input into output.

If you studied engineering like me, you probably have suffered while studying from Modern Control Engineering for Ogata and was forced into analyzing complex systems and expressing them with complex charts and mathematical equations. Oh my lord!

modeling

So, what does this has to do with Impact Assessment?

Impact Assessment is the same thing, while assessing impact, you don’t just collect opinions of random people and say it worked or not based on that. Rather you follow a scientific way in defining the desired output, the scope of your study, the most important variables in the study and then you gather as much data as needed, analyze and present this data in relation to these variables in a way that makes sense.

The function of an impact assessment by then is to define and study the most important variables in any operation that interferes in shaping the desired output, taking into consideration the objective and scope of the study upon which these variables are defined.

If you want to think proactively by then an R&D unit like the Impact Lab kitchen, can experiment with different variations of these variables until it reaches the secret sauce that works, that would make your Mama’s Pizza Shop not just break even but go IPO, if the operation is being consistently managed.

Away from this science and engineering models to assess impact, why would you need to do that with projects, programs, events and products targeting entrepreneurs?

The way Impact Lab came about is very much related to the famous Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Mapping Project, we wanted to study what’s being done to serve entrepreneurs and how to make it better and to make this data freely available for anyone to use it, not just as individual cases but to build the intellectual capacity and assets that would help in designing massively successful activities and accordingly raise the ROI of everyone working on helping entrepreneurs.

impactlabs

That’s basic R&D stuff, nothing fancy.

But anyway, what are the steps to perform an impact assessment?

Actually it varies whether you’re creating something from the scratch and accordingly still need to figure out the input and design the process, or it’s already done when you can just choose a scope of study and analyze known variables.

By then to do impact assessment for something that’s already done, you’ll need to:

  1. Define the objective/desired output
  2. Define the input/givens
  3. Define the process
  4. Define the scope of study and only pick variables related to this scope
  5. Research data related to each variable
  6. Objectively study variables and their relationship to shaping the output
  7. Extract report with findings and recommendations

So, if we want to do an objective impact assessment for a Reality TV Show for entrepreneurs, we need to go through the following process. Objectivity doesn’t lie, it actually smells if you’re deceiving in data gathering, no one will take you seriously, the only deceitful trick is to manipulate in defining the important variables, it takes a bit above average critical thinkers to figure this out.

And actually that’s why I considered the Reality TV Show in question a failure, because it’s so obvious that regardless of having massive input in terms of funding, 2 years of preparations, popular TV network, massive ads campaign .etc it failed to achieve its objective in hitting large number of viewers who’ll then be inspired to start their business and rather only got viewership through the regular TV network audience, targeted advertising and even “some” of the “usual” community interested in the topic.

Which objectively means that Bamyan Media has, so far, failed in achieving its objective of mainstreaming entrepreneurship through the Reality TV Show format it owned and launched through El Mashrou3.

Well, anyway, that’s getting lengthy, let’s try to define scope and variables in another day…

Among criticism from entrepreneurs, USAID-funded Bamyan Media launches Egypt’s first entrepreneurship Reality TV Show

Whether you are among the hundreds who had been involved in the preparations for the show in the last 2 years, since September 2011 ,or the few millions watching it on TV or hundreds of thousands watching it online, oh really?

Everyone agrees that…

Egypt just witnessed the launch of the highly anticipated #1 Reality TV Show for entrepreneurs. Yah and Erm! actual entrepreneurs, whom the show is supposed to be about had been passing around wild comments as the first episode of the show aired on Egypt’s popular Al Nahar TV Network.

Comments ranged from the show being overly commercial, abusing entrepreneurship and passing the wrong image about being an entrepreneur in Egypt, even questioning the allegedly massive USAID funding and the intentions behind it.

BasmaAlbanna

Basma Albanna, Co-Founder of Sirkil

AbdulrahmanAlaa

Abdulrahman Alaa, Founder of X-Project Student Organization, El Mashrou3 Partner Organization

AmrSaleh_Abuse

Co-Founder & CEO of Integreight the creator of 1Sheeld the 850%+ Goal Achiever on KickStarter

AmrElShair

CEO & Founder of 3alemni

SherifElGazar_Brand_Yourself

Co-Founder of Brand Yourself, El Mashrou3 Partner Organization

OmarAysha
Omar Aysha, Former Editor at Wamda.com, well, with 20+ likes to his status!

Also, on Twitter, remarks of being a competition show rather than an entrepreneurship show.

Twitter_Feedback

 Including Mohamed El-Tahawy, CEO of Smartology

That’s only some of the feedback gathered…

Okay, now, let’s be frank, why would I write this analysis, and why would you be interested in reading this, given that…

Away from the self-flattering facts of being the founder of a 5+ years old brand promoting entrepreneurship in Egypt, with deep passion to spread the virus in Egypt, under any brand as I would claim, plus, experiencing 6+ months of formatting a similar reality TV Show back in 2010/early 2011 .etc

Let’s state the real reasons here:

Egypreneur, the entrepreneurship gig that I’m in charge of terminated its superficial partnership with the organization behind the show back in December 2012 on the ground of copycatting some of our products and shifting their strategy from being a (TV Show) into being a (TV Show + Egypreneur) and using our intellectual property in the process, well, add to it the fact that when we threatened of legal + public action in response we had been untruthfully misguided by their management team that this won’t happen, they ended up avoiding it by being foxy, calming us down until it is too late to launch one and going on with the stuff they have stolen and even more details we volunteered during assessing a potential partnership framework, after all this we were too kind to let it go and just let Karma do its job.

Yes, yes and right now Egypreneur HQ made a public notice that the model of the resources section on their website is stolen from our famous Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Mapping Project which worked on mapping entities and resources helping entrepreneurs in Egypt and this particular part was planned to be released through an information product called Ebda2 platform, they ended up releasing it under the same title, and it’s true that there is a case of intellectual property violation (Violating Egyptian Law #82 for year 2002, Undisclosed Information Articles) being raised against the company managing the show/website and individuals involved.

All this is true, there is even more, if you want me to share, but that’s enough to make my point…

Now, why would you even continue reading given this background?

impactlabs

Well, one of the not-so-secret arms of Egypreneur is Impact Lab, where we started an impact assessment project through which we gather and analyze information including feedback to assess the impact created by the product (TV Show) and everything that follows, so we started gathering and analyzing feedback but you know professionally , it will be claimed non-objective if articles or reports being released through Impact Lab, while both organizations are having all this heated issues behind the scenes, I couldn’t attract third parties to join Impact Lab for the project so far, so it will remain undisclosed until this changes.

And you know what I thought? As I have access to the information anyway and it will be claimed non-objective by the ones who are ready to do so anyway, why not to release it under this poor personal journal, and oh man, I don’t mind if you consider it non-objective or a personal view. I will do my best to make it objective later, but it’s a personal journal, I’m free to do what I wish..

Well, I even could have launched this as an opinion piece through Egypreneur Community, but I preferred to do it under my own name, will make sure it remains as such along the way…

I will start following the systematic process of Impact Lab starting with the next post, till then let’s go with couple of initial observations.

First: Initial Viewership

Well, whether you love it or hate it, in TV business there is only one thing that doesn’t lie and you can’t get around it, numbers and viewership…

I did a basic analysis to number of views for Reality TV Show competitions before you can find it HERE, if you search youtube for episodes from any of the Reality TV Show competitions we witnessed you’ll find a rough average of 2-3 Million views per episode, Search YouTube for Arab Idol, MBC The Voice, X Factor Arabia, Coke Studio.

Well, El Mashrou3 was not less supported, it’s hosted on one of Egypt’s most popular TV Networks and it received funding from USAID, Silatech and Samsung, so they have everything to go wild, and they did…

The launch of the first episode was very well supported from all angles, they organized a fancy event at a five stars hotel and invited all fans, partners and friends into a gig with the soon-to-be TV entrepreneur super stars – doesn’t look right, isn’t it? – to get their support and digital footprint into promoting the show.  They also got the giant Facebook page of Samsung Egypt with over 5 Million fans to post their first episode, beside Al Nahar network Facebook page with over 2 Million fans…

Not only that, it seems like they also did the old trick of inviting pages with large number of fans to post their episode on YouTube, even if irrelevant, you can find it even in (Eftekasat Masry Om El Agnaby and a Fake Bassem Youssef Page)

Surprisingly, still they also seemed to invest in Facebook Advertising again, after investing massively across the last year to gain close to half a million fans, they still ran a Facebook Ads campaign to bring viewership to their first episode.

Episode_Sponsored SamsungAds

Thinking that should blow up the counter and strike massive viewership and digital footprint?

Surprisingly, the first episode today January 2nd at 6PM after over 12 days of aggressive promotion has barely reached 31,000 views , which is nothing compared to other Reality TV Shows with the same investment or even less, hitting 2 Million views in average, reaching 15 Million for a single episode in some cases!

ep1_jan2_6PM

This didn’t seem to be the case with the first episode only, the second episode after 5 days of release has only reached a bit more than 5,000 views.

ep2_jan2_6PM

 

Erm! How disappointing now, by standards of the media and TV business, despite all the budget spent and commercial packaging, you know, they call such viewership a massive failure.

Second: Attitude towards feedback, delete.

Don’t get me wrong, the feedback was not all negative, negative, not at all and who would expect that with allegedly over 1000+ volunteers around Egypt to support the airing of the show, mostly students given the benefit of being around future TV super stars, who even entered into heated debated in several posts against entrepreneurs sharing their views about the show.

If you visit their Facebook page you’ll find everything is going great. The smart social media managers got me smiling for the witty PR tricks asking audience”What is your positive feedback on the last episode” leaving space only for positive feedback, furthermore, couple of posts mentioned “deleting” negative feedback on their page and the comment mentioning that actually got the most likes indicating intentionally removing negative comments from their page.

Deleting_FeedbackDeleting_Feedback2

That made me remember the days when I was running the first digital marketing campaign for Birrell, they launched a wicked campaign called BirellMan and oh boy it was being stormed with negative comments, I played an honest trick of making comments “pending approval” and waiting for confirmation to approve or delete from the company itself. I can understand the position of a social media manager being stormed with negative comments. Oh boy, by checking BirellMan YouTube comments now, even after 3 years, seems like they are still following my not-so-honest trick, check it out there all positive, positive.

BirrellMan

Anyway,

As promised, I will not try to make this look as fancy as an Impact Lab report, but also won’t go super random and biased with personal opinions in all posts, actually I will partially use an assessment framework created at Impact Lab to analyze the project from all its angles, will see you in posts to follow with more in-depth look on:

  • The Entrepreneur behind the show
  • The Funding
  • The Beginnings ( 2 Years of Preparations)
  • The TV Show Format
  • The Viewership
  • The Grassroots Movement
  • More…

Have fun! And just enjoy the show 😉

Talent Discovery TV Shows – Social Media Presence

Talent Discovery TV Shows – Social Media Presence

In the last 3 years with DSL connections going mainstream and increasing consumption of online video content and with YouTube is the hub for video content in the region, I interestingly tracked down some of the popular YouTube channels for number of subscribers and views, here I provide a quick comparison in numbers between some of the popular TV Shows for talent discovery in signing.

Using the #NewBasecamp to stay organized!

It’s an ongoing challenge for most of us to remain organized, using 37Signals suite for all my organizations and project management efforts, I’ve created couple of projects to both manage my executive tasks across all organizations and another one to manage my personal life.

Abdo Executive Tasks

Abdo Personal Projects

These projects helped me to put everything I should do in one place for a while, till it became quite hard for me to follow-up with both of them in a timely manner, having the New Basecamp introduced, I’ve decided to merge both projects in one relying on the fact that both include tasks and discussions that I’m the only one should have access to.

I’ll be experimenting with using the project to organize both my personal life and executive tasks and will keep you posted on how things go, how do you stay organized yourself?

Microsoft Geeks Day, Entrepreneurship Session

Microsoft Geeks Day, Entrepreneurship Session

So, I was invited by some awesome Microsoft Student Partners to speak about entrepreneurship during an event they organized called Microsoft Geeks Day. Being a Microsoft Geeks Day, I thought Bill Gates would be the best figure to discuss. The whole session was just a punch of videos with comments and discussions around them, that I believed conveyed the image better than a thousand words can.

Some of the videos I presented during my session are below, I guess you can figure out the whole content from the videos, Enjoy!

Bill Gates from Pirates of Silicon Valley
Bill Gates Negotiation Skills, makes a big difference from Pirates of Silicon Valley
It’s not about how big you start, but how big you THINK
You want Xerox to consider something called the Mouse
People skills from Pirates of Silicon Valley
Dalia Said, Professional Volunteerism

Dalia Said, Professional Volunteerism

In such stage we’re living in Egypt when we’re talking about building the New Egypt and thinking of models, ideas and ways of getting stuff done to incorporate in the Egypt we’re building, a few individuals make some principles very clear and enlighten the path for us.

As a firm believer in entrepreneurship being the way forward for my country and dedicating most of my time in the last year working on Egypreneur, I’ve expressed in that blog how I see few individuals as icons that can enlighten our way.

I’ve mentioned Amr Deabes and how his Ability Contact Center is shifting the paradigm of our society to look at abilities other than disabilities, the model of passion and dedication in Walid of Bey2ollak with a daily job of getting everyone home as early as it can be, Sherif Ahmed and how with his positive energy; he’s evolving his surrounding and how Hanan Abdel Meguid is inspiring my generation and showing a role model for Egyptian ladies getting down to business.

Today I write about the unkown solider of some of the recent projects we’re rolling out at Egypreneur internally. I was lucky enough to get to meet Dalia Said during an event she called Super Heroes Mixer where people working in community development came together to discuss how to align efforts and develop synergy among organizations tackling the same issue. After an impressive activity I kept in touch with Dalia eager for an opportunity to work together.

October last year as Dalia was back to Egypt after completing a Masters degree in Education from Harvard, we had the chance to discuss what’s happening in Egypreneur and we had the pleasure of Dalia joining our Crew to work on building synergy among ecosystem entities and passing opportunities from them to entrepreneurs.

During this time, Dalia showed an impressive amount of dedication, commitment and professionalism and regardless the instability of switching our model, Dalia was a source of stability and progress to Egypreneur work during this period. Experiencing the work of volunteers in different organizations, I’ve never met someone who comes any close to Dalia’s added value to a starting organization.

When I get to think about the New Egypt we’re building I can clearly see that individuals with the dedication, commitment and professionalism who’re actively putting their passion to work and make a difference every day is what’s really needed for the country we’re building together.

It reminds a pleasure for me having the chance to work with Dalia and I wish we get done with a cloning mechanism soon to have more Egypreneur(s) like her evolving our country into the New Egypt we all dream of.

Sally Fetouh, Realizing our Dreams!

Sally Fetouh, Realizing our Dreams!

While everyone is wondering, debating and claiming about the perfect model of an Egyptian lady, a few ladies can clearly demonstrate that through their passion, actions and commitment. I had the pleasure to meet one of them, Sally Fetouh.

I first met Sally when I was recruiting volunteers for Egypreneur Crew back in April last year. I was lucky enough to run by Sally with experience and track record that was impressive enough to join our crew as a main player of how and what we’d communicate to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs rebuilding the country after a glorious revolution that gave us the chance to put our passion into action while building the New Egypt.

Beside our work on Egypreneur, I get to know a role model demonstrating a rare combination of passion, resilience and endurance. From a stable career path, Sally discovered a need and passion for combining her strong IT background with law, as technology is progressing very fast and with the startup industry starting to show-up in the MENA region. There is an ever increasing gap between law and technology. Sally discovered her passion for this rare, needed speciality and wanted to fulfill her passion by studying law.

In a beautiful pieces written on Egypreneur blog, Sally expressed how she sees pursuing career goals and conceives risks of leaving a stable path into an entrepreneurial direction you discovered a passion for. In Be Who you Want to be Sally wrote:

The cynics out there might frown and wag their fingers. Impulse can be risky business but so can an unfulfilled life; living to be only half the person that you are.

While we’re talking about a bright New Egypt we should not only praise the example of Sally, but we should closely study and educate it to give the chance to millions of Egyptians finding what they’re truly passionate about and what they can give their best to.

I remember that every time I learn that Sally is flying the oceans for an exam, gearing up for a new semester or tweeting thoughts of passion, patience and persistence. The same quality without which we’re standing no chance to reach our full potential as a nation, when every Egyptian reaches his/her full potential.

It’s a new entrepreneurial story I’ve learned, a new person who continued to inspire me and I’m sure will continue to inspire all of us on how we should be when we discover our passion and decide on our goals. We’re all dreaming of New Egypt but – as Sally states it – we won’t realize that until it becomes matter of survival for everyone of us.

That is what realising dreams is all about. It becomes a matter of survival to be the person whom you were always meant to be.

Read Sally’s article on Egypreneur blog here: http://egypreneur.com.eg/be-who-you-want-to-be/

Hanan Abdel Meguid, Inspirational Leadership

Hanan Abdel Meguid, Inspirational Leadership

While everyone talks about inspirational leadership, I can see few examples who really resemble what it takes to be an inspirational leader at work and in the society. For me, one of the most visible examples for inspirational leadership in my surrounding is Mrs. Hanan Abdel Meguid, CEO of OTVentues.

When CEO is heard, what usually gets into people’s minds is the positional power of being in charge, the characteristics of being sharp, decisive and busy (unavailable) person. On my Twitter stream, Mrs. Hana clearly breaks these perceptions and represent a model of simplicity, openness and inspiration.

With positivity tweeted daily in the morning with #Club7, to #InnerThoughts of deep reflections on what’s happening in the surrounding  to a very responsive and supporting tone when approached with a question or a request for help.

I believe that presents a model to follow for us entrepreneurs stepping up to leadership positions in our starting enterprises, seeing that connecting with people with a simple and helpful attitude is not only a desirable quality in people we like surrounding ourselves with but it helps getting stuff done in business and to be effective in your society.

As we’re all seeking a new Egypt, we should realize that it can only by driven by leaders who show an example to follow and that everyone of us do have a duty towards his/her small society at work in, with family and friends and even online to be a role model to what we need to see in our New Egypt.

You can start learning more and following the example of Mrs. Hanan Abdel Meguid on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/HMeguid

You can learn more about her by Googling her name.

Walid of @Bey2ollak, Helping tens of thousdands get by!

Walid of @Bey2ollak, Helping tens of thousdands get by!

We’re all suffering from traffic in Egypt, six Egyptian entrepreneurs gathered to create one of Egypt’s most popular and useful mobile applications, Bey2ollak!

Bey2ollak

As it’s described: “Bey2ollak, howa mobile we internet community te2dar menoh te3raf aw te2ool 3ala el shaware3 wel ma7awer wel kabary eza kanet za7ma aw fadya. www.bey2ollak.com”

In case you haven’t used Bey2ollak before, through the app used by more than 100,000 users, you can take better decisions and save plenty of time while navigating through our chaotic traffic.

For the application to be useful; a constant supply of updates, or tweets with #Bey2ollak HashTags should be be posted regularly, users who believe in the idea and use the app are constantly updating the traffic status wherever they go, Walid Mostafa Bey2ollak’s Operations Manager dedicated his time day and night to make sure that process is going smoothly and accurately.

I had the pleasure of meeting Walid multiple times and had some very insightful discussions about finding solutions to the traffic dilemma we’re experiencing everywhere in Egypt, as we’re strapping to launch Za7ma Campaign.

With someone as insightful, dedicated and effective like Walid and with bringing talents, expertise and resources together, I’m sure a difference can be made in our traffic experience in Egypt, in the short and long terms.

This is an applause to Walid for his impressive dedication and insights and for every Egyptian who steps up to make our lives easier.

Follow Walid on Twitter from here: @Rezo007, check Bey2ollak website http://bey2ollak.com and download the mobile application from here: http://app.bey2ollak.com.

Sherif Ahmed of 7elme; Push your dreams forward

Sherif Ahmed of 7elme; Push your dreams forward

Yes, being an entrepreneur in Egypt is very challenging, the most challenging bit is finding energy and positivity to persist and keep pushing until you reach your destination and get what you want to get done, done!

I had been exploring ways to spread positivity for myself internally and in public and came to a few practices that includes waking up early, going for morning jogging, join fellows in tweeting positive expectations of the day using #Club7 Twitter HashTag. Personally, I enjoy living in the future more, when something undesirable happens, I speak in a future tone about what we’re going to do about it, how we’re going to fix things and make it right.

Egyrpeneur logo

Last April, while recruiting for Egypreneur Crew, the special forces that will be spreading positivity and entrepreneurial thinking in Egypt through Egypreneur a network of entrepreneurs that I started. I had the pleasure of meeting Sherif Ahmed and after a few minutes of casual chat, he was in.

Throughout my work with Sherif as a part of Egyrpeneur, his energy, dynamism and persistence in getting stuff done had been truly impressive that I expressed to him once that I wish to have a cloning mechanism to have 10 like him that would make a huge difference in the projects and organizations they join.

While having discussions with Sherif developing strategies and planning for projects one of the most frequent words he used is the word “Push” and there is an interesting story behind that.

Sherif Co-Found 7el.me a network of dreamers where you can submit your dreams and receive support through a “Push” button from fellow network members, as you navigate through the network now, you’ll see plenty of dreamers and dreams who would probably appreciate a push, a remark of support towards achieving their dreams.

7elme push your dreams forward

Let’s imagine what the future would be like when everyone of us is pushing the dreams of his/her surrounding? How Egypt and the world might be when we find a sign of positivity, hope and potential we all go … Push, Push, Push!

Giving birth to new companies, social ventures, ideas, talks, successes and dreams coming true.

Here is a video interview with Sherif about his vie about the kind of people to getting stuff done while working on his startup 7elme.

You can follow 7elme on Twitter, join their Facebook Page and post your dreams on their network 7el.me

Amr Deabes, Entrepreneurs Driven NewEgypt

Amr Deabes, Entrepreneurs Driven NewEgypt

Being involved in the entrepreneurship scene in Egypt, running Egypreneur; I’m certain that entrepreneurship is the vehicle for the bright future of Egypt.

Having the opportunity to speak at TEDxTanta, I used it as an opportunity to reflect this meaning by reflecting entrepreneurs as the “Modern Knights” who are already and will be leading Egypt towards the desired change in the social and economic fronts, you can watch my talk from here.

Hopefully, there are plenty of bright examples that’s making a difference economically and socially right now. One of my favorite is Amr Deabes and Egyptian entrepreneurs who found Ability Contact Center; a contact center that’s fully operated by Egyptians with special needs. We usually consider Egyptians with special needs a load on their families and on their society accordingly.

While everyone is working on mobilizing different forms of “support” for those with special needs; Amr Deabes stepped up to giving them a chance to shine and turn their abilities, passion and patience into a productive tools in the society. I met Amr first time during Startup Weekend Cairo and had this interview with him for Egypreneur:

Reda one of the bright employees of AbilityCC, gave an inspiring speech during the weekend:

Seeing examples like Amr and Ability CC ignites my energy to work further on developing Egypreneur and mobilize as much support as we can to participate in creating the environment to more entrepreneurs to step up to solving social problems, while making an economic impact; Imaging how our new Egypt will be with thousands like Amr.

Google Ebda2 – Project Management Tools

Google Ebda2 – Project Management Tools

As 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.

By then project management is simply about who is doing what, when. We’ve used the example of four individuals came up with the idea of an iPhone App and moved on with the example through different stages.

Here are some important resources that I mentioned:

Short link to access this is http://bit.ly/Ebda2_PM

Alternatives to Basecamp: http://bit.ly/PMAlt

Following presenting is interesting as an extension to what you’ve learned from today’s session:

View more presentations from Wrike com

Enjoy! If you have any question about project management for startups, feel free to post here and let’s discuss it together!

Tweet: http://j.mp/L8WXzK

Google Ebda2 – Project Management Tools

Google Ebda2 – Project Management Tools

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.

Life is a succession of battles, how to face it?

Success, acknowledgement, fame, glory.
Many of us fight for reasons like that,
but they don’t build a good name from one day to the next.
It is necessary to work hard even if there are stumbles and falls.
It is necessary to overcome obstacles.
It is necessary to have motivation, to persevere and insist.
Life is a succession of battles.
Job, family, friends: All of us have a current status, and most, expectations for the future.
However the twists and turns of fate take us by surprise.
One can not always do only what one likes,
but to those that like what they do and are proud of always doing better,
make more progress day by day.

At our moments of quiet, and hectic decisive moments when mere good intentions are not enough,
that’s when life demands of us, courage, boldness, creativity and an unquenchable fighting spirit.
The truth is that problems and setbacks happen more frequently than we would like.
Times change, new challenges arise, and new objectives.
The warriors look into the eyes of the future without fear or arrogance but with the confidence of those who are ready for battle.

Living is also being prepared for difficult situations.
How we approach the difficulties is was makes the difference.
Sometimes we ask, How can we cope with the radical changes that we are faced with?
It’s like acting a new scenario where things we used to do so well, now need to be relearned.
And how can we fight without letting go of fundamental values?
And more, how do we know exactly what needs to be done at the right time?
The amazing thing is that it is precisely upon facing adverse situations
that many rediscover the best in themselves.
Ethics, friendship, the capability to create new strategies based on experience.
The talents to promote positive alliances.
The spirit of leadership.
The awareness of the strength that resides in true teamwork.
All this comes to the forum when required by circumstances when one knows there is an important ultimate goal.

Naturally it’s not easy to give up habits, customs,
it’s not easy to adapt to new environments or employ resources we are not familiar with,
but all warriors know that pessimism and uncertainty hold one back at moments like this.
Even if the threat comes from many sides, with agility strength and determination,
we can achieve our goals.
A combination of energy and intelligence as well as a balance between emotion and reason
are essential to success.

It is a most satisfying feeling to reach the end of a task with a feeling of duty fulfilled and receive the accolades and respect of all our colleges,
the admiration of the people we love,
to hear our names spoken with pride,
The pride of having seen the obstacles, the opportunity of growth,
The pride of having seen life’s ups and downs and win.
The pride of being a winner who did not give up fundamental values.

Egypreneur, The past, Present and The Bright Future

No doubt that my biggest investment in the last three years had been on Egypreneur, started side by side with DeveloperMan and DesignTemple, I had a different plan than how things went, maintaining Egypreneur with DeveloperMan and DesignTemple as CSR activities of my company that was supposed to receive funding, but, I’m glad that I had more in-depth experience in everything entrepreneurial and indeed that help me become a better entrepreneur.

Evaluating how things went since starting Egypreneur..

The First Arabic Web Presenter in MENA

On the frontline of innovation, a bit late accordingly to my plans, but the first Arabic Web Presenter done by myself had been launching with Egypreneur Crew Portal, Arabic Web Presenters is going to be one of the services of Al-Adham Web Solutions after relaunching soon.

I’m excited about being the first in MENA to utilize this technology and looking forward to plenty of applications for some of our clients beside my own projects, around here a web presenter is going to join you soon!