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.
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!
![[Nile TV] Public Speaking and Presentation Skills for Business Executives](https://www.abdomagdy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/3-750x350.jpg)
viewers as we promised earlier at the beginning of the show that we are going to talk about the uh public speaking and how to develop our skills for public speaking for presentation that would be our topic for discussion now with our dear guest in the studio mr abdul madhi his public speaking coach good morning sir good morning good morning mr maggie first uh why are public speaking skills important for business executives no i think like every one of us would think that public speaking is a key skill for business executives and lots of other types of professions i think for lectures for entrepreneurs and especially for business executives what do you want to do in business is that you would like to leave a very positive impact they would like to gain people’s confidence in what you’re promising and what you’re like inspiring them to do so all that makes public speaking a very very important key skill for business leaders executives entrepreneurs and lots of other professionals how do you teach the entrepreneurs or the business people the employees these skills what are the steps needed in order to learn the basics for a good presentation for a good communication and uh public skills yeah thank you for asking that because that’s that’s the most frequent question that we get at carry toastmasters club which is a club for public speaking yep and most of the people who come for the first time they want to have like a cheat sheet for public speaking what do i have to do and the answer to that is that public speaking is a learned skill is that you have to like experience it so the best way to learn public speaking is to actually deliver speeches and there’s a lot of experiences that’s available in clubs like toastmasters for example where you can prepare speeches delivered get feedback and that’s how you learn public speaking of course there has to be outlines in things like preparing your speech your body language different other areas that you need to understand but by that it becomes about experiencing the delivery and getting feedback and accordingly getting better in your public speaking skills so a short answer probably you cannot teach public speaking you’re not going to learn public speaking by reading a book but you have to be out there speaking to the people and inspiring them getting feedback and learning from that how mr abdul how can we do that as it as a coach what are the most important tips that you give to your students or the people who are getting the course in order to do that you know because somehow um it’s um in certain people it’s been born in it’s in the character for others it’s not so how can we reach that yeah i think that usually goes on a case-by-case basis so it depends on the individual himself or herself but the key guidelines is and the key areas that people need to be ready with is self-confidence is that you have to people have to develop their own self-confidence through putting themselves out there to kind of be able to develop their skills so first is having the readiness to actually deliver the speech and sit in front of people and deliver the speech i think this is something that we’re often people who are need coaching is to be pushed slightly to start giving more speeches so one of the key areas is pushing people to to deliver more speeches and to also reach bigger audiences this is this is a key area and afterwards it comes into things like their body language you know like there’s a study that was uh being made um analyzing what affects people what are you speaking so if you’re watching me talking right now and you’re conceiving me um what is affecting the way that you’re conceiving the speaker and it turned out that 55 percent is about the way the uh the move their body their body language how they express themselves their facial expressions their hand movements and all that to 55 of the way people conceive you is about the way that you um move your body while talking and 38 is about the total voice to what extent you’re able to control your voice you kind of you can get on a high pitch or a lower pitch you can get fast or slow you can pause so all these affects the way people perceive you and only seven percent for the words so usually people worry a lot about what they are going to say but rather the impact is often created by the way they move their body the way they change their voice so accurately some of the key areas for people to learn is the way they move their body how do i move my body while speaking my fascial expressions my hand gestures and all that and also using the voice how do i alter my voice between a high pitch a lower pitch and all that so readiness pushing them practicing the body language getting more experience through delivering speeches and then working on their voice so what are the things that people should avoid while delivering a speech yeah i think there is a lot of common pitfall that people fall under once you do that the first is actually losing the audience at the first few seconds yes if you’re speaking the audience it’s very important to sit the frame is that if you kind of convey confidence and kind of articulate your your entry right i think that’s actually sets the frame for you for the rest yes of the speech to continue influencing them and keep them engaged and connected so one of the the biggest pitfalls is that people do not prepare an attractive entry or introduction to their speech and accordingly they lose audience for the through the rest of the speech um another area is structuring the speech itself giving thought to the structure of the speech of having an introduction a middle and conclusion an ending or a conclusion so um like thinking before you speak about the introduction the content of your speech and the conclusion is very important and also to be prepared another area is rehearsal is that if you’re giving an important speech for politicians for example they have to do lots of rehearsal before they’re important like talks and for example if you look at the presidential campaigns we have coaches traveling with them while delivering their speeches all over uh mr mcd we have to ask here because uh certain people do have a charismatic skills by nature when they start to talk you’re attracted to to what they are saying you are impressed other they are not they might be shy they might lose their audience for example because somehow they are redundant somehow the the way of talking is not attractive so how can i gain my audience that is what i’m saying but with uh how i’m saying uh the content yeah i think that’s very right i think charisma seems like something that people are born with but i would disagree slightly with this i think charisma is something that can be developed with practice so um the answer how do you practice that because to attract our audience it’s not somehow very easy a target here yeah i think when we analyze charisma and what charisma is about big part about charisma is about the way that i perceive myself which is about self-confidence understanding myself and understanding my limitations on my key areas of his strength so when people are pretty happy with themselves they become more charismatic because you can see through them through their energy how they are expressing themselves of interaction as well exactly so one way of looking at charisma is self-development and understanding yourself in order to become more charismatic once you understand yourself you have to look at what people are looking for so there is a key skill of cold reading is reading the audience understanding what the audience are expecting uh what inspires this kind of audience what this audience are looking for and accordingly i address them with the language with the uh thinking level that they would be um more ready to understand and and and commit with so what are the basic principles of communication and public speaking yeah if i would sit like basic principles it would be understand your audience you have to understand the audience you have to understand the environment in which that you’re delivering the speech you have to do preparations yes you have to research and especially if the topic is uh has some dense content you have to research you mean that anyone can deliver a speech in a good way and attract audience or uh only some people have uh this talent well some people do have more talent so they are talented by nature and some people can work in developing that so we would say that everyone can start developing their public speaking skills through finding the right environment to develop their speaking skills
![[Article] Entrepreneurship Ecosystem – Article on Business Today](https://www.abdomagdy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/business_today-730x350.jpg)
I’ve recently wrote an opinion piece at Business Today Egypt, magazine which dedicated its June issue to entrepreneurship, you can read my article below and order the issue digitally online from http://businesstodayegypt.com
After the striking wave of criticism the launch of ElMashrou3 was received with from entrepreneurs and despite all possible PR and Advertising tricks the money can buy; the opinion of professionals and obvious impact assessment have shown a great failure to a potentially massive project to Unleash Entrepreneurship in Egypt, for which the United Sates Development Agency seeded Bamyan Media with a $4.1 Million Cheque.
My blogs in this regard started as an observation to the feedback shared by entrepreneurs and knowing only little of behind the scenes from what I experienced with Bamyan Media, this topic evolved into an actual investigation as each communication I received led to another and ended up with mega stories of what is really going on there. The scope of corruption and deceit with which Bamyan Media dealt with their surrounding is extremely unbelievable.
Not to repeat myself, please refer to my other post Who is really behind El Mashrou3, to tack down the evidence of the entity controlling the project and its background.
There goes a lot of in-depth look of the work of Bamyan Media and it’s first ever project, El Mashrou3 in Egypt:
Strategy
The business strategy of Bamyan Media is quite clearly stated in the LinkedIn profile of David Elliot, the one actually running Bamyan Media, I understand it might be quite sensitive to state that as David Elliot is obviously doing everything possible to make his daughter, Anna Elliot, feel like in charge, but her lack of any basic CEO skills make this extremely obvious.
Bamyans Approach is to access resources directed towards social entrepreneurs around the world and supposedly channel these resources, through some kind of “media platform” into social entrepreneurs. If we search for definition of Corruption and Mismanagement well find that most cases of corruption in development around the world is about entities that access large pools of resources and misdirect, mismanage or use these resources for private gains.
If we briefly survey entrepreneurs in Egypt whether they have sensed the $4.1 Million USD or whether it directly or indirectly contributed to Unleashing Entrepreneurship in Egypt, the response will be very obvious, if we add to it the fact that the non profit corporation Bamyan Media and its founders own a Limited Liability Company in Egypt that was created based on the assets of their project in Egypt, we will know who is really profiting from this.
Corruption is positioning yourself as a receiver of “donor” funding that you are not only unable to manage, but you abuse the whole surrounding in the process of trying to make use of it, the business strategy of Bamyan Media as stated by David Elliot is a perfect example of positioning for corruption.
Track record
Bamyan Media was awarded a $4.1 Million USD grant to “Unleash Entrepreneurship in Egypt”, Bamyan Media established in 2010 as per their website, had absolutely no track record in performing any of these activities, though, the only argument is that Anna Elliot, the daughter of Mr. David Elliot and presumably CEO of Bamyan Media was the “executive producer” of a similar TV Show in Afghanistan executed by USAID.
This part is covered in my post: Who is really behind El Mashrou3, makes it obvious that the show in Afghanistan was executed by USAID itself with funds from ASMED project which was managed by David Elliot, furthermore, by this time Anna Elliot was a student at Hampshire university and part time bar-tender she didnt qualify even as a junior producer to be credited as a the executive producer of a TV Show.
Meaning that the only supporting reason behind bringing Bamyan Media to Egypt was the fact that David Elliot managed a $54 Million USD funds for USAID in Afghanistan, part of which was used in funding a pilot season TV Show there, then with his daughter they set up Bamyan Media to continue running the same model at different environments where there are any “grant” money directed towards entrepreneurship according to the strategy above.
This is very striking in USAID’s approach in contracting entities for impact, which obviously known to be former consultants with no experience or linkage to the economy who can cover up all their shortcomings through clever PR machines and creating a network of beneficiaries who would be interested in covering up on these cases of corruption and mismanagement for pieces of the pie.
The Funding
In this official document from USAID Egypt Entrepreneurship Fact Sheet, its confirmed that Bamyan Media, with no track record was able to secure $4.1 Million USD for their operation in Egypt. It is not an easy job for anyone around the world, but it sounded like a piece of cake for the Elliot’s. When I first met David Elliot on a one-on-one basis which resolving a strategic conflict he did everything possible to claim that he just joined his daughter after she started Bamyan Media which recently while looking at the background of the organization proved to be completely false. Why so keen on hiding this background?
U.S. State Department try to reflect pride in big numbers for supporting youth and entrepreneurs in Egypt and region, while USAID comes along as a PR initiative that doesnt mind, intentionally or unintentionally wasting potential for the sake of a few good mouths and a few articles in western news sites that doesnt take the effort to investigate real impact on the ground.
The funding which was granted for a non-profit was then used in setting up a Limited Liability Company, EL Mashrou3 LLC, registration number #63834 that its founders and cashing out from right now, even more, as they had no understanding of what they should be doing with the funds, Bamyan Media abused an unbelievable number of professionals, local entrepreneurs and even one of the largest media agencies in the world on their way to graduating El Msahrou3.
Below are some of these cases:
Production Industry
I interviewed exactly 7 producers who repeated the same story of the manipulative, amateurish, unethical approach of Bamyan Media. Beside David Elliot and Anna Elliot, Bamyan Media was joined by Asim Haneef, he was credited as the Executive Producer for the show, but practically speaking he was as far from production as it can be, following the same pattern of crediting Anna Elliot as Executive Producer of the TV Show in Afghanistan, Asim Haneef is obviously trying to use his journalistic background in building the image of Bamyan Media and expand their business in different countries.
My first accidental interview was with Mohammad A., the producer of the popular Khawater TV Series, he mentioned to me that when they arrived to Egypt, they tried to reflect their preference to work with him, while they shied away from presenting the TV Show produced in Afghanistan, as of being amateurish, Mohamed worked on formatting the concept for production, while is almost equivalent to starting from the scratch, meaning, they came with nothing, he also managed to introduce them to a TV Network which accepted the project.
As the reformatting was done and introduction to the channel made, Bamyan Media turned their back on Mohammad A. and proceeded with their project then when they wanted to access the TV Network, they were turned down by the network which didnt knew them rather they approved the project for him, they were forced to get back to him and as he states it as a result of their manipulative, unethical approach he unreasonably increased the production budget to turn them away and he preferred to keep a cool personal relationship away from work.
What happened with the producer of Khawater was repeated dozens of times with the rest of the production industry in Egypt to the extent that Mr. Hisham Mahmoud former Vice President of ONTV mentioned that Egypt always had a mature, decent media industry, such abusive, unethical behavior was never witnessed in his years of experience.
Hisham Mahmoud former Vice President of ONTV also had more serious experience, he was brought aboard as a Senior Producer with the mission to aid the work on raising corporate funding for the production of the TV Show, Bamyan Media intended to use the $4.1 Million granted from USAID for its own operation and rather as its easier once you have the setup raise the production cost from corporate sponsors, initially a budget of 10-12 Million EGP was estimated, then reduced into $1 Million dollar.
Mr. Hisham states that they had colorful promises that attracted a lot of people as the media industry is challenged since Jan 2011, yet, they used some bureaucratic limitations imposed from USAID not to commit beyond three months with their sub-contractors, which as per his saying, was only a trick to get the juice and skip the payment.
The experience of Mr. Hisham Mahmoud included using him to initiate communication with potential sponsors and skipping his commission once deals are secured against the agreement made, using the three months limitation period as a legal cover. He also goes further to mention a weird situation when he arranged a meeting with a Senior Director at a leading Egyptian Bank that was interested in sponsorship, yet, David Elliot heard about a study conducted by the bank and got unreasonably clingy in accessing information, he says, the bank turned down the offer because of Elliots suspicious behavior relating to accessing the important economic study.
I always wanted to do something about this but never had the time and focus to, Mr. Hisham Mahmoud mentioned to me by the end of our meeting, this should really be known, it should be known that we have a decent and mature media industry in Egypt, I have never in my past professional experience ran by such manipulative, unethical example, who repeated the story with plenty of others.
Tamer E., Director of the popular Ray7een 3ala Feen Reality TV Show is also one of the Directors/Producers who was brought aboard, Tamer sensed the amateurish approach early on, after being squeezed for basic information and as he described it feeling violated like never before. Tamer excused himself from further involved with an SMS communication stating that The Dynamics are Awkward.
Another production house in Maadi witnessed a repeated story, after Bamyan Media approached them to lead the production for the show and they got the word, Asim Haneef requested a one-on-one meeting with one of three partners of the firm and offered her to join on her own individual capacity, which obviously is betraying the interest and trust of her partners, Haneef didnt find any issues with repeating the same pattern with several organizations, the situation fired back as she responded in an aggressive email communication CCing her partners that this was very stupid and unethical to propose.
It seems that Asim Haneef has repeated the same approach with several other organizations, the attitude of snitching, stealing and manipulating is not an attitude of someone who want to stay, we are a small industry and everyone knows everyone, no one would work with Bamyan Media anymore after being known for deceit and manipulation, main partner of the Production House stated, while requested Asim Haneef to be brought into the office, youll find half the production industry so keen on kicking his butt as he described it.
I was given plenty of other names and contacts for producers and production houses who were brought aboard, but this was enough for me to understand how they approached the production industry.
Furthermore, I was told another awkward story from the production house they finally worked with, I never had the chance to verify it and prefer not to publish it until its verified from its source.
Media Agency
Bamyan Media strike a strategic partnership with a leading Media Agency in the states before coming to Egypt where they started working with their local office on their branding and media strategy, I followed up with a lead that founder of Bamyan Media claimed before being over charged by the agency, as I went through a print out of Bamyan Medias account with the agency in a meeting with their CEO, It was clear who is lying, plus, the fact that, probably for emotional reasons, Bamyan Media didnt pay 70% of its pending installments to the agency and they might go for a legal action from their US office.
Moreover, the Media Agency CEO mentioned that Bamyan Media repeated the same pattern of behavior with professionals and production houses with the media agency, the agency brought an expensive format editor to write the format for the show, the agency endured the cost which was supposed to be covered from sponsors, upon securing the sponsorship deals Bamyan Media cut their relationship with the agency and denied payment, the CEO said that they used a void in the contract to avoid that, given that it was their fault they didnt request payment except for direct services.
At some point Bamyan Media announced being sponsored by a Major telecom, it seems like David Elliots attitude was repeated in a meeting with the CMO of the same teleco that resulted on turning down their offer, he was crazy, shouting at the CMO of a major teleco while securing a sponsorship deal? commented the CEO of the media agency.
To be continued
My presentation during Google Ebda2 Crash Courses about Presenting to the Public
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!
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..
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.
I’m currently working on launching Al-Adham Web Solutions with its new model, it’s always great to get one step back and look at the industry, business model and better position your business..
Stay tuned for more details about Al-Adham Web Solutions new model, structure and approach soon..
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.
Designed and launched a program for 9 month inviting suggestions of projects and initiatives to resolve traffic congestion issue in Cairo
Hello Everyone,
Last night, I was getting a bit depressed out of what’s going in the world, my country and my life. So, I posted on Twitter “I’m depressed .. say something uplifting” I have got various responses from people I know on Twitter but got one from someone I don’t know and it wasn’t a POT.
She was EleniHope who after reading her Twitter stream and FormSpring link there, I knew she is a 15 YO girl from Ohio who dedicated her time to searching Twitter for keyword “Depressed” and “I hate my life” and she goes into conversations with people to uplift their spirit and make them feel good again.
Example of such a conversation is here:
http://twitter.com/EleniHope/status/16179162982
Then we got into a conversation:
@EleniHope It’s okay, I’ll join you for an hour or something in picking up on the depressed people, we can start a movement too
http://twitter.com/abdome/statuses/16179483090
@EleniHope Are you on Facebook? we can make a page and a HashTag and group people to uplift the depressed when they have time.
http://twitter.com/abdome/statuses/16179531042
@EleniHope So we can utilize your idea on a larger scale, what do you think?
http://twitter.com/abdome/statuses/16179557509
So, out of that simple gesture Eleni do on Twitter, late last night I started a site to get Tweets with words “Depressed” and “I hate my life” and will get similar words and combine them in a page, for people to get there and pick up a genuine conversation with these individuals and uplift there spirit.
The website is http://TweetHope.us and HashTag #TweetHope should be used to group people around the idea. I started a Facebook page and Twitter page for it, what do you guys think about the ideas and feasibility or expanding its use?
Thanks
– Abdo
Contracted by: Lane-8.
Customized a famous game called Space Invaders for Orofar – The game is an SWF format that could be used on the web.
Contracted by: Lane-8.
Worked on a website for a Unilever Egypt department, the website features include; Advanced File Management, Multiple Level User Authentication and Advanced JQuery User Interface too.
Contracted by: Lane-8.
My presentation during Google Ebda2 Crash Courses about Presenting to the Public
Worked on a blogging and social media strategy project for Dr. Nassar. In which a well-designed blog had been published beside facilitating the social media strategy and supporting in using the different social media tools.
Worked on CLEARmen online campaign, the preparations and management took place during the period from mid October 2009 till the end of December 2009. Tasks included website design, database development, members registration, Flash game, different flash Ads and creating social media extension for the campaign (YouTube & Twitter specifically).
Contracted by: Lane-8.
Using Magento open source Ecommerce platform, it was kind of not easy getting the hold of Magento but as you know, I’m a fast learner.
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..
Joomla! based web portal development. Products display Using VirtuMart and content management using JoomSuite Content.
Professional website design for a property management business. Using valid XHTML & CSS. Dynamic functionality using PHP.
Tech Entrepreneur, engineer, teacher and researcher.
