[Nile TV] Egyptian Coastal Cities as Potential Startup Hubs

[Nile TV] Egyptian Coastal Cities as Potential Startup Hubs

for many uh many opportunities as we do have a lot of potentials all this and more we are going to discuss with our dear guest live here in the studio who is an expert in the matter mr abdulrahman meghdi entrepreneurship expert thank you very much for being with us sir thanks for having me well uh good morning mr abdulrahman uh first of all tell us about your insight concerning a promotion of tourism and in a creative and different way yeah i think in my experience it’s like a naturally evolving phenomenon when it comes to entrepreneurship and people moving towards self-employment globally and because foreigners especially consider egypt a fabulous touristic destination they want to work and also they want to have fun in egypt so a pattern of activity that started happening in the past years was what is called co-working spaces in touristic and coastal cities around egypt by now i think we have three different co-working spaces in algona and dahab and there are others evolving in hergad and other cities and the idea here is that there are egyptians who are like self-employed they work in knowledge economy so they are not associated with a specific space they can work through the internet and also there’s a lot of foreigners on the other side who work at the same industry like designing websites writing code editing and writing publishing just a very quick and brief definition of this word the knowledge economy yeah the knowledge economy is all the activities it has to do with knowledge so it’s not about trade it’s not products not physical products but rather it’s about using the knowledge and expertise in doing business things that’s like almost virtual like writing editing designing so it depends on the scale of the individual other than any trade activities which is actually a huge industry globally so when it comes to the economy this is a huge industry and i think in egypt we still haven’t tabbed i mean how i can improve my knowledge economy i mean courses for example should i take courses should i train myself uh a self-trained this can be on online on the internet to go to certain places i mean how i think the challenge usually is not in in the lack of knowledge but it’s rather on if i have the knowledge how to use this knowledge to become an entrepreneur how to use this knowledge to offer services in the economy so i think in egypt there’s a lot of people with a lot of fabulous expertise when it comes to the the area of their interests and expertise but the challenge is usually how do i offer this service globally so what we’re talking about is that these co-working spaces or what we can call it clubs in these coastal cities can be a hub for those knowledge economy entrepreneurs in egypt to go there and to serve the global economy through these hops and the same thing would be for other entrepreneurs globally they would look at these clubs or destinations and coastal egyptian cities as places to go to to do business and also have fun so they would come for a week they would sort out what you want to do if you want to build a new website in a week you’re going to find the egyptian professionals to do the design write the copy publish it and host it and during this week while between the meeting they’re going to go from snorkeling climbing whatever they want to do so i think it’s a it’s a very fun package if this is being offered to um like foreign entrepreneurs they would come they’re going to have fun and going to do business now to what extent is that applied in egypt like you’ve mentioned there are some but to what extent is it and how workable and feasible is it well yeah that’s that’s a challenge because these become an individual initiative so it’s someone who sees the opportunity in doing that for example a german lady who visited dahab and she she loved the city and she wanted to stay there but she didn’t have an idea of what she wanted to do she thought of the idea that lots of her friends are coming to dhab so why not to start this club to get them to do the business to do the work in this place and also to attract egyptians who can actually work with them so this happens as an individual efforts so far there are some projects that being talked about like in technology in these remote areas but we haven’t seen something very solid to this extent and also not packaged in a way to attract foreigners to do business in egypt there are some consideration that has to do with the furnishing of the places there has to be consideration about internet connection which is actually the top on the left because uh like foreigners are used to very uh fast internet speed so they have to see something reasonable once they they come to egypt so the infrastructure for their internet speed the the furnishing and the packaging and the maintenance and sustainability of these clubs i think that’s that actually makes a very interesting national uh project between like trade international relations and tourism uh this is a very attractive area to attract tourists to do business and to connect with egypt i want to return once again to the human being i think that many egyptians knew how knew how to to be expert in this experts in this field in specific but they don’t know how to convey the message how to implement this on the ground how to deal with people and here by the way i’m speaking about simple egyptians not that well educated not that uh well cultured you name it but some they knew how to use their skills but they cannot they are not directed well how we can solve this problem or this is a very um sensitive equation well i think there are two aspects to that i think yeah as you mentioned like knowledge is something people acquire with time so usually if someone stayed for 12 15 years in the industry they become an expert they have the best buy all the experiences that they need and you have the expertise here comes two challenges the first has to do is what you mentioned as a service culture is that i am a service provider there are some specific regulations and ways to deliver the service and to maintain the level of service with the customer i think this is something that we’re lacking in egypt when it comes to the service culture and um me becoming a service provider and serving the client and how communication should go how should i get paid this is it because this is very important how i can solve this how i can move this person from from being not knowing even the potentials he has to someone who is that much successful and using all what he has because we are talented i mean egyptians learned very easily they knew how to absorb knowledge but to to use this this is the issue yeah i think here comes the rule of training and coaching and also experiences that gather the egyptians with their foreign counterparts like some of the best experiences would you bring the egyptian who do have the talent and expertise and they stay for two weeks to um like mingle with foreign entrepreneurs and to understand the qualities by which they work like i know lots of egyptians who started working at the age of 18 with foreign entrepreneurs and after four years they cannot relate to the egyptian market so it’s about the experience and the standards by which you get used to work so if you start working according to a specific standard of service it’s going to be very difficult for you to downgrade so if we benchmark the service culture and the ability to market and promote by offering training and coaching experiences for egyptians working on knowledge economy and offering them the opportunity for actual real experience and projects through which they can actually start benchmarking themselves to a specific standard so these are the the two ways to like enhance the likelihood of the knowledge economy and knowledge entrepreneurs in egypt to offer service globally now as an entrepreneurship expert to ex to what extent have you worked on these new projects or initiatives yeah i think like because these already are initiatives that’s happening in egypt so i get i get the chance to get in in direct contact with all these initiatives and what i can see is it because it depends on a specific individual that is usually the financial risk and lots of efforts that’s actually in the weight of a single individual so there is no structure to what’s happening it’s just an individual initiatives and it comes with challenges so for example if business is not big enough you’re gonna have to move to uh to another area so there’s a shift in location one thing that’s happened is that the german lady wanted to take a one-month vacation she has to shut down the club because she’s in a vacation she doesn’t have a staff to manage the the club so are these are some challenges to getting these to operate to a specific standard i think if there is an investment in a company that would go there and set up some really stable clubs managed properly and it it’s uh sending consistent marketing messages to achieve this is to have companies already there to manage this and to be on permanent basis i mean not something temporary yeah and that requires investment and investment requires infrastructure so it’s about the risk like someone or a company taking the risk to go and set up something there and i think we have seen some examples for foreign entities coming to places like ilgona but i think there is a chance for other mainstream areas or much more like areas like dahab and other uh destinations this was my coming question regarding the destinations regarding the touristic locations in which you see a lot of potentials are there and just waiting for someone to discover them yeah i think dab is it comes on top of the list because like maybe because it’s my personal favorite but also it attracts a type of character that’s um in a knowledge economy and they’re actually looking to relax and stay in the long term so if you go to the hub you’re going to find lots of like foreigners who are staying there for six months for a year for three years sometimes so these people come and they don’t actually settle down in the town of dahab and i think that’s provides an opportunity to build the um what we talked about in terms of the service culture um the infrastructure necessary for them uh to settle there and accordingly build a momentum and build an environment that supports uh business locally and globally now i’m quite interested in what you were talking about that german club for instance now you’re saying that she’s offering them services online so are they doing services that takes place in egypt or are they just visiting and they are just checking on their business abroad because what no it’s it’s mainly the internet so that will be um not like an industry or investing within the country itself it’s not like importing exporting or or or having a solid project in egypt so i’d like to understand more like is it just facilitating them to run their personal business abroad or is it creating businesses within the country itself actually it could go both ways i think for the time being because they are visiting mostly they are working on their own businesses and if you look at it what do people do in companies in any type of business you’re going to find like like 60 80 depending on the company is something that’s to be done online and most of those who come as individuals they usually have their own websites and they are selling products and services online which is actually a huge industry we have seen recently in the region some billion dollar investments in like e-commerce websites so these entrepreneurs are running these type of businesses it doesn’t have to be a small business they could be on a laptop you’re going to see them on a laptop and actually it’s a huge business online so most of them actually work within the industry of technology and internet business and knowledge economy so these are the uh industries but there’s other companies that might want to do what they call tree tree which is also a very big type of trading businesses we know the corporate training style that you go inside the company and do the the corporate training there is a new model which is retreats is that uh you could be a company in germany and you want to train five of your employees yeah and thinking thinking out of the box and so we do have much more questions but unfortunately we’re running out of time so we’re going to leave you sorry with our promise to see you again in another episode of our breakfast show mr abdullah magdy the interpreter expert we have today thank you very much for your input thank you for having me thank you very much sir and that brings us to the end of this episode of breakfast show but first of all i have to thank my colleague thank you very much nermeen thank you russia tomorrow is another day with another proof it will only online tv [Music] you

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