The startup scene is thriving in Egypt.
Thanks to USAID, I got to see this firsthand. I was fortunate to spend a full week in Cairo and Alexandria immersing myself in the energy and optimism of a post revolution country. And I couldn’t have picked a better place. Nowhere was there more enthusiasm then in the meeting rooms of the Arab Academy of Science Technology & Maritime Transport during Startup Weekend.
Startup Weekends are 54 hour events where software developers, designers, and marketers come to share ideas, form teams and launch companies. In Alexandria, 300 students were selected from more than several thousand applicants to build and pitch their best startup idea to a panel of pretty elite judges like Ahmad Hamzawi from Google and Hanan Abdel Meguid from OTV Ventures (NYTimes just wrote a fantastic piece on her).
I spent most of my time in between two rooms of the university that housed about 50 teams. Looking around you’d think you were at a hackathon in downtown Palo Alto. The place was electric: students working in pods of four or five, buzzing around, hacking, eating, sleeping, arguing, and pitching each other. Everyone was on Facebook. Kebabs were a plenty. I couldn’t have felt more at home.
Saad Khan and I spoke to the students for about 30-40 minutes each before lunch. Saad is a friend of mine, and rockstar startup guy, venture capitalist and indy film enthusiast from San Francisco. Saad took the angle of a VC and I gave the perspective of an entrepreneur. I think it worked really well. We were followed by Habib Hadad, founder of Yamli.com, an arabic transliteration engine, and popular local entrepreneur who studied at USC and is now back in the Middle East igniting the region’s startup eco-system.
Out of the 50+ teams, most said they felt optimistic about the economic future of Egypt post revolution. However, while entrepreneurship is considered a major driver by many, including the US government who sent me there, the road is anything but easy. Participants cited legal issues, cultural resistance and lack of capital, as some of the main obstacles facing them. From what I saw, like most everyone else, I’m hopeful for change. It’s going to be these young entrepreneurs who will make it happen.
After two and half days of intense effort, it was time to watch the teams present. Most presentations focused on commerce, productivity and mobile apps. However, in the end, the unanimous winner and crowd favorite was Sweet Dreams, a site that lets parents reward their children with online gifts (like unlocking a new level of a game) for chores, homework completion and other achievements.
A major highlight for me actually happened before the winners were announced: while the judges were deliberating, all 300 participants rushed the stage, and celebrated completing the program…behind them fireworks went off outside lighting up the entire sky. What a way to end the night.
A very big thank you to Mike Ducker, the executive-in-residence for the Egypt Competitiveness Project, and Hashem Zahran and team, for hosting and giving me an experience I’ll never forget.
Here’s a great video trailer with footage from the event (you’ll get a great sense for the energy during the weekend!):