Egypt Fwd International Freelancer Contest (IFC) Success Story
This whole great story start when ITIDA, Udacity, and Freelancer.com have teamed up to create the first International Freelancing Contest (IFC 1.0) for the Egypt FWD freelancers. An endeavor to maximize the initiative’s graduates’ exposure to the worldwide community of companies and provide employers with sponsored opportunities to benefit from Egyptian youth’s talent and professional capabilities in hot tech sectors. So let’s start this great story from the beginning and talk about the Egypt FWD initiative first.
The Launch Of Future Work Is Digital — FWD Egypt:
The Egypt FWD initiative was hope, life, and a career for thousands of Egyptians in the past few months, Some of them lost their jobs after the pandemic, and it was like a lifeline for them. At that time, They needed other jobs instead of the jobs they lost due to the Covid-19 pandemic but they had no idea what to do next.
Egypt FWD is an 18-month scholarship program targets different segments of Egyptians between the age of 18–35, ranging from novices with no previous IT experience to professionals and advanced workers who are thriving to acquire remote tech work skills and practices in 3 technology specializations Web, Data and Digital Marketing,
Egypt FWD aiming to double the capacity of professional Egyptians active in remote tech work and maximize Egypt’s global competitiveness and ICT services exports.
Egypt FWD Initiative Goals :
1- Targets upskilling 100 thousand Egyptians through Udacity online learning platform in 3 technology specializations Web, Data, and Digital Marketing.
2- Sharpening their online portfolios and skills in remote work successful acquisition and delivery.
Why study and become one of the Egypt FWD community?
This free scholarship enables you to join the most demanded career paths and online jobs in the world! No matter your skill level, you will find a suitable path for you to master the relevant skills and progress in your career. It also gives you a lot of benefits like:
1- High-quality Industry-Relevant Content:
Udacity’s Nanodegree programs consist of the most up-to-date content in technology, co-created with top industry players, aimed to help you gain practical knowledge and skills for the future of jobs in an engaging, online classroom environment.
2- Hands-On Real-World Projects:
Students solve real-world problems via practitioner-level projects designed by industry experts. Students receive detailed project feedback from subject-matter experts and can instantly apply acquired, relevant skills to drive impact in their community.
3- Create a greatly supported Student Community:
As part of this program, students join a community of peer learners and are supported by a curated network of technical support and subject matter experts to directly assist them along their journey and ensure a seamless experience throughout the program.
Egypt FWD Initiative achievements:
1- provides the learners with an integrated learning and upskilling experience, which includes access to Udacity online learning classroom, hands-on-practice expert-reviewed projects, online support webinars, professional industry mentors, interactive peer-to-peer community, and continuous coaching.
2- Launching more than 5 Freelancing Partner Programs in partnership with top freelancing platforms. These 3-month programs support the participants through exclusive perks to support them in landing their first gig and to ensure that its alumni will be able to demonstrate their expertise and abilities gained through this scholarship like the partnership with Freelancer.com and launching “International freelancer contest (IFC)” which we will take about in more details later.
3- Egypt FWD received more than 305,000 submitted and evaluated applications in the past few months and 40,000 Egyptian youth upskilled on Freelancing.
4- Egypt FWD helped more than 10,600 students to join the Freelancing Marketplace and 3,000 of them Celebrated their gigs.
Egypt FWD Initiative success stories:
Over the past few months, thousands of Egyptians graduated from the program and more than 3000 of them celebrated securing their first gigs like these heroes in the next video.
From Engineering to Digital marketing and Beyond! — My journey through Egypt FWD Initiative:
I graduated from the faculty of Engineering and worked as a telecommunication engineering for a few months and also as a front-end web developer after I finished the military service. After months of thinking, I certainly couldn’t see myself working in engineering for decades, as many of my more senior colleagues had done.
At the time, I didn’t have any marketing experience, so getting a job would be difficult. I realized pretty quickly that I would need to demonstrate my interest in marketing by completing some form of recognized training.
That’s when I found the Egypt FWD ad. While searching for online marketing courses, the egFWD program really stood out due to its close partnerships with Udacity, breadth of program material, and utilization of real people to mark coursework and provide feedback. I looked at other course providers, but they just didn’t compare.
I enrolled and joined the August 2020 cohort. I instantly realized I had chosen the right program and industry when I couldn’t stop working my way through the course during my free time. I was devoting way more than the recommended 10 hours per week! I completed the Nanodegree program in less than 2 months.
I didn’t wait to finish the course before applying for marketing jobs. I knew after a few chapters and coursework assignments that I wanted to work in marketing, so why wait? I applied for a few entry-level marketing freelancing jobs but didn’t get many responses until a fateful day at the end of October when I was accepted in the freelancing partner program which egFWD make a partnership with freelancer.com to launch a 3-months program to support me and the other participants through exclusive perks to support us in landing our first gig.
After I secure some gigs on the freelancing platforms, I was also able to work remotely with some local businesses and brands and now I’m establishing my digital marketing agency.
I am extremely happy with my new career direction and don’t think I could have achieved it as fast as I did without the Egypt FWD initiative.
Egypt Fwd International Freelancer contest (IFC)
ITIDA, Udacity, and Freelancer.com joined forces to launch the first International Freelancing Contest (IFC 1.0) exclusively to the Egypt FWD community, More than 100 contests are available in Egypt FWD IFC 1.0, each of which represents a freelancing gig challenge sponsored by an international enterprise and is time-limited. At the end of each contest, freelancers submit their work for a chance to win one of several prizes.
Through Freelancer.com, the winning contestants will be monetarily rewarded by multinational employers. All candidates who submit genuine entries will be recognized by Freelancer.com, ITIDA, and Udacity.
The IFC Initiative has provided opportunities to work for Enterprise clients including IBM, Airbus, and Al-Futtaim, and others.
Freelancing Career Advantages And Challenges :
Working as a freelancer offers a sense of professional independence and several advantages, like independent time management and the ability to work from any location, regardless of industry. but it also comes with significant challenges that may hinder your progress as an emerging or established freelancing entity.
As skillsets increase and learning curves flatten due to the massive quantity of tools and information made available online to everyone with a passion for freelance, the competition intensifies, and getting quality freelance work becomes more difficult. With Egypt FWD and International Freelancing Contest (IFC), which is powered by the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Freelancer and Udacity, aspiring future freelancers may be confident that they will be prepared with the greatest tools and technologies to fight the toughest freelance markets following graduation.
Why should you join the International Freelancing Contest (IFC 1.0) As Soon As Possible?
1- IFC provides limitless contests provided by international employers like IBM, Alfuttaim, Airbus, and others., exclusively to Egypt FWD graduates.
2- IFC creates an active community group on the Freelancer.com Platform upon selection allows you to team up with other freelancers to jointly work and submit for special contests.
3- IFC allows the new freelancers to land their first GIG and stand out from the high competition with the whole freelancers on the freelancer platform and only compete with 2000 graduates who were successfully accepted on the IFC program.
4- IFC allows you to earn financial awards for top contests submission from $20 to $1000, high gig value up to $3000 for high talented freelancers also a good review upon winning a contest on your freelancer.com profile which will help you later to compete with other freelancers on this large market place!
5- IFC provides a contribution badge for valid submissions from Udacity & Freelancer.com.
AS an employer why should you join The IFC :
1- Work with high qualified Exclusively selected freelancers graduate of the Egypt FWD professional freelancing coaching program in partnership with Top Marketplaces.
2- Win $1000 to fund a contest on freelancer.com.
3- Select the best proposals and submissions to your contest.
Egypt FWD International Freelancer Contest (IFC) Achievements :
1- The IFC Initiative has allowed me to work for Enterprise clients such as IBM, Airbus, and Al Futtaim, as well as 14 top companies from around the world.
2- More than 2000 FWD graduates registered to take part in the initiative
3- Over 100 contests and 34 contests already launched.
4- Contests reward range between 20$ and 3000$
5- Over 50 prizes were granted in IBM contests.
6- Al Futtaim held competitions with over 120 awards.
7- There are 57 project-based opportunities, 34 contests, and more on the way!
8- One gifted developer was awarded a $3000 project with IBM to construct a chatbot to assist with cloud customer service.
9- Three freelancers were awarded projects to analyze tweets from social bots propagating misinformation on Twitter to prevent online hate.
My journey with (IFC) from zero to winning a 500$ contest and awarded on other 5 contests:
I started applying to contests, I had the opportunity to participate in several of the contests offered by the International Freelancing Contest (IFC 1.0) and my entry won a contest provided by IBM and this is how I got my first 5 stars review and accelerate my career as a professional freelancer and started earning money online.
I can honestly say I am loving every minute I spent on the egFWD program and the International Freelancer Contest (IFC), I’m really enjoying learning more about digital marketing and have these such great work opportunities with top international companies like IBM, Airbus,.. etc. The Nanodegree and the (IFC) program gave me the perfect foundation in digital marketing.
Conclusion:
In recent years, freelancing has become more popular than ever, with more than one-third of people pursuing it. If you’re considering breaking into the world of freelancing, whether as a side hustle, a part-time job, or a full-time job starting a freelance business, Egypt FWD and IFC are the right places to start.
Join FWD and (IFC) as soon as possible and start changing your life. Join Egypt’s largest community and network of freelancers and professionals today! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hone your tech and freelance talents. This program will help you learn new skills while also allowing you to earn money.
