Women Entrepreneurs Around The World Chapter 3: MENA
Our last stop was Asia, where we discovered some fascinating women! Our next chapter centres on some of the most innovative and captivating female entrepreneurs in the MENA region. Often associated with conflict and chaos, The Middle East and North Africa are flourishing with motivated and talented entrepreneurs. And contrary to some stereotypical beliefs, over a third of startups in the Middle East are run by women — a higher percentage than in Silicon Valley! From a Saudi Arabian gifted in biotechnology to a Yemeni girl creating solar-powered appliances, let’s explore the passion projects of these multi-talented ladies!
Hind Hobeika
Country: Lebanon
Founder of Instabeat
This is one of Lebanon’s most popular success stories. Hind Hobeika was a student in Mechanical Engineering at the American University of Beirut, also training for the university’s swimming team. She was frustrated not to be able to monitor her heart rate in an effective manner, which led her to create Instabeat: a startup that developed the first waterproof heads-up display for swimming. The goggles track, store and display instant feedback of the heart rate during the swim to optimize the training and achieve peak performance.
Founded in 2011 in Beirut, Instabeat was initially funded through a crowfunding campaign on Indiegogo. One of the leading seed investors in the region, Berytech Fund, then took over for the first round of funding. Today, Instabeat is shipping its first pre-ordered goggles manufactured in China!
Wafa Al Rimi
Country: Yemen
CEO of Creative Generation
Power outages are a very real issue in Yemen, which is why Wafa and a group of her peers decided to find a solution: solar-powered appliances. They presented their idea to Injaz Association, a non-profit organization funded by USAID with a branch in Yemen. Injaz loved the idea and supported the girls from the start, offering them a course in coordination with Yemen’s Ministry of Education to develop their project.
After coming up with the name Creative Generation and putting their plan into action, the girls came in first in two competitions for young entrepreneurs, one in Sana’a and one in Qatar. Their breakthrough funding came in the form of a $15,000 grant by MTN, a phone company. Today, clients include the Movenpick Hotel and Wafa received a special shout-out by Queen Rania of Jordan in a speech during her address to the World Future Energy Summit!
Yasmine El-Mehairy
Country: Egypt
Co-Founder & CEO of SuperMama
Supermama is the first online parenting community for mothers in the Arab World, addressing topics from pregnancy and parenting, to balancing households and careers, and even cooking advice. And the great thing about this website is that it isn’t exclusive to women alone — 10 to 15% of the visitors are men! This helps them better understand mothers and mothers-to-be.
Back in 2010, Yasmine searched for pregnancy advice for her sister-in-law, only to find conflicting opinions and antiquated views. Discovering a niche in the market, Yasmine, along with co-founders Zeinab Samir and Shereen El Sammaa, hit upon an idea for a site offering parenting advice that is checked by healthcare professionals. After entering and winning several competitions, including the NexGen IT Competition and Arabnet Cairo, the startup gained in traction and partnerships.
Hayat Sindi
Country: Saudi Arabia
Co-Founder and Director Diagnostics For All
Hayat learned English by moving to England alone, watching BBC news broadcasts and studying up to 20 hours a day for college entrance exams. This paid off as she was the first Saudi woman to be accepted at the prestigious Cambridge University in the male-dominated field of biotechnology. She went on to earn her Ph.D., teach in the international medical program, present work to the House of Commons, and become a visiting scholar at Harvard University.
Her passion and expertise led her to co-found Diagnostics For All, a non-profit fusing biotechnology and microfluidics, dedicated to creating low-cost and easy-to-use diagnostics designed specifically for the developing world that lives beyond the reach of urban hospitals and medical infrastructures. In 2010, Hayat was the winner of the Mekkah Al Mukaram prize for scientific innovation, given by HRH Prince Khaled Al-Faisal. She was also named a 2011 Emerging Explorer by the National Geographic Society.
Nazanin Daneshvar
Country: Iran
Co-Founder of Takhfifan
Techpreneurs in Iran all agree that one of the few benefits of sanctions have been the numerous opportunities to localize popular Western sites likes YouTube and Amazon. And Nazanin Daneshvar did just that by launching a deals website similar to Groupon. The site, Takhfifan.com, means “discount” in Farsi .
After obtaining a Masters degree in IT and working in a tech company in Germany, Nazanin returned to Iran a few years later with an entrepreneurial state of mind. With the help of her sister, Nazanin boot-strapped her venture and, being a woman, had to take her dad to the initial meetings! Today, the company has grown into a staff of 60, with deals in seven different cities and up to 4,000 coupons sold a day.
A relevant question to ponder on at this point is: What does the future hold for Iranian companies now that the sanctions have been lifted?
