To Rise or not To Rise!
On 14th of May, RiseUp team hosted the 1st of its series of networking #FoundersBreakfast — Was is good?
The target of #FoundersBreakfast or #RiseUpMeetup *Pls choose one name* is weekly effective networking among Egypt Entrepreneurs. The format is a fool cart breakfast, a talk then free pitching — currently open for all Greek Campus tenants plus external invite. They announced that it starts 9:00 but the fool guy decided it will kick off at 10:00!
The cool Con opened the event by explaining networking best practices, announced the Arkab eh team the first to arrive *making the ecosystem an early riser is a target*, then Andy Volk gave a talk on three personal learning and three things to remember as a developer on the Google platform — It was a cool talk. What really stuck on my mind are two things his colorful Madiba Shirt and its story and his emphasis that building a culture is as important as building a product. *Please keep in mind i am no longer a developer.*
After a plate of fool, a sandwich of ta3meya and a couple of hours surrounded by Egyptian buzz, Andy had a sparkle in his eyes — he told me: “I need to go back and share the Egypt story!” *Niiiiiice*
After the launch of its SME partner academy, Google is rumored to kick off officially in July the Android academy aiming to train 3000 talents. Last week, they soft launched using a shout out by the Google Student Ambassadors for an event named “Al Android” and *Wow* 4000+ registered and only 700 could be accepted to attend…Worth noting that Google Developers dedicated a new contact on the ground: Mohamed Hantirah, Program Manager, Developer Relations, MENAT Regional Lead at Google, so if you have any problems feel free to reach out to him!
Only one person really pitched, Waleed Abdel Rahman, he is an Egyptian living in Beirut, Managing Director of MIT Technology Review — Arab Edition. He pitched TRArab.org or TechReviewPanArab.com which is an in-depth tehcnology review magazine that is also available in Arabic. It is really cool, i recommend checking it!
I followed Con instructions and chose a table where i didn’t know everyone and we did a round of introduction so got fresh updates, established three new relevant connections and learned about a new cool Ebni Hardware Incubation headed by Tamer Ahmed who shared inspiring stories about their startups, stressing the strong advantage Egypt has in Electronics engineering and he even invited me to their demo day! I will never forget his words: نفسنا نبني في ام الدنيا ونصدر لكل الدنيا — *cheesy or not, he said it with real passion and it inspired me!*
I personally thought Founders breakfast was pretty good for a start. Three Comments: begin on time, have the line up of pitches ready and adjust the sound system.
And yeah, I choose to Rise! *my target is to win the tee-shirt in the upcoming breakfast!*
Pending Buzz Questions
Are you unhappy that RiseUp took over the *social* only Greek breakfast? Should it always be in GrEEK Campus? How do you get an invite if you are not a GrEEK resident?
If you wanna be an active community member, share feedback!
