Rise Up Summit a Vibrant Entrepreneurial Community

Rise Up summit is Egypt’s largest entrepreneurship summit, it took place on November 24 and 25 at the heart of Cairo “American University Greek Campus in Tahrir Square” gathering entrepreneurs, business owners and young ideas along with whole Egypt startup ecosystem in one place, to provide opportunities for startups and linking entrepreneurs with investors.

Opening ceremony on November 24 started by introducing the key organizers behind #riseup13

Abdel hameed sharara

Abdel hameed sharara

Abdel Hameed Sharara, the founder of Rise Up Egypt said that the most important thing sought by the summit is to look for the best ways to reach a better society, and to improve the standard of living in Egypt, through the adoption of major companies for young entrepreneurs and help them start to apply their ideas. After the summit, he is planning to tour Egypt’s governorates and expand the event to become RiseUp MiddleEast or even RiseUp Africa.

Ahmed El Alfi

Ahmed El Alfi

 Ahmed El Alfi Flat6 Labs Founder and Sawari Ventures Chairman he is funding the new GrEEK Campus where the event took place he said: he is planning to change the Campus in the coming years, by turning the facility into Egypt’s very own Silicon Valley. “In 2 – 3 years, this will be the Arab World’s and Africa’s entrepreneurship headquarter; and since RiseUp Summit is aiming at the same goals as we are, we are proud to host it here,” El Alfi also explained that the location of the venue is very convenient, since half of Egypt’s population (40 million people) are able to reach it in about an hour and a half.    

Event highlights: 

This event is highlighting that Egypt has the capacity to go through the necessary alteration to develop the entrepreneurial community, regardless of the present political, economic and social barriers.

Engineer Atef Helmy - MIT-Enterprise-Forum-Discussion-Panel

Engineer Atef Helmy – MIT-Enterprise-Forum-Discussion-Panel

Engineer Atef Helmy, Minister of Communications and Information Technology participated in an opening discussion panel where he talked about the National Strategy for Communications and Information culture of entrepreneurship in Egypt, and the four programs  applied in universities for the development of this concept for the rehabilitation of its graduates for working life and creativity in their field.  

The MIT Enterprise Forum was a great input at the summit, through the one-hour panel discussions about challenges facing entrepreneurs in Egypt. Hala Fadel, the Chair of MIT Enterprise Forum in the Pan-Arab Region, believes that Egypt has courage, energy and great ideas – a combination that the RiseUp Summit has embodied and used efficiently to connect entrepreneurs on a wide scale.

Pointing the importance of education, the American University in Cairo’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program was also a key organizer of the summit. “Egypt’s future lies in its education and private sector,” Dr. Sherif Kamel, the dean of AUC’s School of Business stated at the press conference of the preopening of Rise Up Summit

The Greek campus is packed with some great entrepreneurs - Injaz Trade Fair

The Greek campus is packed with some great entrepreneurs – Injaz Trade Fair

More than 2,000 entrepreneurs attended the summit and showcased their projects, aiming to catch the attention of investors and professionals to attain the funding needed to bring their ideas to life. They had the opportunity to network, discuss and listen to Keynote speakers sharing their success stories also participants had the opportunity to join professional workshops. 

The event featured a mixture of keynotes: 

  • Cairo Angels Pitch 8 to 10 startup teams at Rise Up Summit were given the chance to pitch behind closed-doors to gain invaluable feedback, and possibly investment.
  • MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab Region Panel Discussions Panel moderated by an individual with relevant experience with diverse experts to answer audience about the many challenges that face entrepreneurs and organizations working in entrepreneurship in Egypt
  • Wamda’s “Pitch N’ Mentor” Entrepreneurs joined breakout groups with experts to learn how to perfect their 1-minute elevator pitch for both investors and the media.
  • Pitch and Ride PitchNRide is one of the highlights of RiseUp. This unique event puts an entrepreneur in the back seat of a cab with an investor. The entrepreneur does not know who the investor is until they get in the cab. They have exactly the time it takes for the cab to circle Tahrir Square to make their pitch. No presentations, just their skills to convey the idea and engage the investor.
  • Rise a Thon Where the real action happens during the Rise Up Summit! In this unique hands-on workshop, teams to build new products in less than 2 days to solve a number of challenges
  • Trade Fair by Injaz Egypt Injaz- Egypt in collaboration with RiseUp Egypt provided 50 booths for already established start-ups to showcase their products and services
  • Mini Workshops by FLAT6LABS The mini-workshops is a series aiming at solving startups challenges through the case study method.
  • Enspire by Endeavour Egypt The Enspire series are a series aimed at igniting inspiration and motivation through revealing successful entrepreneurial endeavors.

Interact participation 

Fady Ramzy CM of Interact Egypt at Enspire Talk Stage

Fady Ramzy CM of Interact Egypt at Enspire Talk Stage

Our CM Fady Ramzy was one of the speakers at #enspiretalk he presented sharp advises to digital entrepreneurs through also the inspiring success story of Interact Egypt and how it all started over linkedin. And he highlighted the massive social media tools we have today and the best way to use it. In the closeting ceremony he also announced the digital media academy opening next January 2013.

Live Streaming Views

Live Streaming Views

Interact Egypt proudly provided the live streaming service for the Rise Up Summit broadcasting the event to the world over the web to different devices and smart phones. It attracted more than 2,000 viewers to the live stream embedded on different websites. Interact Egypt provided Riseup with a turn-key solution that included the capturing devices, encoders and cloud streaming servers.

Interact Egypt team provided all the required professional services to run smoothly the streaming where we also streamed different activities from the event to the whole world and therefore we streamed the MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab Region Panel Discussions, an Enspire talk by Endeavour and a debate about funding held by Ra2ed A3mal. You can check the video archive.

The closing ceremony in the evening of 25 November began with a Google Hangout connecting 20 Arab entrepreneurs located in different countries around the world to share their experience with the attendees of the summit in Egypt. The Hangout was managed from London by Hala Fadel, the Chair of MIT Enterprise Forum in the Pan-Arab Region.

Talaat Harb 5 D Reincarnation

Talaat Harb 5 D Reincarnation

And the biggest surprise at the closing ceremony was a 5 D Reincarnation of Talaat Harb Egypt’s pioneer economist and entrepreneur giving a beautiful speech urging youth to rise up.

The Hashtag #riseup13 generated a great engagement as people were posting pictures and feedback during and after the event and we collected some lovely pictures from #riseup13 on our flicker account

 

Network Operators in Egypt & Their Social Media Influence!

In an attempt to measure the social media performance and influence of the major three network operators in Egypt; Vodafone, Mobinil and Etisalat, Interact Egypt has created a tiny report showing this kind of measurement, bringing it ahead to further highlight the importance of the social media activity for a brand a product or a service.

It shows in the report that Vodafone has the highest percentage of social media activity and influence.. followed by Etisalat and then Mobinil.

 

Social Media & The Japanese Tsunami!

How Social Media Networks helped Japan in it’s crisis!

On the 11th of March, 2011, Japan has been exposed to one of the greatest disasters in it’s history!
An earthquake ravaging it, and followed by a Tsunami. It was the 7th most powerful earthquake in the recorded history!

The Social Media Reaction!
An earthquake is not a new disaster in Japan. It’s perhaps the rapid social media reaction that was new.
Since the beginning of 2011, Social media has been proving an enormous success in connecting people extensively in times of crisis. Social Media communications have reached their peak across the Arab world with all it’s happenings, and especially Egypt; you can check the report on how social media was of such a great influence in Egypt, the Egyptians and on driving the Egyptian Revolution.

The Internet was the only way out for what seemed to be drowning country!
Social Media  has been widely used for people to act, react and share something or everything  going on the scene, reaching to the Japanese natural disaster, too! People leaned heavily on the social media networks and platforms to find one another in Japan, after means of communications, specially, electricity supplies were cut!

“While the earthquake knocked out electricity supplies and shut down two nuclear power plants, Internet availability remains relatively unaffected, according to a blog post from Internet monitoring company Renesys”.  (Reconnecting Japan: Mashable)

There is a slideshare presentation about what happened in Japan, which is another way of utilizing social media for a cause “Japan’s Earthquake”

Facebook

Of course, Facebook was another social media resort for the Japanese, as a means

of  clutching at hopes to find their beloved ones. They have used “Facebook stories” to exchange their stories and find one another. “Some shared stories of connecting with loved ones using the platform are on the Facebook stories page”.

“The social network counted 4.5 million status updates from 3.8 million users across the world on March 11 that mentioned “Japan,” “earthquake” or “tsunami.” – mashable. You can check the map of the countries around the world mentioning Japan as a slideshow.

Not only that but also Causes were created on Facebook to help the Japanese people out of their crises, such as Help Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami Victims, and Save the Children’s Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund.

Twitter

Online Media coverage of the Japanese tsunami – Twitter Comes Handy!

According to Twit-o-meter , after  the tsunami hit japan knocking down the phone systems,  tweets coming from Tokyo exceeded the 1200 per minute. “In a message sent Friday from the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo to U.S. citizens in Japan, the Embassy encouraged Americans “to continue your efforts to be in contact with your loved one(s) using SMS texting and other social media (e.g.,FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) that your loved one(s) may use.”

The most famous Hashtags that were used on twitter for japan were #Japan #Tsunami and  #prayforjapan
#Japan – 500 tweets generated 1,028,742 impressions, reaching an audience of 928,772 followers within the past 24 hours.
Tsunami – 500 tweets generated 1,443,972 impressions, reaching an audience of 1,098,897 followers within the past 24 hours. According to BrandMentions (a new social media tracker).

Sources: Twitter
BrandMentions