Product person who is passionate in building, developing products, and managing them till they get to the market with high satisfaction for the clients.

I work for startups, and I believe with my diverse skillset and that with the startups resources power, I can help them to achieve their products to lead the addressable market with efficiency and sustainability.

I am a member with Global Shapers Community in Ramallah Hub, it’s a network of young people driving change, it’s an addition to the World Economic Forum.

I love helping youth and empowering them in different sectors specifically in leadership, supporting women and girls too.

Last but not least I enjoy spreading positivity around! 🙂

Nablus Hub Curator

Gaza Hub Curator

Dubai Hub Curator

Tamara Kleibo has a demonstrated history of working in the banking industry. She joined the Bank of Palestine in 2016 as an International Relations Officer. In her current position, she heads the International Relations and Strategic Partnerships department. She is focusing on enhancing and accelerating partnerships with the International and Local organizations in the community. She is responsible for the quality, growth, and effectiveness of the bank’s relationships with its stakeholders, partners, and clients by ensuring that the Bank’s services and strategic interventions are delivered in alignment with the partner’s objectives and key strategies. She helps the bank deal with strategic issues facing its operations with various international and regional stakeholders.

Tamara is a graduate of Birzeit University, with a BA in Business and Economics. Her thesis focused on Women’s Economic Empowerment; the effect of micro financing on women-led businesses.

She is a member of the World Economic Forum under the “Global Shapers” and is leading the East-Jerusalem Hub as the current Curator. She is also a member of the Steering Committee for the first and most prominent International Conference on Entrepreneurship in Palestine(ICEP).

Skilled in Strategy Planning, Analytical Skills, Management, leadership, and Partnerships. A strong believer in serving the community as part of the social responsibility.

Endlessly curious self-starter, leveraging innovation and co-ideation to address the world’s most pressing challenges. Currently designing and implementing innovation programs on behalf of a one of a kind government entity focused on advancing early childhood development.
In parallel, reimagining how people connect and create compounding value in the tech startup space.
Avid polo player and scuba diver.

Marwan Tarazi is the Director of the Center for Continuing Education (CCE) at Birzeit University. The mission of CCE is institutional capacity building with a focus on educational reform and community empowerment. For over a decade, CCE has been spearheading learning innovation in Palestine.

Marwan lived in North America in the 1980s and early 90s. Upon his return to the Middle East, he was struck by the alarming status of education in the region and the seeming hopelessness of reforming it. He recognized that the only solution is through innovation and outside-the-box designs built for the local context and engineered to work with the available capacities and resources.

To tackle this challenge, Marwan co-founded the Unit for Learning Innovation at CCE in 2003. Since then, the unit has been researching, developing and constructing innovative educational models. It has implemented over 50 programs and projects in partnership with key educational stakeholders including schools, universities, community partners, the Ministry of Education, Cisco, UNRWA and UNICEF. These projects have culminated in the current Schools.21 program, a multifaceted education re-development program designed to transform schools into model 21st-century schools. The program is currently being implemented in 10 schools in East Jerusalem.

One of the primary elements of Schools.21 is the Learning Objects Bank (xLOBs) , an open learning initiative that intelligently encapsulates modern learning paradigms into the existing educational system, a necessary interim step for achieving systemic change and reform. Another element is community mobilization leading to community-driven educational initiatives and support.

My work is about harnessing knowledge and enthusiasm about the future. I lead capable teams to achieve this through partnerships and collaboration, with an eye to real and practical impact.

Over the past 18 years I have managed complex projects related to anticipating and understanding change in technology, sustainability, international development, organisational management, and more.

I sit on various advisory boards/groups:
* Courts of Space working group
* UNESCO-DFF Futures Literacy Hub working group,
* Museum of the Future Creative working group.

Sami Khoreibi is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor with a track record of successfully founding and exiting businesses across multiple sectors and geographies.

Sami is the founder and CEO of Incubayt Investments Ltd, a Dubai-based platform focused on partnerships and investments at the intersection of sustainability and technology. Incubayt has made 18 investments, providing their 360-degree in-house support team to help Founders scale their ideas. Through Incubayt, Sami is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Wisewell; a sustainable technology company focused on disrupting the way we drink and deliver water.

Before establishing Incubayt, Sami founded the solar energy company Enviromena Power Systems. During his eleven years as CEO, Enviromena built the leading team of solar experts across MENA, with over USD$700 million in projects in nine countries. In 2017, Sami led the sale of the company to a UK-based Pension Fund.

Before Enviromena, Sami established Candax Energy, a Toronto-headquartered upstream oil and gas company producing assets in Tunisia. In 2006, Candax Energy had a successful IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Sami is also active in the Food, Beverage, and Hospitality sector and has developed six brands and fifteen outlets throughout Dubai and Abu Dhabi. He has successfully sold his portfolio of outlets and continues to advise brands and concepts looking to enter the MENA market.

Throughout his career, Sami has received many awards and recognitions. These include being named by MIT Technology Review as one of the “top 5 Arab innovators under 35”, by Arabian Business Magazine as one of the “Top 40 under 40” business leaders in the Middle East, as well as being appointed a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Yousef Habesch is the IFC’s Resident Representative in the West Bank and Gaza. IFC, a sister organization of the World Bank and member the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets.

Manager of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit

Tala Al Jabri is an investor in high impact early-stage technology companies in emerging markets. Previously, Tala was a strategy and finance advisor and has worked across the Middle East, Africa and North America. She obtained her MBA from The Wharton School and Master in Public Administration from Harvard University.

Prior to joining Levari, Hisham was the managing partner of a family-run firm based in Amman, Jordan with affiliate offices in Washington, DC. Today, Hisham brings in some of the largest and most prominent private equity, venture capital, banking, and other institutional clients throughout MENA to the Levari family.

As a seasoned corporate lawyer with almost fifteen years of experience in the Middle East, Hisham represents a wide range of international and MENA-based clients, including some of the leading venture capital and private equity firms in the Middle East. To date, he has successfully closed over 200 M&A and corporate transactions representing numerous funds and corporations throughout the MENA region, the U.S., the U.K., and Europe. Several of these deals include multi-million-dollar Series A and B transactions. He also assisted in forming over 30 venture capital and private equity funds over the course of his career.

Finally, Hisham also heads Levari’s international tax practice and tax structuring that specializes in advising multinationals, investors, and high-net-worth individuals on their most challenging tax issues, developing bespoke solutions for effective long-term tax strategies.

Hisham is a published scholar in major U.S. law reviews and has launched several pro-bono clinics for MENA startups in Jordan, West Bank, and Egypt. He also serves as pro-bono counsel to several medical non-profits in the region including the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.

He was admitted to the District of Columbia, June 2008, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, March 2013, and Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, (pending). He holds an LLM from the New York University School of Law, a JD from the University of Iowa College of Law, and a BA from the University of Virginia.

He is fluent in Arabic and English.

CEO, Reach International Holding

Ambar Amleh is a Managing Partner at Palestine’s only active startup investment fund, Ibtikar Fund, a fund that she championed and helped design, structure and fundraise. Ibtikar fills a critical funding gap faced by Palestinian entrepreneurs between seed and VC.

For the past nine years, Ambar has been directly involved in supporting Palestinian entrepreneurs. As the program manager for Palestine for a New Beginning (PNB), a Palestinian non-profit company focused on entrepreneurial development, Ambar grew PNB from an idea and a loose and small board leadership to an established Palestinian institution. Through PNB, Ambar organized the yearly Celebration of Innovation, a Palestine-wide competition of entrepreneurs, and the follow-up support to these entrepreneurs; as well as Global Entrepreneurship Week in Palestine.

Ambar was named as one of the “50 Most Influential Women in the Arab World” by CEO Middle East Magazine and “20 Women VCs of MENA” by MENAbytes.

Ambar has an international MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a Marketing degree from Arizona State University. She is a member of the 23rd Class of Kauffman Fellows.

Founder & Chairman – JEST, CEO – Coolnet

Hani Alami, CEO of Coolnet, has more than twenty years’ national and regional experience in telecommunications, with a warm perceptive heart to technology and entrepreneurship.

Since 2009, with Hani at the helm of Coolnet Broadband Solutions, it has become one of the largest wireless-based broadband service providers in Palestine and a leading telecom solutions provider in the field of broadband and communication technologies, branching out to several locations in both the developed and developing world.

Prior to founding and leading Coolnet, Hani assumed numerous senior positions in major national companies in the PNA, the Middle East and various emerging markets. He worked with Motorola Two way Radio Division (MCIL) where he executed a number of telecom projects for prominent world-class clients under the Two-Way Radio Division and Paging Systems.

An experienced enthusiast Alami excels at creating blue oceans, identifying key characteristics and the unique personality and “flavor” of an initiative, and then rolling out to a smooth Go-To strategy. His career of successful business exits in the technology sectors, gave Alami an ability to overview and steer management decisions through disorders, stress and challenging projects.
Hani routinely contributes his time and experience as a mentor, steering committee member or consultant for multiple initiatives across Palestine and Israel.

He is currently establishing JEST (Jerusalem Entrepreneurs Society Technology), the first entrepreneurship center and tech hub for startups in East Jerusalem, as a philanthropic venture. This came to reality after his last success in acquiring Alvarion (NASDAQ:ALVR) into Coolnet group as a high end telecom equipment manufacturer.

Dr Mona Nabil Demaidi is an entrepreneur and women’s rights advocate. She obtained her PhD in Advanced Software Engineering and Machine Learning, MSc with distinction in Software Engineering and Data Management from the University of Manchester, UK. Dr Mona joined An- Najah National University in 2016, to become the youngest female with a PhD certificate at the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology. Her research focuses on building personalized learning environments using machine learning. She published six journal papers and a book on building eLearning platforms using machine learning, and obtained three research awards. Besides her academic work, Dr Mona is an active member of several societies which globally support youth and women in the technology sector. She has been a board member with Women in Engineering and Arab Women in computing since 2014. In 2017 she became the first female chair for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in Palestine and was awarded the senior membership from IEEE to become the first woman to obtain such an award. Dr Mona’s ambition to help Palestinian women was not limited to Palestine or the MENA region, she was keen to find opportunities to improve the network for Palestinian women and help them connect with the rest of the world. Therefore, in 2019, Dr Mona became the Co-Managing Director for Girls in Tech in Palestine which is the first chapter in the MENA region.
In addition to supporting women in Palestine, Dr Mona is highly involved in the Palestinian startup ecosystem, she consulted for several startups to improve their nascent ideas and expansion. Moreover, she participated as an advisory board member for several incubators and accelerators in Palestine, and judged at several local and international entrepreneurship competitions. In 2019, Dr. Mona was selected to represent the Palestinian women in the International Visitor Leadership Program – IT entrepreneurship. Also, on the volunteering front, but closely tied to industry and education, Dr Mona served as the Chairwomen of the first Palestinian IEEE Women in Engineering Leadership Conference. Currently, Dr Mona is leading two startups that aim to reshape the startup ecosystems in Palestine. The first startup is VTech Road which is the first arabic innovation platform in the MENA region. The second startup is Guardian-A which is a holistic high tech mobile application, offering an accessible and customizable product to ensure women’s sextual health and saftey through prevention, emergency and support services.

Investor at Kingsway Capital

Co-founder and CEO of Xina AI, the world’s first Arabic voice conversational platform. With over 10 years of entrepreneurial experience in technology and innovation, Sari currently leads Xina’s product development and regional business expansion. During his diverse career, Sari was awarded and recognized multiple times including the Ernest and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and was recognized by Forbes for having one of the Middle East’s most promising.

Co-Founder, Jobify Global

Leading the most efficient tools for machine learning and computer vision to turn assets into high quality training data.

Ahmad is CEO and founder at Algebra Intelligence. He has 15 years of experience in the area of renewable energy especially in wind and solar energy. Moreover, Ahmad is a member of the Jordan Engineers Association (JEA) as a Mechatronics engineer and he holds two master’s degrees, one in Master of Business Administration and the second one in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.

Founder & CEO at Tawazon – The #1 Arabic language meditation app

Founder and CEO of “Tawazon” the #1st Meditation & Mindfulness App in Arabic language #TawazonApp, which seeks to improve the daily life of the Arab person & families via daily, short and scientifically proven meditation & mindfulness sessions.

An eager and dynamic momentreprener with a “can do” attitude.

My passion is combining technology, business and social, which is my motivation engine. I do it by using science and technology in order to serve humanity.

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND: studied Chemical Engineering, and worked in the field as product & account manager for 13 years.

MY CAREER VOYAGE & ENLIGHTENMENT MOMENT:
After working for several years in the field of Chemical Engineering, I decided to follow my dream and launch Tawazon (balance, in Arabic) to help improve the awareness for mental and social health in the MENA region, including among children, on a daily basis, and using advanced technology.

In November 2018, I began developing Tawazon with a small group of Computer Engineers, Head Psychologists, and Meditation experts and launched the first version of the application in October 2019.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• In the first version of #Tawazonapp, after only three months into the soft launch, Tawazon has reached thousands of downloads with nearly 70 percent of users using the app more than once per week!

• A leading Arabic momtrepreneur influencing thousands of women and families in the Middle East and the Arab world.

• #TawazonApp won #1 place in an MIT competition and is heading to Riyadh in March 2020 for the final competition. And won @Hub71 AbuDhabi Accelerator.

• Invited to take part of Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative #Wefisummit in Dubai Feb 2020.

WHY Tawazon – Mindfulness Meditation IN ARABIC
1. Focusing on developing and recording meditation sessions in the Arabic language which are suitable for the state of mind of Arab communities around the world.
2. Scientifically proven – our meditation sessions work.
3. Meeting the many daily challenges faced by the Arab person such as anxiety, tension, lack of peace of mind and inner peace makes the app a tool that is very helpful, modern and easy to access.

Founder and CEO at GoMake Ltd.

VC Investment Officer, IFC, Dubai

Co-Founder, Marketing Manager at Vatrin

Being a millennial made me spend half of my day on Social Media platforms. I decided to monetize this time and started analyzing people’s/customers behaviors on social media platforms and create visual and written creative content that drives sales and engagement based on them.

Knowing a bit in photoshop, illustrator, adobe premiere, SEO and social media trends saved me some bucks $$$ when I co-founded my e-commerce company, Vatrin (one of the top 3 e-commerce websites in Palestine).

I have a keen eye for detail, and I appreciate neatly UI/UX designed websites. And trust me, I didn’t learn this the easy fun way, all of this came after I was part of developing 3 different websites for Vatrin, and I am still keen to learn more.

Im really good in Social Media Marketing, Online ads, Visual/Written Content Creation, SEO content, and Influencer Marketing.

Chief Executive Officer at 360Moms

As an Arab parent, I struggled to find trusted online parenting & health expertise advice in our region, I felt that it was my responsibly to tackle this problem, not only for the sake of mothers, but also for the sake of the future of our children. In 2016 I launched 360Moms; an online parenting platform that aims to revolutionize the digital support offered to parents.

I passionately believe in women empowerment, and in how much women can achieve when they just believe in themselves.

I enjoy reading, working out, and spending time with my kids.

Most e-commerce stores struggle to grow their sales and improve conversions, at Gamiphy we built a platform to turn the traditional online shopping into a social and rewarding experience, boosting conversion rates and increasing sales

🚀 Our solution has a direct effect on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) boosting it by 38% which is measured by

✔ Customer frequency
✔ Basket size
✔ Lifetime duration of customers

CEO @ Mashvisor

Results-oriented and highly effective business professional with Management, Sales, Business Development, Marketing and Account Management accomplishments backed by a relentless drive to succeed. Experienced in successful development and implementation of sales plans.

Proven track record with high-level relationship building, effective prospecting, innovation and aggressive, out-of-the box strategic thinking. Consistently delivers results across all performance metrics, while maintaining the respect and devotion of professional peers.

Specialties:
• Strategic Sales
• Social Networking Strategy
• Marketing strategy
• Inside Sales Expertise
• Business development
• Strategic positioning
• Social Prospecting & Selling
• Agency Relationships

Industries:
• Telecommunication & Technology
• Financial & Insurance
• Retail
• CPG

I’m a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where I focus on corporate finance, strategy, and transformations.

I bring more than 20 years of experience across industries and geographies, including the US, Europe, GCC, and Asia, helping organizations achieve their full potential though holistic interventions in strategy, performance, and health.

Most recently, I have been helping my clients transform their core business, re-invent their business models, digitize their operations, and build new businesses. I love working with ambitious people of all walks of life, to imagine a better way to do business and serve society.

I am also passionate about improving board and company governance across the region, and am actively involved in the GCC Board of Directors Institute (GCC BDI), for which McKinsey is a founding member. Before joining McKinsey, I held leadership roles with the London 2012 Olympics and Bechtel, a global engineering firm.

Proud husband and father of two beautiful kids.

Maher Awartani has over 15 years of experience advising leading companies in Financial Services, Telecom & Technology, Consumer Goods, Retail and Private Equity across MENA and North America. His areas of expertise include strategy formulation, capital allocation, transaction support, performance improvement and value creation. Over the span of his career, he has helped leading Private Equity investors and Sovereign Wealth Funds define and implement investment strategies in line with their strategic objectives. Moreover, he has supported these investors through some of their largest and most complex transactions.

In addition to his work in strategy and investments, Awartani has partnered with three Fortune 500 companies in the US, helping them rethink their operating models and drive large-scale transformations that resulted in substantial operational efficiencies.

Prior to joining APIC, Awartani was a principal at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in New York. Before that he spent over five years with Booz & Company MENA and completed a short stint with Goldman Sachs sales and trading in Dubai.

Awartani holds a graduate degree in finance and economics from Columbia University in New York and a Bachelor’s degree in Information Science and Economics from Hartwick College of New York and Georgetown University.

Self-motivated and client service-oriented with over 20 years of professional experience in the area of operations in private sector services; maintaining investor relations, international development in areas of health, export development and promotion, and creating MENA region and international market linkages for tech-enabled start-ups and innovative SMEs.

Since 2001, with a growing presence across four countries, ITG has provided consistent excellence and unwavering dependability in the software services industry. ITG’s core competency is full life cycle development of digital commerce solutions: User experience consultation and execution, platform customization inclusive of business tooling, tagging libraries, payment processing implementations, enterprise services architecture planning and order management systems integration. ITG powers digital commerce solutions and 24 by 7 site operations for the world’s largest retailers, with thought-leader expertise on several platforms – Fabric, HCL Commerce, Hybris, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Magento and .NET. We’re also well versed in designing and implementing custom software solutions which adhere to Gartner top rated strategies. Employing a highly iterative agile development methodology which engages the customer through all phases of the software development process ensures the integrity of your organization’s vision is maintained, maximizing the return on your IT investment. ITG presents a value proposition which gives our customers a tangible, competitive advantage by providing experienced, passionate engineers who live and breathe software engineering as well as customer satisfaction.

Khaldoon Bushnaq is a Co-Founder at Alma Health. He attended the University of Cambridge.

Rateb is the Founder and Managing Director of Intersect Innovation Hub, First Fintech Hub in Palestine, and the Founding Curator of the Global Shapers East Jerusalem Community Chapter-a World Economic Forum initiative spread across 439 cities around the world with 9725 Shaper members that are dedicated to shaping their cities to a better future with a focus on social impact initiatives in 150 countries around the world.

Sharif El-Badawi is the Chief Executive Officer of the Dubai Future District Fund. He previously worked at 500 Startups as a Partner. Sharif El-Badawi attended the University of California, Los Angeles.

Tammer Qaddumi is a founding partner of VentureSouq, an equity funding platform for early stage companies. Qaddumi is also Vice President of Private Equity at Waha Capital, a diversified investment company based in Abu Dhabi with assets of c.$3 billion. Prior to joining Waha, he worked with UBS and HSBC in New York and Dubai, respectively. Qaddumi previously served as a Fulbright Scholar in Damascus, Syria and worked with the Office of Presidential Personnel at the White House in Washington, D.C. He serves on the Board of Directors of Addax Bank in Bahrain and of the Yale Arab Alumni Association.

Habib has a track record of over 25 years as a business pioneer in the Middle East and worldwide. Throughout this rich career as an attorney, strategy consultant and venture capitalist he demonstrated excellence, leadership and innovation that accelerated the growth of the hi-tech and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Palestine and among Palestinians.

Habib co-founded Ibtikar Fund 1 in 2016, including establishment and fundraising, and actively managed its portfolio of 26 startups.

Prior to joining Ibtikar, Habib was the Co-Founder and Managing General Partner of Al-Bawader, of Pitango Group, a first of its kind USD 50 million venture capital fund investing in Palestinian founders. Prior to that Habib assumed leadership roles at McKinsey & Co.; the leading business strategy consulting firm worldwide. Habib focused on growth strategy projects for telecom and financial service clients. During this period he led non for profit organizations targeting diversity among Israeli hi-tech firms with the goal to integrate Palestinian citizens of Israel in their ranks.

Previously, Habib held consulting, strategic management and legal positions in Israel, the Palestinian territories and worldwide with IBM, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Adam Smith International and Elias D. Khoury Law offices. Habib has worked in the Middle East, Europe, the Americas and Africa and is well-regarded and connected in all these geographies.

Habib holds LL.B. and LL.M. degrees from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an MBA from Emory University in the US where he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship.

VC, PE and M&A Senior Executive responsible for over $5 billion in M&A transactions and $2 billion in capital raising. Comprehensive experience in corporate finance, restructuring and private equity in the US, Europe, India, the Middle East and Turkey. Transaction experience in ICT, Media, Telecom, Energy, Real Estate and Hospitality. Operational experience as an engineering project manager with one of the leading US Architecture & Engineering (A&E) firms.

Specialties: Merchant Banking, Venture Capital, Private Equity, Emerging Markets, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Finance, Restructuring, Media & Telecom, Energy, Real Estate and Hospitality.

Fares Ghandour, Partner, Early-Stage Investment Principal- is currently focused on executing the Fund’s seed stage strategy. He worked previously as Investment Manager at MVI and community manager at Wamda Platform. Fares has more than a dozen seed stage transactions executed including portfolio management and other operational support for keyMVI companies. At the Wamda Platform, Fares ran their flagship event Mix ‘N Mentor in 13 cities where entrepreneurs were introduced strategic mentors. Fares also organized the first MIT Media Lab workshop in the Region at twofour54.

World Economic Forum Managing Director responsible for global programming; also Head of Europe and Eurasia. As Managing Director, oversees the strategy and the organization of all large-scale Forum events. As the Head of Europe and Eurasia, leads overall Forum engagement with top government, business and civil society leaders from the region. Joined the Forum in 2007 as a Global Leadership Fellow. Prior to joining the Forum, worked on public diplomacy at the US Embassy in Baghdad. Previously, Director of the American Centre at the US Embassy in Prague. MA in International Studies from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom and a BA in Political Science from the Charles University in Prague. Also studied at Kuwait University. Speaks Arabic fluently and is a native Czech speaker.

Hashim Shawa joined Bank of Palestine as Chairman and General Manager in 2007 and has evolved the growth journey of the bank through expansion, inclusion, and digitization, actively developing the real economy of Palestine.

In her role as Executive Vice President of Operations, Alya Al Zarouni oversees a number of internal functions, including Information Technology, Procurement, Administration, Corporate Development, Government Relations, Government and Registry Services. Her prime objective is to ensure DIFC Authority’s internal operations are well aligned to support the delivery of the 2024 Strategy and objectives. She is also the head of DIFC Academy, which is based in DIFC and curates a full range of impactful, regionally relevant executive education programmes that are developed in partnership with internationally recognised business schools, professional development providers, and other training academies.

Prior to her current role, Ms. Al Zarouni held the position of Senior Vice President – Operations at DIFC Authority, and before that was Senior Vice President – Government & Registry Services for five years. In this capacity, she was responsible for driving the strategic direction across the organisations Government Services, Registrar of Companies and Registrar of Properties offices.

Before this, Ms. Al Zarouni worked with the Programme Management Office at DIFC Authority, where she rose from Assistant Manager to Director of Government Services Office. During her tenure, she partly managed and assisted project managers in handling a number of complex projects in the Centre. Ms. Al Zarouni earned both her BSc in Computer Science and MBA from the American University of Sharjah. She is a PMI Certified Project Management Professional (PMP), an LRQA certified ISO 9000:2000 Series Auditor/ Lead, and an LRQA Certified Internal QMS Auditor. Ms. Al Zarouni has also successfully completed the Young Leaders Program from the Mohammed bin Rashid Centre for Leadership Development.

A results-oriented, accomplished, and entrepreneurial Executive Director bringing in over 20 years of extensive experience and proven expertise in implementing business development plans to build strategic partnerships across government entities, start-ups, and global organizations. Over the course of his career, Saeed has a demonstrated history of developing, implementing, and managing programs that strengthen the company’s initiatives and enhance business performance.

Currently, Saeed is the Executive Director – Future Design and Acceleration at Dubai Future Foundation, an innovation ecosystem formed by the Dubai government to challenge the status-quo and design a future-ready city powered by innovators and disruptors. In this role, he leads the Dubai Future Accelerators (DFA), Area 2071, and Dubai Future Labs. Most notably, he spearheads the accelerator program that connects government entities with technology companies, start-ups, and entrepreneurs from all over the world to work closely with decision-makers in Dubai to tackle and solve current and future challenges through cutting-edge technologies such as AI, IoT, Blockchain, etc.

Taking part in shaping Dubai’s digital transformation, Saeed has a proven ability of building strong and constructive partnerships across a diverse range of stakeholders to facilitate collaboration and achieve transformational goals.

Prior to joining Dubai Future Foundation in 2018, Saeed served as the Executive Director of Retail and Strategic Alliances at Dubai Festivals & Retail Establishment (DFRE) of Dubai Tourism. As an excellent communicator with increased commercial acumen, Saeed led several departments such as Strategic Alliances and Sponsorships, Retail Permits, and Retail Promotions and Raffles that resulted in over 50M AED in revenues. He also played a key role in developing and rolling out Dubai’s Retail Calendar (DRC) in 2017 that introduced new shopping seasons. Additionally, he orchestrated massive promotional campaigns for the Dubai Gold and Jewellery Group (DGJG) and Dubai Shopping Malls Group (DSMG) that grossed over 700M AED in sales in 2016-2017.

Saeed earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Colorado and completed his Master’s in Information Technology from Bond University in Australia

An Information Technology professional with expertise focused on startups, technology infrastructure and collaboration platforms.

Khawaja Aftab Ahmed is IFC’s Regional Director for the Middle East, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. He leads the institution’s efforts to increase private sector participation in the region’s economy, helping to address the climate crisis, foster financial inclusion, and support fragile and conflict-affected situations.

Ahmed, a Pakistani national, has more than 30 years of development banking experience. At IFC, he has held several managerial positions, most recently serving as Director of Investment and Credit Risk. Before that, he led IFC’s work with financial institutions and private equity funds in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe, where he managed a $6 billion portfolio spread across 45 countries.

He has deep experience in frontier markets, where he helped to promote innovative financial instruments, including covered bonds and direct payment rights transactions. He also helped to build IFC’s Islamic financing business.

Ahmed has degrees in mechanical engineering and the law, and a Masters in Businesses Administration.

Usama Sadawi is the Palestinian State Minister of the newly established Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Empowerment.
He is in charge of setting the fundamentals and building the Palestinian entrepreneurial ecosystem with relevant stakeholders, with a specific mandate and focus on youth and women.