‘What’s Next?’: my panel from The Shift 2026
I recently moderated a panel about how AI is affecting Egypt and the region across fintech, media, telecom, and venture capital. My panelists was made up of a number of
Technology
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“Going into a new market requires humility. You don’t know the market well, and you have to accept that.”
In this year-in-review episode, Hashem looks back on 2025 and what it actually took to open two restaurants in Riyadh in one year. It’s a conversation about
Our AI future, with Mo Gawdat, Tarek Nour, Omar Elsahy & Ramy Youssef
Last week, tech ethicist Dr. Mona Hamdy unpacked some of the philosophical and ethical elements of AI. This is a topic that has come up many times on What I
Dr. Mona Hamdy
The word AI gets bandied about by everyone in everything today, and I’ve been wanting to unpack the opportunities and challenges our future world holds for us. So I’
“I’m competing with white space”: Heba El Gabaly on designing the future
Heba El Gabaly, Founder and CEO of Efreshli, discusses her journey from corporate to entrepreneurship, scaling a tech-driven design-led business, and the importance of blending online and offline
Andrea Prazakova on the intersection of fintech and climate action
We’re joined on the episode by Andrea Prazakova, Senior Vice President at Mastercard Foundry and ESG for EEMEA. She’s also the co-founder of Space Uncensored, a podcast
“Design: If it’s well done, it’s an emotional experience.” Museum of the Future’s Brendan McGetrick on technology and curiosity as human experiences
The Lighthouse Conversations: Brendan McGetrick 0:00 / 0:00 1× 🧡This episode is brought to you by: MonViso, use code LIGHTHOUSE10 for a discount on your next purchase. Our guest
Mo Gawdat
Mo is the author of Solve for Happy, Scary Smart, and more recently, That Little Voice in Your Head. He’s also behind the One Billion Happy movement.
“I’ve always been a strong believer in offering financial services to the unbanked.” Mounir Nakhla on turbo-charging growth at Halan
Mounir shares snippets of his journey since 2017 when he was approached by Indonesian tech unicorn Gojek, then being struck by the pandemic in 2020 and what it meant for Halan’s growth.
“You can’t force a talent to go into production.” Cyril Zammit on Dubai’s evolving design landscape, the role of government support and the future of NFTs
We caught up with Cyril Zammit, design advisor and former director of Design Days Dubai.
“Food is an open ended problem, we’ll never perfect it.” Amir Allam, Founder of Elmenus on his obsession with problem solving & how he will meet his biggest challenge yet - building Elmenus to scale
On this week’s episode, Hashem caught up with Amir Allam, a fellow Egyptian and graduate of the infamous DEO, the German school in Cairo. Amir Allam is the Founder
“Investors look for traction and founder’s pedigree.” Ramy Adeeb shares his journey from computer science to building his own venture capital firm, 1984 Ventures
As fellow Egyptians and graduates of Harvard College in the 90s, Hashem and Ramy Adeeb initially shared a similar path that led them from Cairo to Cambridge, Massachusetts. We caught