Selection and Participants
26 young digital leaders and entrepreneurs from the MENA region made it successfully through the programme.
Various countries were represented with 22% from Egypt, 15% from Iraq, 7% Libya, 7% Sudan,11% Morocco, 15% Syria, and 4% from each of the following countries Tunis, Palestine, Jordan, Oman, Turkey and 3% from Algeria (see Fig. 2)
Faces and Projects
Our Scholarship Awardees present their projects.
Ahmed Abdelaziz Mohamed Abdelaziz, Egypt
is an architect and multidisciplinary designer based in Cairo. Since 2011, he has been involved in many development, urban regeneration, and community-based projects. This led him to his recent venture Geeran, a digital platform that explores the citizen's decision-making and civil engagement in their cities.
Nacira Merbouh, Algeria
is a social activist and operation officer in the Amina project whose objective is to protect refugees and the rights of minors. Her personal project addresses the need in the health sector, through a digital application that assist emergency cases in need of hospitalization. She lives in Algiers.
Karwan Omer Mohammed Amin, Iraq
is an IT expert based in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. He graduated from the University of Sulaymaniyah at the Information Technology College. As a trainer he offers various IT courses especially on Microsoft programs. In his project, he connects patients to doctors by setting up a user-friendly application.
Nawras Abbes, Tunisia
is a Master student in Marine Ecology and Biology, currently completing her second year of research. She is a native of Tabarka and she is planning to initiate a virtual museum to promote environmental awareness.
Wiame El Amri, Morocco
studies International Trade in her fifth year at the National School of Business and Mangagement Oujda in Taza. In her project, Wiame will set up different digital training courses and strategies to reach out to the senior citizen communities and provide digital literacy.
Fatima-Zahra Mousli, Morocco
is a PhD Candidate at the Research Center on Water, Natural Resources, Environment and Sustainable Development at the University Mohammed V. in Rabat. She lives in Casablanca. She developed a project that uses artificial intelligence to monitor and predict water quality.
Shaimaa Khalfan Ahmed Saif Al Essai, Oman
is an academic researcher in the field of Digital Humanities and societies. Also, she is experienced in digital humanities and journalism. Her project focuses on visualizing voice characters for people with speech impairment and offers them an understanding of emotions in a visual content. She is based in Al Buraimi.
Ayman Mohamed Elhadi Mohamed Kudoda, Sudan
works as an Assistant Professor for physics and holds a PHD in Astrophysics from the University of the Witwatersrand. He is a researcher at various other universities and lives in Khartoum. His project idea is to initiate a Data Research Center in Sudan revolving around digital transformation.
Maha Elsayed Bahnassy Hassan, Egypt
is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Mass-Communication at the University of Cairo. She holds a PhD in Political Communication & Social Media, and her special field is digital literacy and commerce. Her project Dliteracy is a platform that provides knowledge about digital literacy to Gen Z in Egypt.
Maab Abas Esam Abdelrahim Abass, Sudan
is based in Khartoum and works for the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources of Sudan. Her academic background is in the field Electronics and Communication Engineering. Her project idea is to design a database for Sudan's water resources.
Samar Nabil Salem Abdelhakam Eldeeb, Egypt
currently works as Chemical and Environmental Engineer in the Egyptian environmental affairs agency, Alexandria. She holds a PhD in environmental studies. To raise environmental awareness and to confront climate change, Samar wants to establish a digital platform to promote circular economy.
Dana Omer Rashid, Iraq
is an entrepreneur and mechanical engineer, based in Sulaymaniyah. His project focuses on designing a platform specifically for traditional farmers to help boost their yields, plan strategically, and improve their earnings.
Amina Nabil Mohamed Khalil, Egypt
holds a double bachelor degree in economics and political science from the University of Paris Sorbonne and Cairo University. She is based in Cairo and works as an intern at the Egyptian Red Crescent. Her Project Dear Arab Women is a platform that gives women from the MENA region access to legal, economic, and social resources.
Nacira Merbouh, Algeria
graduated from Kurdistan University of Hawler with a bachelor degree in business administration. Sangar worked as a journalist and news reporter on current affairs on the Yezidis, the liberation of Mosul and the Syrian conflict. His project revolves around digitalization of media processes in Iraq and Kurdistan.
Hussam Eddin Alrefaie (Sam), Berlin
is a Syrian journalist and editor. Sam has been covering the Syrian uprising and the development of the Syrian crisis since 2013. He worked for the magazine zenith and several high-profile newspapers. In 2022, he started a new learning journey in Coding and Cybersecurity.
Fathia Mufti, Libya
is a civil engineer based in Benghazi. As a podcaster and TV anchor she moderates the show The Libyan Books on Al Wasat. She is also the CEO of the Zaza Centre for Culture and Development. Her project is a platform named The Libyan E-Archive that aims to provide information about contemporary Libyan history.
May Loaay Mohamed Elhadidi, Egypt
is a teaching assistant at the Department of Architectural Engineering as well as a master student at the Faculty of Engineering, at the University of Cairo. She has experience in sustainable architectural engineering and heritage conservation. Her project Yadawina is an online platform for marketing small crafts businesses in Egypt.
Luma Khalifah, Jordan
is a marketing and branding consultant based in Amman. As an administrative manager for the Women National Basketball team in Jordan, Luma came up with the idea of a digital platform that allows non-athletes and sports amateurs to connect easily to their favourite activities.
Wessam Essam Elssawy, Egypt
is a PhD holder and researcher at the Agricultural Engineering Research Institute and at the Agricultural Research Center (ARC). Wessam lives in Giza. Her project confronts the climate change challenges through introducing new agricultural technologies to overcome salinity in water and soil.
Nancy Al Kallas, Syria
holds a bachelor degree in Business Administration and worked in the banking sector of the United Arab Emirates. She is based in Hama. In her project, she aims to address the lack of experts in Syria by using a digital communication and connecting strategy.
Khabat Abbas, Syria
is a freelance journalist who has worked as a producer and fixer with some of the most influential foreign news outlets. She lives and works in Qamishli, Syria. Her project focuses on documenting the violations of humanitarian law during the war committed by the different parties.
Hussein Allawi Rashak, Iraq
is the CEO of LAMMA Art Production. He works as a freelancing photographer and a cameraman, based in Baghdad. Hussein wants to set up a documentary platform that documents the history and cultural heritage and credits the socio-political diversity in Iraq.
Ali Abdulgader Ali Abufayed, Libya
is based in Tripoli, Libya. Ali is a Software engineer currently working with International Organisation for Migration. His project focuses on building an interactive mobile-phone that offers roadside assistance services in Libya given the road blockages and lack of information and assistance.
Yasmin Kayali, Syria
is a Syrian architect as well as an interior and lighting designer. In her project, Yasmin sets up new typologies of living, thereby trying to convert abandoned places and buildings into sustainable forms of living. In that way she rethinks the use of public space. She is based in Dubai.
Esra Akkan, Turkey
from Istanbul and is a front-end developer, Social Media manager and a co-founder of the app Splace, that travels inside of places through videos shared by other users in real time. She has 5 years of social media and content management experience.
Samar Ahmed Hussein Abosaffia, Palestine
is an agricultural engineer in the Ministry of Agriculture of Palestine based in Gaza. She holds a degree in environment and earth sciences at the Islamic University. Her project aims at introducing modern agricultural technology and methods to address environmental issues.
Taha El Hadari
currently completes his PhD in Applied Linguistics. He develops a carpooling application to provide fair and flexible transportation services in Morocco. Taha lives in Rabat.
Publisher: Candid Foundation gGmbH Chausseestraße 11 D-10115 Berlin