The RiseUp Summit, Egypt’s largest gathering for the entrepreneurship ecosystem, will take place this year from October 12th – 14th at The GrEEK Campus in downtown Cairo, the organisers announced on Wednesday. The event is set to receive nearly 3000 attendees over the three days and will feature a range of renowned local, regional and international speakers. Announcing the details at the press conference were Abdelhameed Sharara, founder of the RiseUp Summit, Ahmed El Alfi, founder of The GrEEK Campus, Dina El Mofty, executive director for INJAZ Egypt, Heba Gamal, managing director for Endeavor Egypt, Steve Haley, CEO of MercyCorps, Ramez Mohamed, CEO of Flat6Labs and Catherina Ballout, operations director of the MIT Enterprise Forum for the Pan Arab region.
“In its second year, the RiseUp Summit is becoming the top event promoting a sustainable and collaborative entrepreneurship ecosystem,” said El Alfi. “Everyone involved is working towards a common goal: to help grow and develop entrepreneurship, innovation and to build a better environment to catalyze this growth. That’s what we do here at the GrEEk Campus, and that’s what we will all continue to do until Cairo becomes the entrepreneurial hub it has the potential to be.”
Over three days, the event will consist of twelve different tracks covering a diverse range of topics that address all the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, from financing to coworking spaces and from mentorship to marketing. The formats of the tracks will include keynote speeches by Dave McClure, founding partner of 500 Startups and Fadi Ghandour, founder and CEO of Aramex, as well as talks by Christopher Schroeder, the US-based internet entrepreneur and venture investor and Romy Sigl, one of Austria’s leading entrepreneurs and start-up evangelists.
“The commitment of many international speakers and investors at this year’s summit is a real testament to the huge potential of our youth and their entrepreneurial drive, and we can see the result of this from the founder of RiseUp being a graduate of one of our programs” said Dina El Mofty. “At INJAZ, empowerment is our aim. This is why we are collaborating with not just RiseUp, but everyone who is part of this ecosystem, in order to deliver real value and have real impact. We want to encourage existing entrepreneurs and young students alike to come together at this incredible gathering to partner, to learn, to discover and to be inspired.”
Commenting on the evolution of the entrepreneurship scene in Egypt, Heba Gamal said: “We, at Endeavor Egypt, have been working with entrepreneurs here since 2008 and one of the core challenges we see them facing all the time is finding opportunities to connect with more business partners, mentors and sources of knowledge. The RiseUp Summit is just the place for all of that, and it’s so great to see it coming back in its second year with richer, stronger content for a larger audience.”
“The 2013 event taught us a great deal,” said Abdelhameed Sharara. “But the most important lesson of all is that achieving success as an entrepreneur is a difficult path that cannot be treaded alone. Every entrepreneur needs a strong team, reliable partners, inspirational mentors and like-minded peers. This is why we’re doing RiseUp again, and will keep doing it. This is a market that is full of innovators and youth eager to find opportunities. Here, we’re inviting them to seize opportunities in an open, inclusive environment.”
The summit will highlight entrepreneurship across various industries such as technology, healthcare, F&B, handicraft and energy. It will also showcase the success stories of many Egyptian entrepreneurs and how they arrived at where they are today. The detailed agenda for The RiseUp Summit will be available on the event website over the coming days. In addition to keynote speeches, tracks will include inspiring talks, panel discussions, round tables, workshops, a trade fair, pitching opportunities to investors and more.
Registration is now open online.
