We are proud to introduce our new project!

In My Shoes is an original IGTV Series by Young Arab Leaders that will serve as a platform for YAL speakers to talk about their challenges, lessons, and experiences during uncertain times. In My Shoes will feature inspirational stories about remarkable startups in the UAE and how their positivity and determination brought them to succeed in their businesses and to lead fulfilling lives.

1st Edition

Session 1  – YAL Speaker Ehtesham Puthur, Co-Founder & CEO of Junkbot

CEO & Co-Founder of Junkbot Robotics. Ehtesham led a team to transform Junkbot from an idea to a community of 50,000 makers around the world. Junkbot kits are used by 500+ schools in MENA region. Ehtesham and Junkbot team have launched their B2C platform skillplay.co to help MENA region prepare for the future skills. Junkbot is a DIY robotic kit that transforms household objects into unique robots that can be programmed for a variety of functions. Ehtesham shared the story of Junkbot, the challenges faced during the pandemic and the lessons learned. Full interview

Session 2  – YAL Speaker Majed Halawi, Vice-President of Pure Harvest Smart Farms

Majed Halawi is responsible for managing Pure Harvest’s expansion efforts including corporate development, technical design, and construction/program management. He began his career in engineering and then turned to management consulting at the Boston Consulting Group. Pure Harvest is a technology-enabled agribusiness focused on local, sustainable cultivation of premium quality. Majed talks about how Pure Harvest has grown and managed to adapt to the challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic. Full interview

Session 3  – YAL Speaker Abdallah Abu Sheikh, Co-Founder and CEO of Rizek

Abdallah Abu-Sheikh is a Jordanian entrepreneur and a visionary pioneer in inventing digital technologies for cultivating human resources, connecting human skills, and enabling youth with numerous empowerment programs and employment initiatives. Rizek is the first local super app for on-demand services. Abdallah talks about the challenges Rizek faced, the lessons learned and more! Full interview

Session 4  – YAL Speaker Mona Ataya, Founder and CEO of Mumzworld

Mona has managed to grow Mumzworld from a business plan on paper to a leading an enviable brand reaching more than 2 million mothers across the region in 7 years. Founded in 2011, Mumzworld has pioneered a revolutionary and gold standard e-commerce shopping experience for all things mother, baby and child in the ME region. . Mona talks about the growth of Mumzworld during the pandemic and how they became the go-to destination for all things mother, baby and child. Full interview

2nd Edition

Session 1  – YAL Speaker Mohamed Marwan, Head of Strategic Initiatives at Almentor.net

Mohamed has over 19 years of experience as a cross-functional and business transformation leader. He succeeded in building strong teams, effective processes, and morphing platforms that consistently sustained the test of time. Almentor.net is a leading e-learning digital platform, Mohamed explains how they reached to this point and how their content is strategized to understand the Arab world and it’s needs. Full interview

Session 2  – YAL Speaker Omar Farooqui, Founder and Executive Chairman at Coded Minds

Omar is an entrepreneur, investor and startup enthusiast. Wanting to disrupt the educational industry from the ground up, not just through pedagogy but also price, through his vision of merging public and private education as one. With this mission, he created Coded Minds in 2017. Omar’s previous ventures were Green Sands Equity out of San Francisco and previously CapInvest (latterly CI Holdings), which was a joint initiative with the asset management arm of United Overseas Bank of Singapore. Full interview

Session 3  – YAL Speaker Sallyann Della Casa, Chief Identity Hacker at GLEAC

3rd Edition

Session 1  – YMP Graduates Startup, EFATE

Get to know more about EFATE, a specialized company in managing and collecting e-waste that aims to achieve sustainability, as well as saving the environment by building a link between the e-waste consumers and the recyclers. EFATE will support in placing the UAE as a leader in the field of recycling. In a 2019 four-week pilot campaign 1100kg of e-waste was collected, and the 2020 target is to collect and process 100 tons of e-waste. Full interview

www.efateuae.com

Session 2  – YMP Graduates Startup, CyberHero

Find out all about Cyber Hero, a formal awareness program, aimed at training users of the potential threats to an organization’s information and data, and how to avoid potential risks of losses. Its goals are to lower the organization’s attack surface; empower users to take personal responsibility for protecting the organization’s information, and to enforce the organization’s policies and procedures of the organization to protect the data. Full interview

www.thecyberhero.com

Session 3  – YMP Graduates Startup, Washing Space

Get to know more about Washing Space, an online laundry marketplace that provides quick service, fast delivery, reasonable price and traceability within a defined area. Using this technology, the marketplace will aggregate laundry service providers allowing customers to choose from a range of service-rated laundry businesses. Full interview

www.washingspace.com

4th Edition

Session 1  – YAL Speaker Hanan Chaaibi, Managing Director at The Green Spoon Management Consultancies

For the 4th edition of In My Shoes, we had the pleasure of having Hanan Chaaibi, Managing Director at The Green Spoon Management Consultancies, in a sit-down interview where she was able to share the ever-growing story of an initiative committed to raising awareness about and challenging ESG (environmental, social, governance) and sustainability issues of complex global systems. Full interview

https://thegreenspoon.org/

 

Session 2  – YAL Speaker Namrata Budhraja, Co-Founder at Shift Eco

With sustainability being at the forefront of the conversation, we had the pleasure of interviewing Namrata Budhraja, Co-Founder at Shift Eco, a platform that curates impactful eco-friendly products. Full interview

www.shifteco.ae