Startup Weekend Cairo (SWC) a 54-hour event that brings leaders and entrepreneurs together was held last week in Cairo at the American University of Cairo (AUC) in partnership with National Net Ventures (N2V) and The Business School at AUC.
For all the people who were following the tweets on #SWcairo the event seemed to be a huge success with loads of entrepreneurs, mentors, speakers and judges that all contributed to a high octane event.
The 3 day event which went under the slogan “No Talk, All Action” displayed the efforts and will of plenty developers, coders, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts. The organizers of the event N2V who were attending in large numbers from their CEO Rashid Al Balaa as one of the key speakers, their Head of Marketing Nagi Salloum as one of the judges as well as some of N2V’s Investment programs’ Directors Mohamad Khalwajah, Ahmad Takatkah, Rami Al Karmi were among the twenty five mentors.
N2V is a member of National Technology Group (NTG) and one of the largest Internet holding companies in the Arab region with a core business of creating innovative web and mobile web ventures. N2V invests capital in a wide variety of ventures (from start-ups to established companies) and offers infrastructure, resources, tools, expertise and know-how.
SWC was attended by 140 individuals and began on April 28 with open pitches where thirty teams brought their best ideas and inspired others to join them. The next day, teams gathered to code, design, research, develop and create business plans under the supervision of qualified mentors.
On the last day, teams came together, watched each others demos, listened to judges’ feedback, and the winners were announced.
The winners are listed below:
- Inkezny 10,000 EGP
- OffersMap 9000 EGP
- 7el.me 8000 EGP
- Media Island 7000 EGP
- OMyTime 6000 EGP
- Sporbro.com 5000 EGP
First place went to Inkenzy which is a location-based mobile app that allows users, with a simple one-touch, contact the nearest hospitals and ambulance in case of emergency cases.
Unfortunately we couldn’t attend SWC, however at Democampdubai I had the pleasure to meet Ahmad Takatkah from N2V and he was nice enough to put me in touch with the N2V team to receive updates about all the events they organize. For more information about SWC you can view thier facebook page and just from the level of engagement on the page I can assume that it was a more vibrant event than the Dubaidemocamp.
I hope we see more of these events across the MENA region and hope to see more individuals and firms like N2V helping and supporting entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts with achieving their goals.