My guest in this tape is Aly Mahmoud, an Egyptian entrepreneur regionally acknowledged for his innovation. I met Aly when he had just crossed a year in his journey. He was on a mission to introduce the ever-blazing Egyptian football fan base to fantasy sports through his startup Eksab – which literally means win in Arabic. Eksab runs on a tokenized mechanism allowing users to earn, buy, and win exclusive prizes and experiences, climb leaderboards, and compete against other fans.

Today, Eksab is still the only licensed operator of daily fantasy sports and predictions in Egypt. They even inked an exclusive sponsorship deal with the Egyptian Premier League.

Before we go back in history, I’d like to note that some of this interview is in Arabic.

Five years ago, I attended Tech Crunch in Lebanon, where I met Brahms Chouity, a serial entrepreneur with a compelling story.

With dozens of startups under his belt, Chouity was able to utilize his talent at brokering services along with his family's resources to disrupt the tech scene in its very early stages between Lebanon and the Gulf. In this tape, he takes me on a walk down memory lane to tell me about the silver linings of the dot com bubble in the 90s and how tech played a role in scaling one of his naughty businesses.

Note: Some of this episode is in Arabic.

It was 2018 when I met Anna Lowe as part of my media coverage of the annual exhibition of Art D'Egypte back in 2018. Her startup story still resonates.

Lowe is the co-founder and director of partnerships at Smartify, a global guide to art and culture. Partnering with the world’s cultural heritage organisations, Smartify empowers people to connect with the world’s creativity.

I was so excited when I found this recording that I knew from the start that it was destined to be my pilot. I hope you feel the same by the end of this tape.