Streams of Progress

This week on Streams of Progress, we met up with startups taking part in this year's Techstars Dubai program.

These mini episodes offer insights into what the startups are working on and the founders behind the startups. The guest for this episode is Yousef Wadi, CEO of Nestrom. 

Yousef is a Computer Engineer with a significant track record in building online products and technologies to empower businesses. His experience encompasses global organizations (Microsoft and Yahoo!) and startups, mainly focused on building scalable products, niche technologies and setting up winning teams that deliver high-end results. 

He began building his expertise with online products as a contractor for Microsoft, selling online rich media products to global players such as Yahoo through his first venture. Yousef was approached by Yahoo to join as Senior Product Manager, where he spearheaded the MENA focused video-on-demand system, geo-location and geo-service products. Later joining 7awi as Product Executive, part of the founding team and key contributor to moving the offline AWI properties to online properties through managing the planning, technology, marketing, and implementation of the successful transition gaining 1 million unique users in the first 3 months.

After venturing through a successful project in 7awi, he joined as Co-founder to ArabiaWeather establishing a full-fledged B2C Product line ranging from online to mobile platforms. ArabiaWeather has then managed to achieve its first million unique users from the GCC region 3 months after the launch of the new product portfolio. Yousef built a team that created, delivered and operated the B2C products achieving 3 million unique users before moving on to his next challenge. Post to B2C he moved on to leading the core weather technology and development team as a Chief Weather Technologist focused on delivering an accurate, scalable and advanced weather core system to empower ArabiaWeather and other clients through building a professional team of system engineers, developers and data scientists. 

Currently Yousef is invested in multiple startups and has a new startup, Nestrom, for which he is currently the CEO.

Please enjoy this discussion with one of our guests from the Techstars Dubai program and be sure to check out more episodes from the 2019 Techstars Dubai Program.

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This week on Streams of Progress, we met up with the startups taking part in this year's Techstars Dubai program.

These mini episodes offer insights into what the startups are working on and the founders behind the startups. The guest for this episode is Kareem Kaddoura, Regional Manager for Ottogee.

Ottogee provides IoT wearables for Industrial applications in Construction, Oil & Gas, Security and Manufacturing. Ottogee advanced data analytics enable workers and stakeholders to have real-time insights that optimize Safety and Productivity and reduce Cost to unprecedented levels.

Kareem previously worked at Lunch:On another upcoming startup in the UAE ecosystem. At Ottogee, Kareem works closely with Omar Ghazzaoui, co-founder and CEO, who is an industry expert in construction and Oil & Gas project management and a thought leader on digitizing labor intensive industries. Omar, originally from Lebanon, started his career with the Consolidated Contractors Company CCC building the iconic Dubai Mall in Downtown Dubai back in 2005. From there on, he embarked on an international experience with the Boston Consulting Group as a trusted advisor to major construction and oil & gas companies before he joined Caterpillar, the world's largest heavy equipment manufacturer as a corporate strategy leader in their famous headquarters in Chicago. 

Please enjoy this discussion from the Techstars Dubai program and be sure to check out more episodes from the 2019 Techstars Dubai Program.

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This week on Streams of Progress, we met up with startups taking part in this year's Techstars Dubai program.

These mini episodes offer insights into what the startups are working on and the founders behind the startups. The guest for this episode is Cedrick Tandong, CEO of Three Wheels United.  

Before starting Three Wheels United, Cedrick worked with a French company which transformed ideas from university research labs into successful businesses or patents. Cedrick also founded a previous company in Cameroon in the e-commerce space. He exited but the company is still active and profitable. Born and raised in Sub-Saharan Africa, he is particularly interested in ideas that will improve livelihoods for people trapped in informal economies. That’s why after his graduate studies in systems and information management from a French business school, he moved to India. 

Cedrick is TWU’s mastermind when it comes to operationalize the impossible as he loves organizing, coordinating and executing under unpredictable circumstances. He also holds a second graduate degree in business management and has lived and worked in 4 countries in 3 continents. 

Please enjoy this discussion with one of our guests from the Techstars Dubai program and be sure to check out more episodes from the 2019 Techstars Dubai Program.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Streams of Progress, we met up with the startups taking part in this year's Techstars Dubai program.

These mini episodes offer insights into what the startups are working on and the founders behind the startups. The guest for this episode is Parker Wells, CEO of Element 16. 

Element 16 improves energy efficiency at industrial processing facilities with heat storage technology; they cut fossil fuels in the largest emitting industries by capturing waste heat and storing energy for on demand use. Parker founded Element 16 during his graduate research at UCLA in Mechanical Engineering. 

He previously co-founded and led Overhead.fm as CEO from 2012-2015. He also holds an Sc.B from Brown University in Mechanical Engineering. 

Please enjoy this discussion with one of our guests from the Techstars Dubai program and be sure to check out more episodes from the 2019 Techstars Dubai Program.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Streams of Progress, we met up with startups taking part in this year's Techstars Dubai program.

These mini episodes offer insights into what the startups are working on and the founders behind the startups. The guest for this episode is Sebastian Vaduva, CEO of Veeplay. He was never keen on running the hamster wheel. A software engineer by degree and a hustler by design Sebastian started his first technology company at the age of 18. 

Since then he has been building and selling software products to Fortune 500 companies across Europe and the United States. Sebastian’s latest venture, Veeplay, aims to help the broadcasting industry embrace the business models of the future by helping them deliver and monetize video content for over 100M users monthly.

Please enjoy this discussion with one of our guests from the Techstars Dubai program and be sure to check out more episodes from the 2019 Techstars Dubai Program.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Streams of Progress, we met up with startups taking part in this year's Techstars Dubai program.

These mini episodes offer insights into what the startups are working on and the founders behind the startups. The guest of this episode is Miray Tayfun, CEO of Vivoo. She is a serial entrepreneur, who co-founded successful companies in the IOT industry for consumer electronics. 

Her background is in bioengineering, mobile apps, IOT, and strategy. She also completed the Stanford University's Go To Market strategy course that was lectured by Apple's first marketing manager. 

Her passion for a good life was the seed for Vivoo. She wants to proceed on their journey by helping people make better decisions on their wellbeing journey.

Please enjoy this discussion with one of our guests from the Techstars Dubai program and be sure to check out more episodes from the 2019 Techstars Dubai Program.

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This week on Streams of Progress, we met up with startups taking part in this year's Techstars Dubai program.

These mini episodes offer insights into what the startups are working on and the founders behind the startups. The guest of this episode is Faisal Al Hammadi, the CEO of YACOB, a nutrition recommendation engine for organizations that enables its users to select F&B products that suits their health profile.

Faisal is also a Member of the Board of Directors of Slices, a company that he co-founded that offers catering services to education institutes in 50 locations.

In his previous role, Al Hammadi was a Member of the Board of Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre as well as Vice President at Mubadala Healthcare. He has also served as a member of a number of Abu Dhabi Government initiatives and committees including the Executive Committee for the Abu Dhabi Economic Plan at the Department of Economic Development, and the Health Education Committee at Health Authority Abu Dhabi.

Al Hammadi holds a Master in Business Administration degree from Columbia Business School, USA, and a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from the American University Dubai, UAE.

Please enjoy this discussion with one of our Guests from the Techstars Dubai program and be sure to check out more episodes from the 2019 Techstars Dubai Program.

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Tarek Kabrit is the CEO and co-founder of Seez, an intuitive car selling, buying and lending app in Dubai and Kuwait, which has been cited by leading publications as a ‘tech game-changer.’

By using artificial intelligence to gather and cleanse the jungle of car data online, Seez reduces the process of finding a car from 17 hours to 6 seconds. Tarek and his team also invented the world’s first A.I. car negotiation chat bot called Cesar, who finds you the best deals, estimates the fair value of the car, and even negotiates the price on your behalf.

As a testament to Seez’ success, they celebrated 250k downloads. They are also number 3 on Apple Store with over 3,000 ratings and number 5 on the Android Store.

With over 17 years of regional and international experience in strategy consulting, investment banking, private equity and VC, with industry leaders such as Deutsche Bank, Abraaj Group, Mubadala, Wamda, and Booz & Co, Tarek understands both sides of the start-up journey.

Enjoy the show!

Show Notes:

• 01:30 - Tarek’s background in Private Equity & Venture Capital in the region prior to becoming an entrepreneur
• 3:45 - From Pre-Med to Economics
• 4:30 - Consulting to Banking
• 5:45 - The reason he became an entrepreneur after being a VC
• 8:15 - Dealership partnership for leasing plans
• 9:00 - How Cesar works?
• 10:45 - Why Tarek chose to pursue this startup?
• 13:30 - How Seez started as a side hustle
• 14:45 - Reaching out to his nephew to be his co-founder
• 15:30 - Sourcing the AI/ML tech talent from Denmark for Seez
• 16:45 - Coders, penthouse and cardboard boxes
• 17:15 - Bootstrapping note: Tinder for second-hand office equipment
• 18:15 - The uncle / nephew co-founder dynamics at play
• 19:00 - Regional expansion
• 20:00 - One of the key criteria when deciding a country to expand into
• 20:15 - The challenges Seez faced when expanding into Saudi Arabia
• 23:15 - Difficulties Tarek overcame when learning to manage a technology team
• 24:45 - Transitioning from VC to a founder role and the learnings
• 25:45 - The ability to step back and look at the bigger picture of your startup
• 26:15 - Seez’s funding journey and the pivots
• 26:45 - Scrapping all they had and starting fresh
• 28:00 - Knowing how to pitch VCs from his past experience as a VC
• 30:00 - Looking to Steve Jobs’s drive, Airbnb’s attention to design detail and Netflix’s culture for inspiration
• 32:45 - Tarek’s closeness with all his employees
• 33:30 - The importance of Dreaming Big
• 35:00 - Love for movies at the cinema
• 36:30 - Tarek’s dream of a humanity scale dream initiative
• 36:15 - “Start a startup in your 20’s”, his advice to his 20 year old self

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We had a chance to sit with Michael De Angelo from Holacracy One.

Michael is an experienced business leader with C-level executive experience in different industries including healthcare, entertainment, technology, and natural resources. Starting as a Computer Scientist for the US Department of the Interior he moved on to lead technology teams at the Walt Disney company and eventually become the Deputy CIO for the State of Washington where he led the first large scale implementation of Holacracy in Government in the world. He also partnered with Harvard Business School researchers and others to lead the first controlled experiment of Holacracy.

Now at HolacracyOne, he is helping businesses around the world think through the executive challenges of driving this level of change in their organizations. When he’s not helping organizations with self-management concepts he’s working with self-organizing honeybees as an avid beekeeper. 

We explored what Holacracy is, how it is being implemented in the private and public sector across the globe and we explored how organizations here, in the UAE, that are using it to transform their organizations.

Enjoy the show!

Show Notes:

• 02:30 - Michael’s background
• 03:30 - Introduction to complex technologies at Disney and it’s internet divisions in the early years
• 04:45 - Working in small teams at Disney
• 11:45 - On hierarchal systems
• 14:30 - His introduction to Holacracy
• 16:00 - Competing for talent in an already crowded tech space
• 21:15 - Googling “What is Holacracy?” and a 2 minute video animation
• 23:30 - What is Holacracy?
• 25:00 - The Morning Star example
• 27:00 - What does Holacracy One do?
• 33:30 - Companies and industries that practice Holacracy
• 35:15 - Self management hitting a tipping point around the time Zappos came out about it
• 37:00 - Dubai Knowledge a practitioner of Holacracy as a government agency
• 44:30 - What does Michael’s typical work day look like?
• 48:30 - The ‘no title’ business card
• 53:30 - ‘Follow my energy’ work scheduling & prioritization
• 54:00 - The right to ask anyone else when
• 55:30 - His ‘non-habit’ routine that he’s adapting to
• 58:30 - From fictional and non-fictional role models
• 63:00 - His morbidly motivational message on a billboard
• 66:15 - His concerns about the time-travel paradox and giving advice to his 20 year old self
• 68:00 - Michael’s personal purpose in life
• 68:30 - Nurturing insatiable curiosity
• 69:45 - “Don’t lose your momentum as you age, ramp it up as you have more experience and wisdom to solve more complex problems when you are older”

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We had a chance to sit with Ludmila Yamalova, Founder & Managing Partner of LYLaw, HPL Yamalova & Plewka DMCC.

Ludmila is the founder and Managing Partner of the Firm, actively managing and practicing since 2009. She is a U.S. qualified attorney, licensed by the State Bar of California. Ludmila has fifteen years of legal experience, six of which was in the Silicon Valley, plus three years of business experience in the same area.

Prior to moving to Dubai and setting up her practice, Ludmila was Associate General Counsel of a NASDAQ listed company in Silicon Valley, California – Finisar Corporation, a fiber optics company, managing high profile patent litigation and global corporate matters.

Before Finisar, Ludmila practiced with DLA Piper in the San Franisco Bay area, specializing in intellectual property litigation and bankruptcy.

Ludmila also interned at Howrey Simon & White and Legal Strategies Group, both in the San Francisco Bay area.

Ludmila grew up in the former Soviet Union and moved to the United States in the early 90s. Ludmila’s native languages are Russian and Ukrainian. She is also fluent in English and conversational in French.

Most recently, Ludmila is the host of the MENA region’s first legal podcast, Lawgical with LYLAW. On the podcast, Ludmila provides insight, commentary, and updates covering a wide variety of legal topics relating to the U.A.E. and the MENA region.

During this episode, she shared her insights into the evolving legal system of the UAE and regulations are adapting to an ever-changing global market.

Enjoy the show!

Show Notes:

• 1:30 - Ludmila’s background from the Soviet Union to the United States
• 2:30 - Practicing litigation during the Dot Com bust at DLA Piper
• 4:15 - Being Associate General Counsel at Finisar, a Nasdaq listed
• 7:45 - Starting to help people with legal advice in Dubai and eventually setup a law firm
• 9:30 - On remote working culture
• 11:00 - Copyright and IP licensing agreement and royalties (Porsche example)
• 16:45 - LYLaw evolution of area of practice
• 24:15 - The Lawgical Podcast by LYLaw
• 29:00 - Legal Questions: The differences between Mainland (Department of Economic Development) and Free Zone licenses in the UAE
• 33:30 - Business activities requiring a business entity / license
• 36:45 - Selling digital software online within the UAE from abroad
• 38:30 - Blurring the legal lines when local contractors are involved
• 39:45 - The UAE’s commitment to AI and new regulations & laws around it
• 42:45 - The Dubai Now app : one app for all government services
• 46:30 - The UAE residence visa and the new longer term visas that are coming
• 49:15 - Outsourcing their development and copywriting their software
• 51:45 - Ludmila’s mentors and role models
• 54:30 - The importance of building a strong team to support you
• 56:30 - Days being dictated by young children
• 58:00 - Traveling with kids; from danger zones to kid friendly locales
• 60:30 - “Being in the thick of history in the making”
• 63:30 - Being cautious about hearing overnight success stories and expecting the same

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