Saudi’s Hottest Tech & Startup Festival

Co-founder of OasisX, a multi-chain NFT marketplace and Creator studio (LaunchX). Began his career as an architect/entrepreneur and entered the crypto space in 2015. Investing in real estate, tech, VR and NFT related companies across the globe. A strong advocate of decentralization and empowerment of talent to pave a way to the future through emerging technologies.

Eman Sobhy is an Arab content creator whose show (What If - ماذا لو) has gotten the attention of millions across the MENA region. Her show tackles the most debatable issues that Arab society gets through.

Arshad Zaheer has more than 25 years of experience in the communications industry in India, UAE & Bahrain. Having worked with Global agencies such as Euro RSCG & Y&R, he set up Crayons Communications in Dubai UAE in 2005. Crayons started as a conventional advertising agency and Arshad steered it to become an award-winning Digital agency in the region in 2008. Crayons worked with multiple categories and industries such as Retail, Healthcare, Property Developers, Education, FMCG, Automobiles, Banking & Finance, E-commerce & Market places. Crayons have contributed to some of the biggest brands in the GCC such as Centrepoint, FitBit, Bayut, Nissan, Kaya Skin Clinic, Marina Home, Capri Sun, to name a few. He is also passionate about events and believes that contributes to great content for a brand as a property.

Ahmed is CEO and co-founder at Gameball; a leading customer engagement and retention CRM that works with over 20 million consumers in 70+ countries. Before Gameball, he spent 10+ years working in multiple technical and commercial roles at multinationals and startups. Ahmed worked previously in Egypt, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Qatar and managed the execution and delivery of multi-million dollars projects to clients like Aramco, ExxonMobil, Sabic, Petronas, Total, Braskem and many others. As a business consultant, Ahmed consulted and mentored startups in Egypt, UAE and Canada as well as corporates in the fields of technology and real estate.

A serial entrepreneur, engineer, and global citizen, who founded Progressive Generation Holding with his partner Feras Al Kiswani in Jordan 12 years ago, Progressive Generation has built and owns the biggest library of original Arabic children's content in the MENA region! Recently In 2022; PG made a huge milestone; they made a kids Netflix by launching the biggest children's SVOD platform in the Arab world by collaborating with big names like Ericson Red Bee and Dolby Digital.

Manal Assaad launched her digital career in Saudi Arabia 13 years ago as The Manalyst where she led several local and international agencies and brands through the rise of social media. 7 years ago, she moved to Germany to grow her expertise in the European market, where she focuses on data-driven digital transformation, having worked in the education sector, logistics industry and most recently in the global digital agency, Valtech. She enjoys sharing insights from her experience in Europe and GCC to support business growth through strategic understanding of local markets and global trends.

Advertising Expert - serving non intrusive audio ads with no retention damage

An award-winning thought leader, digital marketing & branding veteran, investor, and entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience working with global brands and agencies, Atul Hegde is a name that connotes excellence. He is the Founder of YAAP, a leading new-age tech and data-led content company with offices across UAE, India & Singapore. YAAP has worked with the likes of Bayut, Fitbit, DTCM, and Disney Games among many others. He has been instrumental in the development of YAAP’s 3D philosophy and full-spectrum data-led communication, from design to discovery to distribution. Atul’s vision is embodied by Rainmaker Ventures, a $50-million VC firm that he co-founded, which seeks to wholly mentor budding startups. Atul is also leading the way, in helping brands build their presence in the metaverse.

Mohammed Al-Shaker is the founder and group CEO of ArabiaWeather Inc. He oversees the company’s continuous growth and expansion and is responsible for further developing ArabiaWeather’ s comprehensive portfolio of proprietary solutions for businesses and consumers throughout the region. Mohammed founded the company in 2006 as a single-page application publishing weather forecasts for over 25 locations in Jordan. In response to the growing demand for accurate weather reporting across the Arab World, Mohammed rebranded the company and officially launched ArabiaWeather in 2011. Since then, ArabiaWeather has grown to become the top weather service provider in the Middle East, and he led the deploying of weather stations over the Middle East, coupled with regionally adapted algorithms, enhance forecast accuracy and precision, differentiating the company from local weather services and international providers who draw on crude data from global satellites and use generic algorithms. Recently, Mohammed was named as the chairman of the Jordan Entrepreneurship and Innovation Association ""JEIA"" looking to support the local efforts in entrepreneurship and innovation. In 2013, Mohammed was named Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year. Mohammed was also featured on the cover of Forbes Middle East as the founder of one of the most innovative startups in the region. Mohammed supplemented his pharmacology degree (2011) with certificates in Advanced Forecasting and Aeronautical Aviation from the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office College.

Richard Fitzgerald is CEO and Founder of Augustus Media, an award-winning modern media company in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, publishers of Lovin Dubai, Lovin Saudi and Smashi TV. Working in digital, media and social media agencies in Europe and the Middle East for 11 years, most recently former Regional Head of Social Media for Mindshare MENA, Richard founded Augustus Media in 2015 to what has grown to be 70 employees with offices in Cairo, Riyadh and Dubai to become one of the leading modern media companies in the region. The Lovin platform is present in 15 cities across the region, and Smashi streaming service has 12 vertical channels. In addition to running Augustus Meida, he also manages a portfolio of media, tech and content investments under Fitzy Fund.

Ahmad Coucha is the co-founder and CEO of FlapKap, the first and leading Revenue Based Financing Platform in the MENA region. Prior to founding FlapKap, Coucha was the co-founder and Chief Strategy & Finance Officer at GP&K, holding group of Good People and Kijamii, one of MENA’s largest and most awarded independent advertising networks. On the academic side, Coucha finished his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering then pursued a Masters in Business from IE business school in Madrid. He is also a holder of Masters in Economics & Public Finance from Harvard university in Boston.

A citizen of the world, Rachid Laurent Elameri spent most of his years traveling between Paris, London, Riyadh, Dubai, and Madrid.  Being French/Moroccan, Rachid credits a multicultural background for sparking his interest in creating one-of-a-kind experiences for diverse communities and leading him to the entertainment industry. Highly educated, Rachid holds multiple Master’s Degrees from renowned institutes including the London Business School and has worked for reputable global organizations such as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) where he focused on the tech and media industries. In 2021, Rachid was appointed the General Manager Middle East of Fever; the leading global live-entertainment discovery platform that dares to think outside the box by empowering creators to escalate business ventures through data and technology to make entertainment offerings bigger than ever and more accessible.

Arif Aabed is the Mobile Apps & Gaming Business Manager at MBC Group. Through WIZZO, the unique platform created specifically for Arabic gamers, MBC was able to position itself as the leading partner for global gaming publishers expanding into the MENA market, partnering with some of the biggest names in Mobile Gaming. In addition, Aref and the WIZZO team led the creation of the first ever esports entertainment show to air on TV in the MENA, airing simultaneously on MBC Action, YouTube and Shahid and currently holds the record for the most concurrently watched esports tournament in the MENA.

Marketing automation expert, he helped hundreds of companies compile marketing automation strategies and then implement them, he is one of the core team engineers of Mautic the open-source marketing automation system. Mohammad started five startups in different industries where he worked as the connection between product, marketing, and sales teams in companies. He started Steer Campaign to provide a SaaS-based open-source marketing automation system where it help companies manage their leads and automate their marketing campaigns to close more deals and convert more customers.

Adnan is the Co-Founder of Spades, a regional FinTech removing friction for paying bills in the Hospitality and F&B industry. Prior to creating Spades, he led the digital roadmap for the web & mobile portfolio at Emirates Airlines. Adnan started a career in Finance in Toronto, Canada at Fidelity Investments & TD, and came to the region 12 years ago to with Rocket Internet to launch multiple e-commerce sites in 2012 - www.mizado.com (UAE), eg.jumia.com (Egypt), www.azmalo.pk (Pakistan), www.daraz.pk (Pakistan) - and has invested in and mentored other startups. His love for human-centric design thinking and optimizing processes is what he continues to power through Spades. In Adnan’s view, the F&B industry is just a start for Spades. Adnan envisions Spades to embody the auxiliaries and ancillaries involved in any end-to-end group experience, with the aim to make the purpose of a physical wallet redundant in the fast-paced evolution of the hospitality and entertainment sector. Adnan lives by the motto of ‘getting stuff done’ and believes in the adage “time is the ultimate currency”, and time is what Spades is designed to give back to businesses and their customers.

A serial entrepreneur, growth hacker, and software engineer, I am passionate about working with people from different backgrounds to build and scale products and solutions that can change people’s lives. Since I founded ExpandCart in 2016, it has grown to become one of the largest eCommerce platform builders in the MENA region, with a client base of over 25,000 merchants across 40 countries who have generated over $1 billion in GMV using the platform! Previously, I worked as a software development manager and a software engineer. I managed teams of hundreds of resources working on different technology stacks for international clients in multiple countries. In addition, I coded and engineered software solutions for various organizations using a wide range of technologies.

+13 years experience, and counting, in leading digital business development, with subject-matter expertise in digital & commercial strategies. The successful marriage between the obtained understanding of digital solutions across branding, display, video, content, performance marketing and CRM with businesses’ objectives, is what fuels my everyday job, in order to strive towards more learnings and even more success stories. Currently heading Nabd’s business across MENA; UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Jordan and Egypt. Heading commercial partnerships and CXO relations across multiple industries including; Telecom, FMCG, luxury, retail, eCommerce, technology, real estate, healthcare and entertainment & media industries across the Middle East & North Africa (MENA). Chair & Board member, of both associations, MMA MENA and IAB GCC; with Education Modules focus.

Cheryl King has 15 years’ experience delivering award- winning campaigns in the UK and UAE. Cheryl was previously Managing Director of broadcast PR specialist consultancy, markettiers MENA, an agency she started the MENA office of back in October 2014. The successful operation now runs with a 12 strong team, successfully combining the power of traditional broadcast and audio broadcast to deliver outstanding results and strategies for brands including Mubadala, Mastercard, DMCC, Dubai Airports, Serco Middle East and Kaspersky. Notable successes include winning Small Agency of the Year both the coveted MEPRA Awards in 2020 and for PRCA MENA in 2021. A career highlight so far was leading the team on the international broadcast efforts for the Papal visit to the UAE back in February 2019 and the Mars Hope Mission for the UAE in February 2021.

Ex-VC / Serial Entrepreneur. Co-founder & CEO of Omniful, the leading Saudi-based Omnichannel x Q-Commerce enablement platform for retailers. With over 15 years of experience in building, leading, and scaling VC-funded tech ventures in the MENA region.

The Mo Show Podcast is a series of English-language audio and video podcasts providing insight of day-to-day life in Saudi Arabia. The Mo Show Podcast is Saudi Arabia’s first English podcast to host leading Saudi male and female personalities across multiple industries, entrepreneurs, journalists and ex-pats who live in or have visited Saudi Arabia. The conversations range from topics such as health and nutrition to fashion and e-commerce. The podcast also focuses on developments in the country, including women’s empowerment and their rapidly growing role in the Kingdom.

- Goal-driven and highly motivated professional offering a unique combination of technical and business acumen. - Creating vision, identifying opportunities, building organizations, and defining strategies to deliver sophisticated solutions. - Founded Grintafy, the largest talent discovery platform in the Middle East. - Co founded two startups in the mobile app developments. - Regional Director in a leading Tech firm for 8 years. - Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering University of Central Florida, USA. - Project Management Professional - PMI. - Risk Management Professional - PMI. - Expert in BI, KPI and BSC.

Always a visionary entrepreneur at heart with several involvement since his teen years, Hashem has since co-founded and operated multiple digital design and marketing agencies and worked for several Techstars companies.Currently leading the business operations efforts for a multi-million technology startup Flicron in Saudi Arabia focused on reshaping content creators marketing scene in Middle East

Fashion Tech Entrepreneur

A Saudi national, Faisal is a highly educated Marketing professional with an MBA from The University of Manchester and a bachelor’s degree from King Saud University. With 10+ years of experience in all Marketing fields, from campaign management to brand management or lead generation, Faisal worked in multiple verticals companies such as Dur Hospitality, Schneider Electric, and most recently ministry of communication and information technology. At Mohtwize, Faisal ensures to deliver the vision of enabling content creators and support brands to reach their desired target audience through “Mohtwize” unique advertising and monetization solution.

Art Enthusiast | Blockchain Advocate | Innovative Thinker | Community Builder Salwa is currently ceo to Nuqtah NFT, pioneering NFTs to the Saudi region to breed a new line of art investors & enabling creators towards the wildest opportunities. With a passion & vision to create a genuine community of art enthusiasts, blockchain advocates & passionate individuals, the end goal is to skyrocket the a hollistic creative economy in MENA at the pedestal it shouldn’t be at with the power of tech!

Maria Gedeon is the founder & CEO of Gedeon Mohr & Partners an independent consultancy that aims to create long-term sustainable value for its clients and all stakeholders. Gedeon is the former Chief Customer and Marketing Officer of the Chalhoub Group the largest fashion and beauty retailer in the MENA and the JV partner of LVMH. In her capacity, Maria drove the marketing and customer transformation overseeing brand, customer management (CRM, loyalty, CX and care), insights, advanced analytics, partnerships, brand building and content for the group. Prior to that Gedeon was Marketing Director at Majid Al Futtaim Entertainment, the leading shopping malls, retail and entertainment conglomerate in the MENA. Part of the senior executive her role consisted in managing a group of award-winning marketers. In her tenure Maria transformed the organisation to instil an innovative, creative, customer obsessed, and data driven culture. Gedeon holds a bachelor’s degree in Advertising from Alba Beirut. She is also a board member of the established Marketing Society Middle East Chapter and Almentor.net, the largest e-learning platform in the Arab world. Further to that Maria also serves on several tech advisory boards as strategic advisor.

الشريك المؤسس والرئيس التنفيذي لشبكة مايكس للبودكاست التي تأسست في عام 2018 وتقدم العديد من برامج البودكاست الشهيرة على مستوى الشرق الأوسط، وعضو لجنة الإعلام الرقمي بغرفة الرياض التجارية