Congrats to the three winning projects: Helm, Educate-Me and Maddad. We are very proud of you and looking forward to working more closely with you and your teams in building a brighter future for our beloved country:  Egypt. 

Congrats from the EgyptNegma Family to Helm, Educate-Me and Maddad

EgyptNegma Second Annual EgyptNegma Conference was a huge success, thanks to all the dedicated members of EgyptNegma, volunteers and donors who went above and beyond in supporting the conference. The conference was held last weekend at MIT Media lab in Cambridge, MA on March 23-24th, 2013. Dr. Farouk elBaz and Eng. Mohamed elSawy shared with the conference attendees their experiences and insights into social developement in Egypt during the two keynote sessions at the conference. In addition to the keynote sessions and the several technical valuable panels and working groups at the conference,  the attendees also enjoyed an amazing Egyptian dinner and music by four bands/artists during the EgyptNegma Gala dinner.

Congrats to the three winning projects: Helm, Educate-Me and Maddad. We are very proud of you and looking forward to working more closely with you during the accelerator trip in Egypt this summer. 

In 2013, EgyptNegma is introducing a new tradition to its annual EgyptNegma conference. We will be hosting a new preconference workshop, which is mandatory for all finalists to attend. The workshop will take place annually on the preceding Friday to the conference. During the workshop, trainers will be working closely with all finalists in a focused environment on various topics including presentation skills, rocket pitch, branding and marketing, and successful entrepreneurship skills. The workshop is a day-long event, which is composed of several seminars in the morning and 1-on-1 working groups in the afternoon. 

The preconference workshop is meant to be more of a boot camp for finalists to gain insights into the entrepreneurial world from prominent Egyptian American entrepreneurs and leaders. Through the working groups, the finalists will get the undivided attention of the trainers who will work with them on their specific project and cater to their specific skills level. As such, EgyptNegma is aspiring to provide the ImpactEgypt! competition finalists access to the world top-quality entrepreneurship education in a friendly environment.

In 2013, the EgyptNegma preconference workshop will be held at the MIT's Tang center (Building E51), which is a new and innovative space that focuses on entrepreneurial activities at MIT. This year’s workshop will be led by five prominent Egyptian American entrepreneurs: Dr. Nagwa Ibrahim, Mr. Michael Megalli, Mr. Fady Malak, Mr. Amr Moselhy and Mr. Tarek Madany.  

Dr. Nagwa Ibrahim is the Associate Provost of Entrepreneurship and Research Development at the American University in Cairo. Mr. Michael Megalli is a Senior Director in Windows Brand Strategy at Microsoft, Inc. Mr. Fady Malak is an Entrepreneur, Consultant & MIT System Design & Management (SDM) Fellow. Mr. Amr Moselhy is Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group.  Mr. Tarek Madany is a Babson College - Franklin W. Olin Graduate School of Business MBA graduate with concentration in Entrepreneurship and Business Development and co-founder of several startups in Canada and US. 

The workshop is exclusively open to the EgyptNegma 2013 finalists in order to create a focused environment for the finalists to work on their projects in preparation for the ImpactEgypt competition, which will be held at the conference.

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Yet another great news we would love to announce.  Apple has just approved EgyptNEGMA organization for its company donations matching program, such that every dollar contributed to EgyptNEGMA by an Apple employee will be matched in full by Apple. We at EgyptNEGMA are working hard to raise funds to leverage capacity building for all NEGMA’s winning projects, to provide logistical support to EgyptNEGMA finalists, and to provide technical assistance to build an IT infrastructure to support winners through mentorship and access to investors as their projects grow. Apple today joined Google and Microsoft in approving EgyptNegma for their match prorgam. These match programs provide an excellent opportunity for Egyptians employed by these companies to contribute and donate to Negma while having their donations more impactful in helping EgyptNegma acheive our goal in building a brighter future for Egypt. 

If you want to add EgyptNEGMA to your company's match program, reach us at CompanyMatch@egyptnegma.org.

EgyptNegma Ambassadors Program was launched in early 2012 to allow Egyptians throughout the globe to play a role in building a brighter future for Egypt through EgyptNegma and to spread the news about our organization, while building stronger bridges of communications between Egyptians everywhere. This program quickly became very popular, and EgyptNegma has today more than 45 ambassadors in 4 countries and three continents. The program continues to accept new applications. If you are inetersted to become part of the big EgyptNegma family, apply today to become an EgyptNegma ambassador in your region. 

View current EgyptNEGMA North America Ambassadors and EgyptNEGMA World Ambassadors in a larger map

EgyptNegma has recently been approved as a 501-c-3 organization for Google and Microsoft's match programs. Google and Microsoft provide these donation match programs to encourage their employees to volunteer and to donate for causes they care about through different non-profit organizations. In order to be approved for these program, any non-profit organization need to pass the a strict compliance check, which verifies that the non-profit organization is an established one in the U.S., fills its paperwork with the IRS and pass their strict company standards for non-profits. 

EgyptNegma has recently received the approvals from both companies to be included in their match programs. This means that Egyptians at Google and Microsoft will be able to donate to EgyptNegmt, and that their companies will match their own employees’ donations, as well as their volunteer hours will be matched with donations. If you work for one of these two great companies, please spread the world among your Egyptian colleagues and use these matching programs to donate to EgyptNegma! 

The boston Family in a group photo with Dr. Bassem Youssef.

On July 17th, 2012, EgyptNegma, with CAC, hosted Bassem Youssef for a family day in Brookline's Amory Park. The event was very well attended by Egyptain Americans and Arab Americans in the Boston area. Dr. Mona Mowafi, The board chair of EgyptNegma spoke during the picnic about our organization and our vision. Dr. Bassem Youssef spoke as well about the important role of Egyptian and Arab Americans in building a srtonger bridge of communication between cultures. He also told the crowd, who were very keen to take pictures with him, about his new show "America belArabi" and his plans for his current show "elBarnameg"

Check out this event's album on our facebook page.  

Dr. Mona Mowafi speaking about Negma

Dr. Bassem Youssef Speaking about his new show

Negma'13 organizing committee has put together a very exciting program for the upcoming Negma 2013 conference's gala dinner. In addition to the delicious Middle Eastern food and the social gathering with the speakers, the organizers and the keynotes, the gala dinner will include three performances by Tarab band, Ana Masry band and by Ahmed elHaggar.

Tarab group is a local Boston not-for-profit group which was founded in 1998 and whose goal is to present the Middle East's deep and rich culture as well as to entertain Arabs who long for and enjoy traditional music and songs.

Ana Masry (I’m Egyptian) Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit association registered in the state of Maryland that aims to promote a better understanding of Egypt’s common heritage and the multi-layered, multi-faceted Egyptian identity among us as Egyptians through producing cultural and artistic materials and activities. 

Ahmed ElHaggar is a young artist who comes from known musical family. Born and raised in Egypt, ElHaggar graduated in 2010 from the Higher Institute for Arabic Music (المعهد العالي للموسيقى العربية) and is currently studying for his post-graduate degree in music in Boston. ElHaggar will be performing at the Negma's Gala dinner. 

The Gala dinner will take place on the evening of March 23th, 2013 at the MIT Media lab.

In a recent article entitled "From disability to the sky" and published on October's 18-24, 2012 issue of AlAhram's English version, Ability Call Center was featured as "A living dream of survival and success, of hard work and happiness."

Amr Deabes, Ability Call center's founder, CEO and Negma's 2012 contestant tell AlAhram about Ability Call Center employee's base:

Candidates work in a special training programme designed by special Ability CC trainers that includes a quick English course, information technology training, assistance software, to the use of the standard keyboard, and other regular ICDL training and customer relations orientation.

....

The company intends to grow more and increase its team with a special mix of special needs and other agents to help maintain a regular life in normal surroundings while always feeling competent and capable.

Congratulations, Amr Deabes again on the continued success of your project and keep the good news coming.