Podcasts by Category

Startups Arabia

Startups Arabia

Ali Zewail

The Arab startups scene is one of the hottest globally. The Startups Arabia podcast is the place to learn all about it. With a 420 million strong population that is young and tech-savvy, the Arab world is proving to be a great market to create a startup. This podcast interviews the best founders, investors and operators of the region. Listening to deep conversations with them, you will learn deep insights about the ecosystem. You will also be inspired by their success, the challenges they overcame and the opportunities they see.

20 - Rama Kayyali, Building a mission-driven company, adopting cutting-edge technology to improve Arabic language literacy and pivoting several times - Ep.5, Season 2
0:00 / 0:00
1x
  • 20 - Rama Kayyali, Building a mission-driven company, adopting cutting-edge technology to improve Arabic language literacy and pivoting several times - Ep.5, Season 2

    Rama Kayyali is CEO and co-founder of Little Thinking Minds, an award-winning edtech company with a mission to close Arabic language literacy gaps, creating digital learning platforms to improve targeting over 100 million children in MENA and over 100 million globally. Currently Little Thinking Minds platforms are used by half a million students in 800 schools in 10 countries in the MENA region in private and public schools as well as schools that cater to refugee communities.


    Little Thinking Minds is a multiple globally recognized and award winning company:

    2023 winner of the Innovation Award from the Saudi eLearning Center

    2022 MIT SOLVE global competition

    2021 Innovation Award of Abdel Hamid Shoman Foundation

    2020 and 2021 Elite 200 (GSVCup Competition) representing the top “Pre-K to Gray” EdTech startups across the globe with a mission to ensure that children have access to a better future through education

    2019 Selected as one of the top 100 start-ups shaping the fourth industrial revolution

    2019 Queen Rania Award for Education in Entrepreneurship


    Rama is an Eisenhower Fellow, an Endeavor Entrepreneur and winner of the Arab Women's Award.

    —-----------------------------------------------------------

    The Startups Arabia Podcast connects you to the most prominent founders, investors, and operators of the Arab region. You will be inspired by their success, the challenges they overcame and the opportunities they see.

    Follow us on our social media platforms to stay updated and get in touch:

    LinkedIn: Startups Arabia Podcast

    Twitter: @ArabiaStartups

    Facebook: @startupsarabia

    Youtube: Startups Arabia Podcast

    —--- Resources—--------:

    Rama’s LinkedIn account:@Rama Kayyali

    Little Thinking Minds’ Website: https://www.littlethinkingminds.com/en/

    Sun, 11 Feb 2024
  • 19 - Wael Nafee, Transitioning from operator to investor, YC’s secret sauce and building Careem in its growth phase - Ep.4, Season 2

    Wael is a Computer Engineer, serial entrepreneur, and YC alumnus who has co-founded various startups in the Silicon Valley and the Middle East. He was one of the early employees of Careem and held roles including VP of Product Management and VP of Platform Superapp Business Unit until Uber's acquisition for $3.1bn. Wael is a techie at heart and has built technology products used by tens of millions of users worldwide. He is currently a General Partner at Raed Ventures​, a VC firm ​investing in early stage startups in the region​,​ and is passionate about building tech capacity and fostering entrepreneurship in the MENA region.

    —-----------------------------------------------------------

    The Startups Arabia Podcast connects you to the most prominent founders, investors, and operators of the Arab region. You will be inspired by their success, the challenges they overcame and the opportunities they see.

    Follow us on our social media platforms to stay updated and get in touch:

    LinkedIn: Startups Arabia Podcast

    Twitter: @ArabiaStartups

    Facebook: @startupsarabia

    Youtube: Startups Arabia Podcast

    —--- Resources—--------:

    Wael’s LinkedIn account:@Wael Nafee

    Raed Ventures’ Website: https://raed.vc/

    Sun, 28 Jan 2024
  • 18 - Waleed Kadous, Decoding LLM-based approaches and startup versus big tech culture - Ep.3, Season 2

    Dr. Waleed Kadous is Chief Scientist at Anyscale, the company behind the popular open source distributed computing platform Ray. He leads the company’s LLM efforts. Prior to Anyscale, Waleed worked at Uber, where he led overall system architecture, evangelized machine learning, and led the Location and Maps teams. He previously worked at Google, where he founded the Android Location and Sensing team, responsible for the “blue dot” as well as ML algorithms underlying products like Google Fit. He also holds more than 40 patents. 

    —-----------------------------------------------------------

    The Startups Arabia Podcast connects you to the most prominent founders, investors, and operators of the Arab region. You will be inspired by their success, the challenges they overcame and the opportunities they see.

    Follow us on our social media platforms to stay updated and get in touch:

    LinkedIn:Startups Arabia Podcast

    Twitter:@ArabiaStartups

    Facebook:@startupsarabia

    Youtube:Startups Arabia Podcast

    —--- Resources—--------:

    Waleed’s LinkedIn account:@M Waleed Kadous

    Anyscale’s Website:https://www.anyscale.com/

    Ray:https://docs.ray.io/en/latest/


    Mon, 08 Jan 2024
  • 17 - Asher Siddiqui, VC fundraising, GP/LP dynamics, and advising Robert Downey Jr's fund - Ep.2 Part 2, Season 2

    Asher Siddiqui is a tech investor with a global career spanning 25+ years, having made 100+ investments valued at $15bn+.

    Asher is a General Partner at Sukna Ventures, a MENA focused early-stage VC Fund that backs exceptional teams building the software & data infrastructure layer enabling the digital transformation of industries across the MENA region.

    Asher started out in the late 90’s as an entrepreneur and software engineer building J2EE B2B SaaS products (1998-2006), followed by 10 years (2006-2016) in corporate M&A, as Head of M&A and CVC at Etisalat Group (now e& Group - c.$65bn market cap) where he led $15bn of M&A and CVC (founding board member and chair of the IC at iMENA Group) deals and then switched to VC when he joined the global leadership team at 500 Startups (now 500 Global) in San Francisco (2016-2019).

    Since then, Asher was involved with the development of several VC firms including Sukna Ventures in the MENA region, Lumikai Fund in India, Zayn Capital in Pakistan, Race Capital in Silicon Valley, etc..

    Asher Siddiqui is also a GP coach and advisor to several VC fund managers (GP’s) and sits on the advisory board of several VC firms, including: FootPrint Coalition Ventures (led by Robert Downey Jr. - USA), Merus Capital (led by the former Head of Corp Dev at Google - USA), The Treasury (led by the cofounders of Betterment and Acorns - USA), among others. 

    —-----------------------------------------------------------

    The Startups Arabia Podcast connects you to the most prominent founders, investors, and operators of the Arab region. You will be inspired by their success, the challenges they overcame and the opportunities they see.

    Follow us on our social media platforms to stay updated and get in touch:

    LinkedIn: Startups Arabia Podcast

    Twitter: @ArabiaStartups

    Facebook: @startupsarabia

    Youtube: Startups Arabia Podcast

    —--- Resources—--------:

    Asher's LinkedIn account: @Asher Siddiqui

    Sukna Ventures’ Website: https://suknaventures.com/

    Sun, 24 Dec 2023
  • 16 - Asher Siddiqui, Thriving through boom and bust, picking the right startups and architecting billion-dollar mega-deals - Ep.2 Part 1, Season 2

    Asher Siddiqui is a tech investor with a global career spanning 25+ years, having made 100+ investments valued at $15bn+.

    Asher is a General Partner at Sukna Ventures, a MENA focused early-stage VC Fund that backs exceptional teams building the software & data infrastructure layer enabling the digital transformation of industries across the MENA region.

    Asher started out in the late 90’s as an entrepreneur and software engineer building J2EE B2B SaaS products (1998-2006), followed by 10 years (2006-2016) in corporate M&A, as Head of M&A and CVC at Etisalat Group (now e& Group - c.$65bn market cap) where he led $15bn of M&A and CVC (founding board member and chair of the IC at iMENA Group) deals and then switched to VC when he joined the global leadership team at 500 Startups (now 500 Global) in San Francisco (2016-2019).

    Since then, Asher was involved with the development of several VC firms including Sukna Ventures in the MENA region, Lumikai Fund in India, Zayn Capital in Pakistan, Race Capital in Silicon Valley, etc..

    Asher Siddiqui is also a GP coach and advisor to several VC fund managers (GP’s) and sits on the advisory board of several VC firms, including: FootPrint Coalition Ventures (led by Robert Downey Jr. - USA), Merus Capital (led by the former Head of Corp Dev at Google - USA), The Treasury (led by the cofounders of Betterment and Acorns - USA), among others. 

    —-----------------------------------------------------------

    The Startups Arabia Podcast connects you to the most prominent founders, investors, and operators of the Arab region. You will be inspired by their success, the challenges they overcame and the opportunities they see.

    Follow us on our social media platforms to stay updated and get in touch:

    LinkedIn: Startups Arabia Podcast

    Twitter: @ArabiaStartups

    Facebook: @startupsarabia

    Youtube: Startups Arabia Podcast

    —--- Resources—--------:

    Asher's LinkedIn account:@Asher Siddiqui

    Sukna Ventures’ Website: https://suknaventures.com/

    Sun, 10 Dec 2023
Show More Episodes