2022 Mentors
Virtual Mentorship Session 2022
Virtual Mentorship session gives ticket holders an opportunity to sit and connect at a virtual session with a mentor. Mentorship and access to mentors is an important part of a successful career development. To speed up the process of connecting people and maximizing what one can get out of mentorship, we bring you ‘Mentorship’ sessions at our conference. We’ve put together four (4) topics at our mentorship sessions; Mentorship with Investors, with Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs, and Career in Tech.
Virtual Mentorship Sessions with Entrepreneurs, Recruiters (Careers in Tech), and technical professionals - Open to all conference attendees for fueling inspiration, growth, and mutual interests amongst participants, provided each of them have a purchased conference ticket. Seats for our Mentorship Sessions are limited to 10 per mentor and it's on a first come first serve basis on the day of the event so hurry and get your tickets!
Virtual Mentorship Sessions with Investors - open and limited to Founders of startups at the stage of funding and would like to get advice and connect with investors. Seats for our Funding Mentorship Sessions are limited to 10 per mentor and on a first come first serve basis on the day of the event so hurry and get your tickets!
Interested to sign up as a mentor?
Get in touch with us and let us know what are your areas of interest and we’ll get back to you.
Past Mentors
Nader is the Co-founder and CEO of MoneyHash: an early stage fintech company aiming to aggregate and streamline the fragmented payment and fintech ecosystem in the Middle East, Africa, and emerging markets.
Prior to MoneyHash, he spent most of his career in academia and consulting working on technology management, venture design, and product innovation. He later switched to the startup world working with various tech startups in MENA.
Nader is a Fulbright alum, and holds master's degrees from UC Berkeley and Nile University.
Ishara Kotagama is a serial entrepreneur and currently the Founder and CEO of Allerkids, a platform dedicated to creating an inclusive culture for children with food allergies. Ishara studied and worked in Australia, Europe, and Asia, with global marketing experience in industries including technology, healthcare, and CPG. She is an avid supporter of the arts and has served on the board of San Francisco Ballet, and currently serves on the board of TEDxMarin.
Tina is a serial entrepreneur with 15 years’ experience, launching three technology based start-ups. Tina has advised and led start-ups and venture funds on their pre and post launch operations, business and investment strategies, and fundraising. Tina also invests in early-stage exponential and impact-driven technologies. Tina holds a Civil Engineering degree from UCL and is an advocate for women in STEM.
Arefeh is an experienced Operational Excellence consultant with a demonstrated history of managing agile projects in the automotive and renewable industries. Currently she is working as a consultant for the London-based innovative telecom and cyber security solutions provider, Exponential-e and volunteering as the lead of the London chapter of Women of MENA in Technology.
She has vast experience in Continuous Improvement practices, Lean Six-Sigma and Lean Startup, Digital Transformation and Business Management System development, helping businesses with improving their management systems and processes to achieve excellence.
She has done her undergraduate studies in Electronics Engineering at the University of Tehran, Iran and her post-grad and PhD in the same field with focus on electron microscopy of semiconductor materials and devices at University of Sheffield, UK
Farah is a Senior Investment Associate at Sawari. She has experience in private equity, asset management and venture capital, encompassing a range of sectors, including non-bank financial services, agribusiness, FMCG and petrochemicals. Prior to working at Sawari, she co-managed public equity, fixed income and money market funds totaling more than 2 billion Egyptian pounds at NBK Capital.
She has also worked at Tanmeya Capital Ventures (TCV), one of Egypt’s fastest growing private equity firms where she was part of the team that closed the first three transactions of the firm’s fund in less than two years totaling $12 million. Prior to that she worked at the Sawiris Foundation for Environmental Development where she took part in formulating the foundation’s overall strategy and was responsible for sourcing funding for its projects.
Farah holds a bachelor’s in Finance from the American University in Cairo.
Oumaima Farik is Douar Tech's Program Coordinator supporting project management, partnership development, and stakeholder engagement within our programs.
With family ties to Beni Mellal and currently based in Bouskoura, Oumaima Farik has been supporting Douar Tech as its Program Coordinator since February 2021. Oumaima has represented her Moroccan roots in cross-cultural programs around the world from South Africa to Qatar. In her previous experience as the coordinator for CIEE programs for more than seven years, Oumaima’s experience in program development allowed her to create more inclusive opportunities through experiential learning for her students.
Oumaima has a Masters in Pedagogy of Cultural Mediation in Arts and Sciences from the Faculty of Educational Sciences in Rabat. She is committed to fostering intercultural competencies in students by reducing barriers to access and engagement through inclusive programming
As a former rocket scientist who decided to change her career and life after a near death experience, Maria is a former Google consultant who is currently helping professionals accelerate their career transition.
She is a transformative career coach and a powerful leadership consultant, who believes in valuing your expertise, growing your worth, daring for the best, and achieving true success while being yourself.
Gelareh Taghizadeh is a Lead Data Scientist in a London-based tech company, CogX. She did her undergrad studies in Computer Engineering and her postgrad studies in Artificial Intelligence. Gelareh has published her research works in the field of applied AI during her years of working as a researcher in academia, and in 2015, she joined the industry and since then she has developed extensive experience in applying advanced machine learning techniques in Natural Language Processing domain. At her job as a Lead Data Scientist, she is involved in leading, mentoring, and managing data scientists in her own team and other teams, her team works closely with the product and development team to shape their machine learning models and put them in production.
Azadeh holds a Ph.D., in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Manchester, she has co-founded, the Women AI academy to empower women around the world to get into AI-related jobs. Azadeh is an impact-driven entrepreneur and strategist, and a community builder with 12+ years of experience in project management and product management, delivering products with a strong background in Innovation and Digitalisation within a cross-functional team.
Arefeh is passionate about solving complex problems that require a multi-disciplinary and innovative approach. She is a life-long learner and enthusiast of the intersection between tech, culture and human behavior. Arefeh is currently working as a Senior Product Manager for Amazon Prime, based in Tokyo.
Elliot Reuben has worked in business, marketing and digital strategy & operations for over 25 years and for the last 7 years has been Director, Strategic Business Consulting for Salesforce in EMEA, working with global enterprises on developing innovative strategies for reaching the most ambitious of business goals.
Prior to Salesforce he was a leading digital strategist and planning director in marketing & advertising agency-land, working on campaigns for a wide range of global, blue chip clients, from Diageo to Nestle, Microsoft to Peugeot and many more.
He started out in the music industry, running his own labels and artist management companies, then ran international marketing & PR campaigns for independent labels. He spent four years in Cardiff as Chief Executive of Welsh Music Foundation and still maintains an unhealthy interest in music, occasionally playing drums for a moderately-acclaimed and commercially underwhelming band.
Rama is a seasoned Global Tech Executive with over 20 years of experience in the technology sector with diverse experience in sales & distribution, operations and business transformation in high growth and M&A scenarios.
As former Andela's Country Director- a technology company that’s solving the global technical talent shortage - Rama built and launched Andela Egypt, while positioning it as a Tech company leader in the Tech ecosystem as well as the home to great tech talent. Before joining Andela, Rama led teams at IBM, Lenovo, and Dell working across different continents, moving from Cairo to Dubai to Paris. She recently moved back to Egypt to act on her long-time desire to help build the future of technology in her home country. Her energy and passion for building a great organization in Africa and the region are contagious. In her own words, ""dare to dream, believe in yourself, follow your passion and help build a better world"". Rama holds a BSc in Computer Science from The American University in Cairo and an Executive MBA from HEC Paris in General Management and Entrepreneurship.
Global Tech Executive
Vince Kohli, An Empathy Scholar, is a Global Exponential Impact Capitalist and Silicon Valley Early-stage Investor, 6X Tech Entrepreneur, Serial Business Builder, Product Visionary, Inventor, Problem Thinking Doer, Public Speaker, and Author. Vince is a Global Impact Capitalist Maker, Exponential Impact Super Angel Investor focused on Hyperautomation, Enterprise Deep Tech, AI and ML impacting Enterprise and Social Enterprise Industries. Vince is a special invited member of MIT Technology review Global Panel and business advisor at Meta, Google, Amazon and Box. Vince serves as a StartpUp Judge at MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Google, Samsung, IBM, DraperU, Founder Institute, Founders Space, California State University, StartX, and NASA. Vince is a StartUp / ScaleUp Business Design Investor / Advisor/Mentor at Google4StartUps, Microsoft for StartUps, Singularity, Launch, IBM, StartX, AngelHack, Top Silicon Valley Incubators, Venture Builders, Venture Studios, and Accelerators at Alchemist, and 500 Global and YC.
Vince invented the revolutionary Rapid Prototyping Investor Pitching Method termed as "Seven Second StartUp and ScaleUp Value Pitch". He is a High Impact Venture Mentor Maker in Silicon Valley for Global StartUps and ScaleUps Ecosystem, SAP recognized and awarded SAP Mentor Award and pioneered the first ever Corporate Mentorship Award. Vince is an Innovation Catalyst at UCSF for digital health, hardware and software design for medical devices, Corporate Startup Innovation at Honda Innovation, Samsung Tech Impact, Corporate Ventures with HP Ventures, and Samsung NEXT Ventures, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Venture Lab - IE Business School, Plug and Play, Silicon Valley.
Vince has contributed valuable mentorship to 26K+ Founders Vision from 70+ Countries. He is a life changing coach for business / tech founders and on a Massive Transformation Mission to exponentially Impact Billion Entrepreneurs with Global Professional Business Venture Mentorship initiative and execute with the Pilanthropreneurologist mindset to Impact the Post COVID World with Empathy + EQ. Vince regularly speaks on UN SDG’s, Corporate Innovation, 5G, AI/ML, Quantum Technologies, Edge Computing, Blockchain, Scaling Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Global Resilience - Scaling the Innovation Economy.
Fatemeh has more than 17 years of experience in Energy industry. Currently she is the Director of New & Low Carbon Business Development at Air Products where she works with a range of customers across the energy value chain on topics related to the Energy Transition. Prior to this role, she was the Venture Owner of Carbon Capture Technologies at Siemens Energy Incubator where she developed technology development and go-to-market strategies to build the CCS business for Siemens Energy, where she successfully pitched the business to potential investors to raise sufficient fund to take the venture to the next level up to the “Exit/Launch” phase.
Fatemeh’s background is Mechanical Engineering, she has Masters in Energy from Heriot-Watt university and PhD in Low Carbon Energy Technologies from the University of Leeds in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin.
Nasim Boustani is a “professional learner”, and after completing her BASc in Electronics Engineering in Shiraz University in 2000, her passion for a wide variety of new intellectual subjects and experiencing new cultures landed her in Canada. She pursued her love of science at UBC in Vancouver, completing her project at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre (SLAC) and receiving her Masters degree in Experimental Particle Physics.
Nasim then moved back to Iran to be an instructor in Shiraz Azad University, teaching Math, Physics and Electronics for a several of years. In 2007, she moved back to Vancouver, shifting her career focus into the Tech Industry and consequently completed her MBA in Management of Technology at SFU.
Nasim has been working as an Operation Manager and Operations Director in various technology firms since 2009. Her responsibilities as a global Operation and Transformation leader have mandated her to excel at cross-functional and cross-cultural skills which are vital to implementing a sustainable change in the fast paced segments of the tech industry. In her free time, you may find her doing yoga, rock climbing, painting or singing. She is also an expert Yoga teacher who offers ad-hoc training sessions to friends in her free time.
Sally is a Customer Experience Evangelist at Salesforce, consulting with companies across EMEA on the future of their customer experience and has driven the development of digital transformation strategies and design of customer centric experiences across multiple industries. Having spoken at many global conferences such as Dreamforce, Sally advocates revolutionising organisational culture with the vision to use technology more innovatively.
As an ambassador for women in STEM, she’s passionate about creating a change and is a Women of MENA in Tech Ambassador, enthusing young people and inspiring the next generation of STEM professionals.
Sally has over 15 years experience in marketing, digital, ecommerce, branding, CRM and customer centric design and graduated from University of Arts London in Marketing + Advertising.
In her spare time she aspires to connect people around the world with the culture of the Middle Eastern with her food blog and hosting Persian Supper Nights. (@cookingwithsaloomeh)
Arezou Seifpour is a product management lead, working and consulting in software companies of various sizes from early-stage startups to public companies. She volunteers with PDX Women in Tech, an organization which focuses on strengthening the Portland community of women in technology. She founded the PDXWIT Mentorship Program and currently serves as the Director of Innovation. As a change agent for the tech industry, Arezou has been involved in key advocacy efforts, including co-penning an open letter resulting in the removal of offensive tech billboards displayed in Portland's downtown core.
