In just over a week from now, Startups Without Borders will be hosting its first summit targeted at entrepreneurs from across the Middle East & North Africa and beyond. It will be a two-day event spanning Nov 8 – 9 and will be held at the American University in Cairo.
The Summit, dubbed “Think Global, Inside Out,” will be divided along three tracks — Tech to Scale, Creative Economics, and Female Leadership.
Backed by strategic partners including UNDP, AUC V-Lab, and Facebook, the summit will be co-hosted by the Telling the Real Story Project. Its main agenda is to underline the various facets associated with female leadership in startups, impact investment, and technologies to scale.
Briefly touching upon the vision behind “Think Global, Inside Out,” Valentina Primo, Founder and CEO of Startups Without Borders, stated: “If we look at unicorns in Silicon Valley, 55% of those $1 billion startups were created by at least one immigrant. 43% of Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants and their children.”
Primo added: “On the other hand, the tech ecosystem is missing out on a huge opportunity: it’s been reported that the tech industry today is losing an opportunity worth $400 billion due to its lack of diversity. As Egypt’s startups set off to scale globally, it’s time to build a strong ecosystem that capitalizes on diversity as an opportunity.”
Apart from keynote addresses and panel discussions involving some of the brightest minds in the global entrepreneurial ecosystem, the summit will also include a range of workshops, boot camps, and networking events aimed at helping promising startups to scale and go global.