PM — Essays by AI

Good afternoon, wonderful people. It’s a busy hump day here in Omm El Donia and elsewhere as we push through the middle of the workweek.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

El Wazir confirms Abu Dhabi Ports + Qatar’s Mwani have their eyes on Egypt: The government is currently in early-stage negotiations with Abu Dhabi Ports and the Qatar Ports Management Company (Mwani) to manage and operate ports in Egypt, especially in Ain Sokhna and Safaga, Transport Minister Kamel El Wazir told CNBC Arabia, confirming earlier reports that the Qatar Investment Authority was looking at port development and management.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

The Bank of Japan unexpectedly changed its policy on bond yield control, allowing long-term bond yields to rise or fall by up to 0.5%, instead of 0.25% previously. The surprise shift in the Japanese central bank’s monetary policy stance led to a JPY rally and a jump in bond yields. The story is leading the conversation in the international business press this afternoon: Financial Times | Wall Street Journal | Reuters | CNBC.

HAPPENING NOW-

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi is in Amman for a Middle East summit to resolve regional issues, including the instability in Iraq, according to an Ittihadiya statement. The Baghdad II conference brings together regional and international players including representatives from Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France and the EU, AFP reports. The meeting is the second edition of the regional conference held in August 2021 in the Iraqi capital, initiated by French President Emmanuel Macron.

** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

• At least two major banks have tightened foreign-currency purchase and withdrawal limits amid a continued shortage of FX in the financial system. CIB and HSBC have lowered monthly limits on withdrawals and purchases made using their debit and credit cards abroad.
• Chimera to acquire 45% of GB Lease: GB Capital has agreed to sell a 45% stake in GB Lease to our friends at Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Chimera Investments for EGP 855 mn.
• Another roadblock in the Capricorn-NewMed tie-up: One of Capricorn Energy biggest shareholders, Palliser Capital, is calling for a general meeting to vote on removing seven of the company’s directors — including CEO Simon Thompson and CFO James Smith.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

It’s the Central Bank of Egypt’s final policy meeting of the year on Thursday, and analysts we surveyed last week expect policymakers to close out 2022 with another king-size 200-bps rate hike to support the currency and tackle rising inflation. Seven of the nine analysts and economists are forecasting the central bank to raise rates, five of which see a 200-bps hike. This would take the policy rate to 15.25%, its highest level since early 2019.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect a sunny day tomorrow with temperatures peaking at 20°C during the day tomorrow before falling to a chilly 13°C at night, our favorite weather app tells us.

A new AI tool claims it can write essays for you: An artificial intelligence tool developed by US-based OpenAI, ChatGPT, is taking the internet by storm, with users reporting it could answer questions and write essays if given a prompt. A manager of a consulting firm was able to generate lecture notes using the tool, which he claimed saved him hours and needed only polishing and some edits before presenting, CNBC reports. The tool is a variant of OpenAI’s language generation software, and the company says it gathers its information from the web, archived books and Wikipedia. It was also trained to recognize linguistic patterns that allow it to mimic various writing styles, vice president of tech consulting firm Gartner told the newspaper.

The caveats: Businesses that have tried using the tool for research purposes have found that it can formulate “verbose answers” that seem to make sense, but aren’t getting the facts right. Some have also reported that it wrote biased and often sexist statements when users asked it to create song lyrics. OpenAI said in a blog post that the firm is working to address those issues, but warned that the software “will sometimes respond to harmful instructions or exhibit biased behavior.”

Is Spotify Wrapped a fun holiday season tradition or just creepy surveillance? Screenshots of people’s Spotify Wrapped flooding Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok have become recognized as a tell-tale sign that the end-of-year holiday season is upon us. The trend that sees users share a year-in-review of their listening history has continuously been picking up steam every year, since its debut in 2015, Wired reports. While this has become a fixture of many people’s social media activity, sharing our Spotify Wrapped with friends and followers ends up being a form of advertising for Spotify, as mns of users share their top artists and their most frequently listened to songs. One thing that participants of this trend seem to overlook is that the trend is all centered on user data. “Spotify has done an amazing job of marketing surveillance as fun and getting people to not only participate in their own surveillance, but celebrate it and share it and brag about it to the world,” explains digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future Director Evan Greer.

What the FTX meltdown means for the crypto industry: The collapse of crypto exchange FTX — which was once valued at USD 32 bn — “could radically reshape crypto in the years to come,” CNBC reports, citing crypto industry insiders. For the industry to get back on its feet, there needs to be a good measure of regulation, consolidation, and innovation, CNBC’s sources say. Investors won’t be able to start investing again until it is strictly regulated — the US, EU, and UK governments are focusing on “cleaning the market,” while the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets are becoming the leading “regulatory framework to date.” There is already some contagion — including to Binance, which suffered USD 6 bn of outflows last week — but “there will be exchanges that are doing things the right way and that will survive,” a partner at Keystone told CNBC. Restoring investor confidence will also require a large amount of innovation, industry players say, suggesting that blockchain technology will begin moving beyond its typical association with speculative asset trading.

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
(all times CLT)

About Fate is inspired by the 1976 Soviet film, The Irony of Fate. The 2022 rom-com film follows real estate agent Margot Hayes and lawyer Griffin Reed. Although both Hayes and Griffin are in love, it’s conditional and they can’t get past their expectations and wants. Hayes eventually breaks up with Reed as he failed to fulfill her wish to be engaged before her sister’s wedding. The movie takes you on a rollercoaster ride of events, as both characters try to get past their relationship and move on, only to find that fate always brings them back together. Things keep getting complicated, until they eventually give in, and try to overcome their unrealistic expectations and decide to give unconditional love a chance.

⚽ Today’s matches of the 8th week of the Egyptian Premier League:

Talaea El Gaish v National Bank (5pm)

Pharco v Al-Ahly (5pm)

Zamalek v Haras El Hodood (7pm)

In the 16th round of the English League Cup (9:45pm):

Newcastle v Bournemouth

Southampton v Lincoln City

MK Dons v Leicester City

Wolverhampton v Gillingham

Egypt clinched the WSF Women’s World Team Squash Championship for the fifth time in history, beating the US team in the final match last week, according to a statement. Champions Nouran Gohar (World No.1), Nour El Sherbini (World No.2), and Hania El Hammamy (World No.3) represented the Egyptian team, with Gohar and Sherbini each winning their final games, landing the championship title.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-
(all times CLT)

Cairo Jazz Club in Agouza is hosting musicians and composers Maurice Louca, Yunis, and 3PHAZ tonight at 9pm, playing a range of shaabi, experimental and psychedelic beats.

Rossini Restaurant is going big on Christmas Vibes today at 8pm, as Rahma gives an exquisite saxophone performance.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Six of Crows is all about mind games and worldbuilding. This one-of-a-kind book, written by Leigh Bardugo, nails character building as it follows six characters: Inej, Kaz, Jesper, Nina, Wylan, and Matthias. Each character has a distinct personality that somehow perfectly intertwines with the overall plot of the story, while embodying the good, bad, hilarious, evil, and complex in all of us. In the book, Kaz is the protagonist who is manipulative and doesn’t really care about saving the world. He is lured into a savage heist that could reward him in coins more than he’d ever imagined — but he can’t do it alone. Oddly enough, Kaz’s dimensional character is coupled with Inej, who although a gang member and a murderer, the things she’s encountered had opened her heart and eyes to do better and be better. Trauma is a big theme throughout the story, as well as emotions and romance.

The EGX30 fell 1.5% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 2.36 bn (54.5% above the 90-day average). Local investors were net buyers. The index is up 21.5% YTD.

In the green: Palm Hills Development (+10.8%), Telecom Egypt (+4.9%) and Juhayna (+3.0%).

In the red: Mopco (-4.2%), EFG Hermes (-4.1%) and Elsewedy Electric (-3.9%).

OUR FOUNDER OF THE WEEK– Every Tuesday, Founder of the Week looks at how a successful member of Egypt’s startup community got their big break, asks about their experiences running a business, and gets their advice for budding entrepreneurs. Speaking to us this week is Jad Ghalayini (LinkedIn), co-founder of freelance and project-based employment platform Inploy.

My name is Jad Ghalayini, and I’m a co-founder at Inploy. I studied graphic design at AUC, and worked with my diploma for a few years before jumping on a very promising potential journey to transform the creative industry as a whole. Now, I am focusing on marketing and design, creating meaningful campaigns for our customers at Inploy.

Before founding Inploy, my work mostly focused on user experience and interface — mainly for applications and websites. This exposure helped me a lot in my current role and in providing an immersive experience to our clients and the overall business development of the company.

My co-founder, Karim Fahmy, and I first came up with the idea for Inploy during our senior year at university. It was actually our graduation project, and we officially launched it to the public a couple of years later, in 2019. Inploy is a platform that fills various gaps in Egypt’s freelancing ecosystem. In Egypt, there is no umbrella market for freelancers, and many people are unfamiliar with the term. We saw the potential of this sector from more developed countries that rely heavily on freelancers.

Our goal was to build and arrange a market for freelancers so they could obtain more visibility among clients and develop their portfolio. Inpoly currently has over 2k active freelancers and 600+ clients. It’s tested out projects worth EGP 3 mn and freelancers have received more than EGP 2.5 mn to date.

We are more than a platform that connects freelancers and clients — we also handle taxes, bills and contracts. It’s a freemium platform, which means it’s part premium, part free. We only take commission on transactions that we manage. We provide the service to handle invoices and taxes for freelancers and customers, taking the burden off taxed freelancers, and providing tax invoices to clients — a big game changer for firms wishing to work with freelancers but are constantly discouraged by the lack of formal tax remittals and invoicing.

We raised EGP 500k with Flat6labs during the pandemic. It was a very challenging time, but we were able to capitalize on the circumstance because the concept of freelancing matched well with the shift to working from home. We also raised a second round from family and friends, and are currently working on numerous funding plans that will be announced in the near future.

Inploy’s plan for growth involves a more comprehensive process. Freelancers will be able to create briefs and projects directly on the platform, while clients will have access to track the performance of the freelancer during the project. We are also in the process of transforming into a digital fintech platform. We are developing peer-to-peer payment software that will allow transactions to pass through our platform.

The best part of my job is meeting new people from different sectors and communicating with them on a regular basis. I consider myself very lucky to have had the chance to learn about various industry trends from experts in many fields.

The worst part of my job is getting clients to understand how freelancers work. Because not all clients are willing to work with freelancers, we do our best to always onboard exceptional talents on our platforms who can help us reach out to more clients and help them understand the benefits of working with us.

I gave up my social life to found Inploy. I was working on Inploy while having a day job. So basically I spent all of my free time working on Inploy to get it to where it is today.

If I were to give someone starting their own business just one piece of advice, it would be to never give up hope. You will go through some difficult times and be tempted to give up, but don’t. To fulfill your dream of becoming an entrepreneur, you must be persistent. The journey is never easy.

I always turn to my wife, Azza El Shenawi, for advice. She’s a marketing guru and we share the same mindset, so she’s often the person I go to when I need to solve a difficult problem.

The only way I’d exit my firm is through an acquisition to expand it and improve it. I wouldn’t continue as an employee, but I would love to have a say or work as a consultant.

My family was highly supportive of my decision to start a business. My mother has always predicted that I will become an entrepreneur ever since I was a child.

I recommend reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s truly a great book that helped me a lot in the process of launching Inploy. It discusses how to become a better version of yourself and breaks it down for you. I recently also watched The Swimmers. It particularly moved me because I am Lebanese and lived through the 2006 war. Therefore, I could relate to the fear of being near or experiencing an explosion. It’s very difficult to get over it.

I turn to music for inspiration. Music and its different beats motivate me to design. It helps me to visualize and delve into a more creative process at work.

One startup I believe is killing it is Paymob. They’re rapidly growing and doing an excellent job of communicating what Paymob is to everyone.

If I couldn’t build the business I have now, I would’ve started another business, most likely an agency. It’s always been a dream of mine to launch a digital agency, with a fully remote experience.