PM — Is invisibility a fate worse than failure?

Good afternoon, wonderful people, and happy end to hump day. One week from today, a bunch of us will be at the Grand Egyptian Museum to meet many of you at the Enterprise Climate X Forum. It’s our first-ever large-scale event, with more than 200 C-suite execs, bankers, investors, DFI folks and more set to join us to talk through what we think is the world’s largest and most exciting industry.

More on that below…

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Saudi Arabia is rolling over its USD 5 bn deposit at the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) for an additional year, according to reports in Bloomberg Asharq and Al Arabiya. Saudi had made the one-year deposit in March of this year to help shore up Egypt’s finances and contain the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

Another day, another afternoon of the international business press being squarely focused on protests in China. Authorities in China are now “seeking out” people who participated in protests against the country’s covid-zero policy, while trying to stamp out criticism of the policy by placing the blame on local governments for failing to contain covid-19 breakouts. The story is on the front pages of Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and CNBC.

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

• Somabay’s Ibrahim El Messiri on how a tourism push could draw immediate FX: After reading our five-step recipe for turning Egypt into a global export hub and FDI magnet, Somabay CEO Ibrahim El Missiri talked to us about why tourism and aviation should be put on a focused short list of priority industries.
• CBE looks at proposals to help shore up FX liquidity: The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) is mulling a handful of options as part of its strategy to increase FX liquidity, after CBE Governor Hassan Abdalla met with the heads of the nation’s banks on Sunday.
• Egypt’s economy grew 4.4% y-o-y in 1Q FY 2022-2023, according to preliminary data from the Planning Ministry.

FOR TOMORROW-

Tomorrow will be the last day of payment and fintech conference Pafix, which is being held as part of Cairo ICT 2022 at the Egypt International Exhibition Centre in New Cairo. The conference kicked off yesterday.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

CORRECTION- The House Manpower Committee will continue hearings on the new draft Labor Act next Wednesday, 7 December, not today, as we incorrectly wrote in this morning’s edition of EnterpriseAM. The session will see representatives from the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI) and the Egyptian Trade Union Federation in attendance. The bill, which was approved by the Senate in February, extends both maternity leave and notice periods, caps working hours, and changes minimum raise increments, among other things. We have more on the bill’s finer points here.

EGX-listed Pachin will brief shareholders on acquisition offers it has received in its ordinary general assembly on Tuesday, 20 December, according to an EGX disclosure (pdf). Dubai-based National Paints Holdings is offering to purchase 100% of Pachin for EGP 29 per share — far outbidding earlier offers from Universal Building Materials and Chemicals (Sipes) and Saybad Industrial Investment that have since been withdrawn.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- We’re looking at a sunny day tomorrow with temperatures in Cairo expected to hit 25°C during the day before falling to 14°C in the evening, according to our favorite weather app.

Employees are back at the office, but crave the peace and quiet of WFH: Companies are changing up the setup of their offices, including equipping them with “quiet rooms” to accommodate employees returning to a hybrid work model after years of covid-induced WFH, the Financial Times writes. Office days, in a hybrid work setup, are usually slated for collaborative work, socializing, and bouncing ideas off each other but some employees still need their privacy and quiet in order to complete the tasks at hand. Employees who were once able to focus and work efficiently in a loud office may have lost that ability after two years of working remotely in an environment under their own control, prompting the need for quiet spaces in any open-plan office. “When you’ve spent two years alone, you become very sensitive to noise. What we’re hearing from HR departments is that people are hypersensitive to their environments,” one expert tells the salmon-colored paper.

Libraries in the US and Canada are launching streaming platforms promoting local music, thanks to MUSICat, Vice reports. The Madison Public Library created the Yahara Music Library, an online music library that features local musicians’ music was created in 2014, with help from Preston Austin and Kelly Hiser. Upon completing the project, the pair realized that they had a software prototype that other libraries interested in using could tweak and launch as well. They then built software platform MUSICat, which public libraries in Pittsburgh, Nashville, Fort Worth and New Orleans have used to launch their own streaming services. While in no way comparable to the giants like Apple Music or Spotify, more than 12 public libraries across the two countries began offering their own community-oriented music streaming services in a bid to promote local artists and local music scenes.

They even pay better: New Orleans’ local library streaming service, Crescent City Sounds pays local artists USD 250 to license their song to the New Orleans Public Library for five years, no small figure in comparison to the few cents per stream offered to independent musicians by larger streaming players like Spotify.

The EGX30 rose 2.1% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.98 bn (36.5% above the 90-day average). Local investors were net buyers. The index is up 10.3% YTD.

In the green: QNB Alahli (+6.4%), Credit Agricole Egypt (+5.5%) and Housing and Development Bank (+4.7%).

In the red: Juhayna (-1.5%), Mopco (-0.9%) and AMOC (-0.9%).

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 Sabrine Assem (LinkedIn), founder of the all-in-on competition management platform for innovation-driven organizations, Untap Technologies.

My name is Sabrine Assem and I’m the founder of Untap Technologies. I’m a 35-year-old Alexandria native. I graduated from GUC with a bachelor’s in information systems and innovative technology, and I hold a master’s degree in digital innovation and information systems from the UK’s Warwick Business School. I began teaching at GUC in 2010, where I worked for three years before founding my first company, Solvermine, which failed due to many external factors. Afterwards, I worked as a consultant for the German Arab Chamber of Commerce and the German Ministry of Economic Affairs right before launching Untap Technologies in 2019.

I first came up with the idea for Untap Technologies when I was approached by Dell Technologies as an innovation consultant. They needed support in managing and streamlining the process for a new regional student competition for graduation projects across the MENA region, Africa, and Turkey. So we launched Untap Technologies as a competition management platform. We created software that enables organizations to easily and quickly plan, launch, and manage online innovation challenges, creative contests, hackathons, grants, scholarships, and basically anything that requires application handling.

Untap Technologies offers a streamlined holistic experience that goes beyond just providing software. We provide content, templates, and try to find communities of participants that fit the purpose of the program and its outreach plan — through initial filtration and overall support to make sure the program is successful. Our services also cover publicizing and collecting applications, as well as partially automated initial filtration. We also cover the screening process and the evaluation process.

Our work with Dell Technologies is a success story, having covered eight editions called Envision the Future. We ran alongside it several hackathons and virtual hiring events, summer internship programs and innovation challenges. We powered over 150 programs so far, ranging from a creative design contest in Australia, to the biggest photography contest in the world happening in the UK. We also power innovation challenges and pressing issues-related programs for the Saudi government.

I was always inspired to establish my own company. My first-ever visit to Silicon Valley when I was quite young gave me the chance to learn about the startup ecosystem, and convinced me that I should pursue entrepreneurship. During my master’s studies, I learned more about the concept of open innovation, which prompted me to create Solvermine.

I gave up a lot of freedom and the stability of working for an established institution while founding my own business. However, I was so passionate about the idea and what it was trying to solve that I declined all of the offers that came my way. I gave up the potential to explore other opportunities, my mental health and well-being, and sacrificed a lot of my quality time with family as well.

The best part of my job is my team. I also enjoy working closely with customers and brainstorming to generate the best programs possible. The worst part of my job is the administrative work, like working with legal papers.

If I could give someone starting their own business just one piece of advice, I would tell them to practice listening. When you listen and pay attention, you automatically grow from your side and give the person speaking — whether it’s a team member or customer — the kind of attention that they would appreciate. There is always someone out there to learn something from if you are a great listener.

When I’m facing a difficult problem at work, I always turn to my partners and investors for advice. However, on a daily basis, I always solve issues with my teammates, especially with our chief growth officer, Maggie Adel. She's been a true asset to Untap since 2019.

So far, Untap has successfully raised USD 670k, and our main investors include Flat6labs, Loay El Shawarby, Ocean X, Techstars, Faisal Al Abulsalam, Fouad Alnazawi, Ali Alqahtani, and Ibrahim Alzuhimeel. We are also working with a leading innovation consulting firm in Saudi, but we won’t be able to disclose any more information until we sign the agreement.

The three most important KPIs we look at are cash flow, customer acquisition and the number of leads we have in our pipeline. We also look at the number of programs we launch per week, the converts we pay and the engagement level. We have a dashboard that monitors everything related to the business.

We are not looking to raise soon. Once we receive the ongoing funding with the leading consultancy firm in Saudi, we are planning to take a break to work and focus on the business for six to eight months before starting our fundraising efforts around July 2023.

If I were to exit my business tomorrow, I would do it through an acquisition by an innovation consultancy. I would also stay on as an employee as I’m passionate about Untap’s concept, regardless of having majority shares.

It took my family a while to get on board with the concept of founding my own business. However, now that I have launched Untap and it proved to be a success, they are very supportive.

If I hadn't started Untap Technologies, I probably would have built another business. Since I have a strong passion for education, working in edtech or teaching seems like something I would have done.

I believe that Instabug is killing it. The fact that they went through so many challenges since 2012 and came out stronger than before is something that inspires me everyday.

If I only had enough money to do one thing, I would invest in the company, particularly in the product itself.