A Career in IT in Egypt

Ali Zewail, MBACEO & Co-Founder of jidari.com

Introductions

• Currently, CEO at Jidari.com• Previously:– General Manager @ Raya Software– Research & Innovation Manager @ Intel

Corporation– Also worked at Soficom, Unilever..

• Fulbright Scholar, MBA 2004• B. Sc. Eng, Alexandria University, 1994

IT Industry in Egypt

• Within Egypt: Mostly Enterprise Applications– Biggest Sectors: Government and Banking– Database Applications– ‘Traditional’ technologies based on large vendors

such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, etc.• Offshore Development• Some startup activity

THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED….

2011-2012An explosion of startups

Now: IT Industry in Egypt

• Many startups, serving all sorts of industries• Much less enterprise application development• Offshore development

What’s DifferentAttribute Established Company Startups

Management Style Formal Empowerment

Emphasis Effort Output

Collaboration Low High

Employee-Client Engagement

Lower Higher

Technologies Traditional Open-source, cutting-edge

Uncertainty Low High

Projects Business Automation Anything you can imagine

Culture Executing, Delivering Learning, Collaborating

If you want to do it yourself

• Take risks – but calculated ones• Know your customer – first and foremost• Don’t copy – be creative• Don’t just look inward – think across industries• Don’t be generic – find a niche• Be excellent – don’t settle for mediocre• Lastly - work very, very hard

Parting Words

Be Better

Read

Care

Be TrueListen

Act

Thank You, Take care!

Ali ZewailTwitter: @alizewail

www.jidari.com