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Two more UAE residents, Emirati Sheikh Ahmed Bin Faisal Al Qassimi and British painter Sacha Jafri, receive awards in the culture category.
The Mother Teresa International Awards 2023 celebrated the accomplishments of 18 outstanding individuals, with Emirati philanthropist Ahmed Al Falasi at the forefront for his contributions to social work. Al Falasi, recognised as the Arab Hope Maker in 2020, garnered this honour for his humanitarian efforts in establishing advanced kidney dialysis centres and incubators in Kenya’s Mombasa.
Joining the ranks of awardees were two esteemed UAE residents, Emirati Sheikh Ahmed Bin Faisal Al Qassimi and British painter Sacha Jafri. Both were lauded in the culture category. The accolades were presented during a ceremony held at Dubai’s Conrad Hotel on August 26, which was the 113th birth anniversary of Mother Teresa, a global icon known for her selfless devotion.
These awards were organised by the All-India Minority and Weaker Sections Council, a non-political organisation founded by Late Prafulla Chandra Sen, a former chief minister of West Bengal, and Mr. Anthony Arun Biswas, alongside other dignitaries.
Mother Teresa, beatified by Pope John Paul II as Saint Teresa, was born on August 26, 1910. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, a humanitarian organisation that grew to include over 4,500 nuns serving in 133 countries. Her life’s work revolved around assisting the most impoverished individuals, receiving honours such as the Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize.
Notably, this marked the first instance of the award ceremony being hosted outside of India. After Saint Teresa’s passing in 1997, the council established the Mother Teresa International and Millennium Award Committee. This committee was entrusted with the task of annually recognising exceptional individuals who have excelled in the fields of education, science, culture, sports, social work, medicine, industry, and politics in India.
Prior to this event, the Harmony Organisation, which also presents awards in Mother Teresa’s name, expressed concerns regarding the August 26 event in Dubai. They asserted that it lacked the endorsement or recognition of the Missionaries of Charity, the Catholic religious institute established by Mother Teresa herself in 1950. This institute, now under the Catholic Church’s recognition as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, exclusively supports Harmony Organisation’s awards, they said, emphasising that any other award ceremony could tarnish the legacy of the revered Saint.
However, the organisers of the Mother Teresa International Awards unequivocally refuted these claims. Dr. T.H. Ireland, Principal of St. James’ School in Kolkata and chairman of the awards committee told Khaleej Times: “Nobody can lay sole claim to Mother Teresa. She was a universal icon. Our award ceremony has a 22-year history of recognising luminaries such as Dr Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister of India, and Ms. Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.”
During a press conference earlier, Indian playback singer Usha Uthup shared her profound connection with Mother Teresa, spanning four decades. She recalled visiting Mother Teresa at the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata during both her trying and triumphant times. Usha Uthup said she had the privilege of being present during her passing and her canonisation.
Dubai businessman and cricket enthusiast Shyam Bhatia fondly remembered his visits to Mother Teresa and her simple yet powerful message: “We don’t want your money; we want your time.”
Sacha Jafri, the Dubai-based world-renowned artist, who intends to place the first official artwork on the moon, expressed his delight at receiving this prestigious award.
The ceremony’s highlights included dance performances by the mother-daughter actor-artiste duo Indrani Dutta and Rajnandini Paul, as well as Bollywood actor Kalpana Iyer and Usha Uthup, creating a memorable blend of song and dance.
Pan-Arab talks bringing together media bodies from across the region have named Kuwait’s Dr. Mohammad Al-Rumaihi as the personality of the year in recognition of his contributions in the field.
As he received his award, Al-Rumaihi, a professor of political sociology at Kuwait University, dedicated the achievement to his compatriots who have made notable contributions in the field of media and journalism, saying the accolade was a “tremendous honor.” He hailed the gathering as a significant initiative that helps propel the field of media and journalism in the region to greater levels, besides shining light on the importance of this crucial sector.
Al-Rumahi has enjoyed a prolific career in the field of journalism, having served as the chief editor of numerous Kuwaiti publications, while he has also authored a number of books delving into Arab social and political affairs.
During the Nazi occupation of Tunisia, numerous Jewish families were saved in the town of Mahdia by Khaled Abdul Wahab, nicknamed the Tunisian Schindler.
tTunisian man Khaled Abdul Wahab has received a historic nomination as the first Arab to be considered for the title of “Righteous Among the Nations.” This accolade is traditionally reserved for non-Jewish individuals who displayed valor in their efforts to rescue Jews from the persecution imposed by the Nazi regime.
The impetus for this nomination comes from Robert Satloff, the Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an American think tank. Satloff’s quest led him to the story of Khaled Abdul Wahab, scion of an aristocratic lineage. At the age of 32, he witnessed the arrival of German troops in Tunisia in November 1942. At that time, Tunisia was home to a Jewish population numbering around 100,000.
Before World War II, Tunisia was a French protectorate. As Nazi Germany expanded and occupied France, the country fell under German sway. Consequently, the Jewish community of Tunisia became threatened due to Nazi Germany’s antisemitic policies. Some Tunisians took it upon themselves to protect their Jewish neighbors, and Khaled Abdul Wahab was one of them.
“Some people find it difficult to accept the idea that Arabs may have assisted Jews,” said Satloff. “It would demonstrate to some Arabs that they were willing to help their Jewish neighbors.”
An intermediary and protector
Due to his German speaking skills, he played a pivotal role as an intermediary between the residents of the coastal town of Mahdia and the occupying German forces, facilitating communication and acting as a protector.
One particularly noteworthy episode revolves around his timely intervention upon learning of the sinister intentions of German officers towards Odette Boukhris, a local Jewish woman. Abdul Wahab promptly gathered her family and several other Jewish families from Mahdia, totaling approximately two dozen individuals, and relocated them to the safety of his rural estate outside the town. He provided them sanctuary for an unbroken duration of four months.
He has been likened to a Tunisian Schindler for imperiling his own life to provide sanctuary to Jews amidst the Nazi stranglehold on Tunisia. Satloff believes the Tunisian man represents “a very powerful symbol from a historical point of view.”
Despite these commendable actions, the formal recognition of the man as “Righteous Among the Nations” hinges on approval by the Yad Vashem commission responsible for bestowing this distinction. It’s worth noting that Yad Vashem has bestowed this status upon approximately 21,700 individuals since the conclusion of World War II, with around 60 Muslims from the Balkans among the recipients as well as the German-Egyptian doctor Mohammed Helmy.
Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) has reached a deal to acquire the World Padel Tour (WPT), the oldest global professional padel tour, from Spanish brewing powerhouse Damm’s Setpoint Events.
Under this agreement, the WPT will be combined with the QSI-owned Premier Padel to form a single global professional padel tour. The tour, which will be called Premier Padel, will be governed by the International Padel Federation (FIP). Financial terms of the agreement were not released.
“This is a historic moment for the sport of padel,” Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, the chairman of QSI and Premier Padel, said in a statement. “As the fastest-growing sport globally, QSI is proud to be at the heart of driving the development of padel professionally worldwide, always placing the players at the center of our mission to grow the sport everywhere.”
The new tour will kick off in 2024. Until the end of 2023, the separate WPT and Premier Padel tours will be played as scheduled.
QSI, which also owns Ligue 1’s Paris Saint Germain, launched Premier Padel in 2022. Within its first year, over 500 players worldwide competed in tournaments in five cities. The tour was expanded to eight cities in 2023. According to the organizers, the inaugural 2022 tour has broadcast agreements that cover over 180 countries and attracted 22.7 million views on YouTube.
World Padel Tour (WPT) started in 2013 and has been the prominent padel circuit, featuring over 26 men’s and women’s tournaments across six countries. A total of 510 men and 317 women compete in the circuit, which is broadcast in more than 150 countries.
While WPT has a total prize fund of $121,000, Premier Padel has $568,000.
There have been disputes between the two leagues. When players signed with WPT, their contracted barred them from playing in other leagues.
According to Politico , last year, the world’s top padel players and FIP jointly submitted a competition complaint to the European Commission, accusing Damm’s Setpoint Events—which runs WPT—of breaking EU law by distorting competition. WPT responded by suing players that joined Premier Padel and taking legal action against FIP, the Professional Players Association (PPA) and QSI, arguing that QSI is trying to exclude them from the market. The WPT also had filed a lawsuit in Madrid against the FIP, claiming it was deviating from its role as an impartial, non-profit regulatory body.
The global padel industry is valued at over $2 billion and is forecast to surpass $4 billion by 2026, according to a recent report from Deloitte .
There are currently 25 million people playing Padel in 110 countries, compared to 16 million two years ago.
source/content: sportico.com (headline edited)
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Starting in 2024, the World Padel Tour and Premier Padel will combine to operate as a single tour.PHOTO BY DOMENICO CIPPITELLI/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Eng. Waleed Al-Khereiji emphasized that the Kingdom has never hesitated to harness all its capabilities to serve humanitarian causes. “The humanitarian aid provided by the Kingdom over the past 70 years has exceeded $95 billion and that benefited 160 countries around the world, making it at the forefront of donor countries for humanitarian and development aid,” he said.
Al-Khereiji made the remarks while attending, on behalf of Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the meeting of the 160th regular session of the Council of the Arab League at the ministerial level, at the league headquarters in Cairo.
He reiterated the Kingdom’s emphasis on the importance of peace in the Middle East, as it is the strategic choice for the Arab countries, and the importance of encouraging accelerated negotiations to reach a just and comprehensive solution that meets the aspirations of the Palestinian people in accordance with international resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative. He expressed the Kingdom’s condemnation of the attacks, unilateral actions and repeated provocations by the Israeli occupation forces, which undermine the peace process.
Al-Khereiji expressed the Kingdom’s backing on Syria’s return to the Arab fold, stressing that this will contribute positively to efforts to resolve the crisis there and restore stability to Syria and the region. He reiterated the Kingdom’s support for all efforts made to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis in a way that preserves Syria’s unity, security, stability and Arab identity. He repeated the Kingdom’s demand for the withdrawal of foreign forces and armed militias from Syria.
Regarding Sudan, Al-Khereiji said the Kingdom voices its deep concern over the cessation of talks that are aimed at ending the conflict and reaching a permanent ceasefire agreement.
Al-Khereiji also led the Saudi delegation, on behalf of Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan to the third session of the ministerial meeting for the Arab-Japanese political dialogue. The meeting of the foreign ministers from the Arab and Japanese sides was held at the headquarters of the Arab League. The Arab side was headed by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, while the Japanese side was headed by its Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi.
In his speech, Al-Khereiji expressed the Kingdom’s aspiration to advance Arab-Japanese cooperation to better levels in various fields. He stressed the importance of making the Middle East a safe, stable, and prosperous region that gives hope for a better future for all. “There is broad agreement with Japan regarding the importance of establishing peace, encouraging negotiated solutions, and strengthening security, stability, and development,” he said.
Egyptian-American founder of Affectiva is on a mission to revolutionise the way we connect with our digital devices, and each other, by building in emotional intelligence.
The earliest memory that Rana El Kaliouby can conjure is of standing on a tiny blue plastic chair in a romper suit confidently declaring whatever was on her toddler mind at the time.
She is about three years old, revelling in her father’s attention as he dispenses tips – “look at the audience, enunciate your words” – and records the ramblings for posterity with the first commercially available home video camera.
These regular living room sessions led to El Kaliouby going on to give many accomplished public-speaking performances around the world as an artificial intelligence scientist and entrepreneur, most recently this month at the CogX Festival Deep Tech Summit in London.
Her big message after decades working in technology is that the final frontier lies at the point where AI can be immersed in emotional intelligence , or EI, to revolutionise the human-to-computer experience.
But it’s obvious that the first seeds of that life-fulfilling mission were sown more than 40 years ago in her childhood home in Kuwait where she was first encouraged to get to grips with ideas and machines.
“Our family is really big on education, the thing my parents invested in me and my sisters,” El Kaliouby, 45, tells The National.
“And because they were both in tech, we were always exposed to the latest and greatest gadgets. I was a big Atari game player,” she adds, laughing.
El Kaliouby looks back fondly on those clunky old VHS cassettes and hours the family spent playing Pac-Man as examples of the positive way in which electronic devices can bring loved ones together.
Less happy interactions with latter-day technology, however, brought about the realisation that something was missing – all the rich communication signals provided by non-verbal cues were being lost.
An enterprising mission
Her focus ever since has been on developing artificial intelligence that recognises facial expressions so that people can have better connections with their laptops, and, crucially, with each other.
Born in Egypt after her tech guru father, Ayman, met his future wife, Randa Sabry, on a university campus, it seems almost inevitable that El Kaliouby grew up to be a proud geek pursuing a career in computer science.
“It’s a cute story,” she says. “My dad was teaching COBOL programming, this obsolete language that nobody uses any more but was the programming language in the 70s.
“My mum, who was a business major, decided to explore this thing called computer science, and he was kind of interested in going out with her. She said, ‘I don’t do that. No dating allowed.’ And he was like: ‘Ok, then I’ll propose.’”
Soon after, the newlyweds moved to Kuwait, and her mother became one of the first female computer programmers in the Middle East, until having to flee when Saddam Hussein invaded.
Aiming for the stars
Next stop was Abu Dhabi, where El Kaliouby’s Muslim-Arab upbringing was conventional in many ways, bounded by “lots and lots” of rules that included not making any boy friends while at school.
“I always imagined walking around with a gold star on my forehead. I was a very nice, rule-abiding daughter. I stuck to the strict curfews. I never dated through high school or college and I think, by and large, I was always an A student.
“But, at the same time, it was very empowering. I have two younger sisters and the message was always: ‘You can do anything you want in the world.’”
She continued to meet these expectations into her early 20s, earning undergraduate and master’s degrees in Computer Science at the American University in Cairo, and marrying the founder of a start-up, Wael Amin.
Within a year, though, El Kaliouby was undertaking a PhD 5,000km away at Cambridge University despite both sets of parents saying: “Wait a second, you’re married now and you can’t leave.”
Amin, she says, deserves the credit for supporting her daring dream and agreeing to a long-distance relationship.
“It was really unheard of. I did break rules more as an adult as I explored my passions and my quest for being a researcher and an entrepreneur.
“That’s how I think I pushed the boundaries and definitely made my parents uncomfortable.”
And then? “I like the wording that my life went off the rails. I think that kind of encapsulates it.
“Cambridge opened my horizons. It’s like I discovered the world and it was hard to unlearn that.”
The enthusiasm for her life’s work comes across even through the medium of our Zoom interview, but it’s also clear that this was not an easy time.
El Kaliouby arrived in England a few days after the September 11, 2001 attack in America, a young Arab woman then wearing a hijab.
“I was visibly Muslim. My parents were very concerned about my safety.”
The perpetual smile she adopted by way of a peace offering was also something of a mask, hiding the loneliness and separation from those she loved.
Back then, the technological means for staying in contact across the distance was largely restricted to the kind of messaging that proved a barrier to expressing true feelings, making El Kaliouby all the more determined to humanise technology.
“My PhD was centred around building a machine with emotional artificial intelligence, and I recognised at the time that a lot of the ways I was communicating with my family back home, and especially my husband, was through chat.
“We didn’t have video communication and it was certainly very expensive to make phone calls so we would use texting.
“I often felt I could hide my emotions behind the machine. There were many days where I would be homesick or even in tears, but I’d never communicate that. The best I could do was send a sad face emoji.”
The personal hardships became a driving force for her work. In a career paved with “what if” moments, El Kaliouby began to ask: “What if we could teach technology to understand us in the same way that we understand each other?”
“It’s not even in the choice of words we use. It’s our vocal intonations, our facial expressions, our body posture – and all of that was just getting lost via digitally mediated communications.”
Life was about to take another decisive twist as she received an email that the scientist, inventor and entrepreneur Professor Rosalind Picard was coming to give a talk on campus.
El Kaliouby had long been an admirer of this trailblazing woman in an almost overwhelmingly male-led field, whose book on designing computers to recognise human emotions she read while still in Cairo.
Life-changing encounter
“I often say this is the moment that changed the trajectory of my life,” she says of Picard’s request to meet some of the students.
So impressed was Picard by this intense young woman that she offered El Kaliouby a post-doctorate place on the Affective Computing Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab before their first 20-minute conversation had ended.
“I remember thinking, ‘But I need to go back to Egypt. I have this husband waiting for me.’ And she basically said, ‘Just commute from Cairo. Show up whenever you want to.’’’
By then, El Kaliouby had a daughter, Jana, born in the UK, and a son, Adam, arrived in that other Cambridge in the US, but the constant round trips were becoming unsustainable.
“I was just doing that crazy back and forth. I would say it was OK until it went insanely chaotic when I started the company.”
The company was Affectiva, founded with Picard in 2009 with the goal of creating a commercial applications of emotion-sensing AI.
Growth was fast and it was an exciting time but there was another, darker side. “I was travelling so much, there was very little presence in anything I did,” El Kaliouby says.
Big lesson learnt
“I feel like I was out of balance. I didn’t make any time to sleep well. I would wake up at three in the morning almost every day and fire all these emails to my team. And so these poor people would wake up at six or seven in the morning with a whole slew of notes from me.
“I would go on vacation with my husband and my two young kids, and I’d just be on call all the time. There were zero boundaries, zero balance, and that was a big lesson learnt. There’s always time for self-care. There should always be time to spend with family and loved ones and friends. And, I didn’t do that, you know?”
By 2016, she was a divorced mother of two young children living full-time in America, and decided to bare that vulnerability in her role as chief executive of Affectiva.
Staff could see on El Kaliouby’s calendar that 3.30pm was demarcated to collect her son from school, and she explained to them that a Zumba class each Friday ensured a happier, healthier leader.
“I think it made for a much more authentic environment,” she says.
The family now lives in what El Kaliouby describes as a charming New England home filled with distinctive Middle Eastern touches and often by the aroma of molokhia soup made to her mother’s recipe.
Love for Egypt
“It’s very modern but with a lot of Egyptian things, Arab and Islamic inscriptions. I think of myself as Egyptian American, and very Egyptian in a lot of ways. I love Egypt. A lot of qualities – the Arab warmth, generosity and even intimacy – that’s very much who I am and I would say it’s the same for my kids.
“But I also have embraced what people would call American values. I’m very ambitious, very driven, very globally minded.”
That ambition and drive has taken her far. Affectiva is employed by brands in about 90 countries for market research, but also helps children with developmental difficulties, such as autism , to better interact with those around them.
More recently, the company has developed technology to make driving safer by enabling cars to detect if a motorist is becoming drowsy or distracted.
It was acquired in 2021 by the Swedish AI giant SmartEye for what was said to be about $73 million, with El Kaliouby becoming deputy chief executive.
She has long predicted that the day will come when all devices have an emotion chip and we won’t remember what it was like before screens could comprehend the meaning of us frowning at them.
“When we first started doing this work, we always said this will become ubiquitous and ingrained in every technology. Now, I think it’s more true than ever because AI is becoming a lot more conversational and perceptual.
“You can imagine that the final frontier is this emotional and social intelligence. Initially, my work was very much around human-to-computer interaction, making machines more intelligent, and how they communicate with humans.
“Now it’s back to the human connection. How are AI assistants and AI technologies going to make us better humans, especially better at connecting with each other?”
Along the way, she has learnt that daily affirmations are as integral to life as algorithms, and celebrating the small achievements, such as growing her own tulips, is as important as publishing a best-selling memoir, Girl Decoded.
Among the accolades amassed, El Kaliouby can cite becoming a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, being listed on the Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech, and receiving the Smithsonian Magazine’s American Ingenuity Award in Technology. Earlier this year, she was invited to ring the opening bell on New York’s Nasdaq exchange as a female pioneer in AI, and was recently made a 2023 Eisenhower Fellow.
None of this seems to have gone to her head, however, perhaps because her family does a good job of keeping her grounded.
When El Kaliouby gave a TED Talk some years ago, she explained that in emotion science all facial muscle movements are measured as action units with specific numbers for each.
Words from the wise
In a throwback to those early guided sessions in the family living room in Kuwait, the night before she walked on stage, her daughter Jana, 12 at the time, helpfully texted: “Good luck mummy!! I’m sure your gonna do awesome. Remember: don’t play with your hair, connect with audience, give them a present, gesture on words, gesture to emphasise.”
The response sent in live time was the old-school 🙂 emoticon but the algorithm that is El Kaliouby’s labour of love would have strongly detected action unit 12, the main component of, in this particular case, a very indulgent smile.
From her parting message to readers of The National, it is clear that she won’t rest until the technology responds just as accurately across the whole gamut of social and emotional states irrespective of people’s age, gender or ethnicity. Going forward, El Kaliouby insists, the watchword has to be inclusivity.
“I’m on this mission to diversify the face of AI. So it’s a call to action to get involved. It’s super exciting and we need a lot of diverse people being part of it.”
Egyptian architectural historian May El-Ibrashy is among the winners of the 2022 Prince Claus Impacts awards for her contribution and innovation in her community.
The Prince Claus Fund has announced on Tuesday the six recipients of the first 2022 Prince Claus Impact Awards.
The new award honours individuals whose work in art and culture engages their communities in innovative, positive ways while addressing issues of urgent contemporary relevance.
El-Ibrashy is an architect whose work centres on community engagement through heritage conservation, rehabilitation, preservation, and re-signification. She is the founder of the Megawra Built Environment Collective, a twinship between an architectural firm and an NGO.
Through her work she has managed to create a real difference for the often-marginalised communities living in Cairo’s historic centre and has created an important counter narrative to the current government’s focus on urban expansion and renewal, creating a new sense of hope and pride for the communities she works with.
Focusing on Al-Khalifa District in Sayeda Zeinab, Al-Hattaba district by the citadel, and Al-Imam Al-Shafii district, El-Ibrashy’s participatory conservation initiative is an inspiring successful community dialogue that has been going on for 10 years. The impact of the dialogue still resonates in the communities of Al Khalifa District, Al-Hattaba and Al-Imam Al-Shafii.
The other five recipients are:
Ailton Alves Lacerda Krenak (Brazil), an indigenous leader, environmentalist, and philosopher.
Alain Gomis (Senegal), a Senegalese-French film director and screenwriter.
Hassan Darsi (Morocco), a visual artist whose work promotes critical thinking about public spaces and citizenship.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara (Cuba), an artist and human rights defender.
María Medrano (Argentina) is a writer, poet and editor.
The Awards Ceremony shall take place in the Royal Palace Amsterdam on the 7th of December.
Esa hopes that his new role will help him raise Morocco’s profile in the fintech and digital industry globally.
Founder and CEO of Moroccan fintech startup moneyIN Arif Esa has assumed the position of Deputy Chairman for the Banking/Finance/Blockchain & Trade Finance department at the International Trade Council (ITC).
This appointment not only recognizes Esa’s outstanding contributions but also positions him as the first Moroccan entrepreneur to hold such a role within the ITC.
Esa, who holds a stellar track record in finance and fintech, with a portfolio of global recognition and awards, spoke with Morocco World News about his motivation for taking this role, as well as his new responsibilities and objectives.
“Accepting this responsibility was not just an honor but an opportunity to provide pivotal advice and give back to the community. It also aligns seamlessly with our global vision to establish Morocco and Africa as prominent players in the fintech and digital industry,” he said.
As a globally recognized figure, Esa’s reputation in the finance and fintech industry drew the attention of the ITC panel, which spans 179 countries, 79 government trade and investment agencies, 418 chambers of commerce, and a vast network of businesses and employees.
After undergoing a “meticulous” evaluation process, Esa was humbled to be selected as the Deputy Chairman of this division, he said.
In his capacity as Deputy Chairman, Esa will play a key role in shaping the strategic direction of the ITC’s Banking/Finance/Blockchain & Trade Finance department.
This role includes overseeing various key focus areas, including financial Instruments, risk mitigation, regulatory compliance, promoting innovative solutions, and capacity building, among others.
A bridge to Morocco
Highlighting the significance of his new role, the Moroccan entrepreneur emphasized, “I am excited about the impact we can collectively achieve, and I look forward to contributing meaningfully to the growth and transformation of trade finance and continuing to promote Morocco and the economy in the years to come.”
One of the central aspects of Esa’s new position is its potential impact on the Moroccan fintech landscape and businesses. His appointment is expected to open doors for Moroccan start-ups and fintech ventures on an international platform, he said.
“With my reputation, influence, and track record in the finance and fintech industry, I am poised to attract heightened attention and interest from investors, venture capitalists, and family offices,” he underlined.
In addition, the Moroccan entrepreneur intends to use his position to advocate for supportive regulatory frameworks for fintech start-ups in Morocco, fostering an environment that encourages investment.
He also emphasized the importance of mentorship and personalized guidance, stressing that he is “committed to assisting start-ups in overcoming challenges, honing their strategies, and maximizing their potential for success.”
Esa’s engagement with international networks through the ITC is expected to provide Moroccan start-ups with expanded access to global markets, he noted, explaining that it will help them open doors to new markets and strengthen their credibility and standing on a global stage.
He further emphasized that his appointment “symbolizes a bridge between the Moroccan fintech ecosystem and the international financial landscape,” allowing him to “catalyze a transformational shift in how Moroccan start-ups are perceived, supported, and propelled towards greater success.”
Esa reflected on his journey with Morocco moneyIN, an instant payment solution, and how it prepared him for this new position.
“My journey with moneyIN Morocco has been a transformative experience that has uniquely prepared me for the prestigious role of Deputy Chairman within the Banking/Finance/Blockchain & Trade Finance department at the International Trade Council,” he explained.
He highlighted several key areas where his experience with moneyIN proved instrumental, including his ability to navigate the rapidly evolving fintech landscape and understand the potential of technologies like blockchain.
In particular, his background as an entrepreneur equipped him to empathize with the challenges start-ups face and advocate for measures that facilitate their growth.
His engagement with start-ups underscored the importance of mentorship and education, which Esa plans to extend globally.
Esa concluded by offering valuable advice to aspiring Moroccan entrepreneurs, encouraging them to “dream boldly, embrace disruption, and lead with integrity.”
He emphasized the importance of resilience, continuous learning, and global thinking, saying, “Aspire not only to make a mark but to leave an indelible legacy of positive change that reverberates across borders and generations.”
Saudi Arabia has reached a significant milestone as its gross domestic product crossed the coveted 1 trillion-dollar mark for the first time, revealed the umbrella body of the Kingdom’s business community.
According to the state-run news agency, the Federation of Saudi Chambers revealed that the Kingdom achieved the GDP of SR4.15 trillion ($1.11 trillion), meeting the state’s goals for 2025.
The Saudi Press Agency cited the FSC study reporting that the Kingdom achieved an economic growth rate of 8.7 percent in 2022, the highest among the member states of G20.
The report also found that the private sector’s contribution to the economy increased to SR1.63 trillion, or 41 percent of GDP in 2022, with a growth rate of 5.3 percent.
Strengthening the non-oil private sector is a crucial agenda of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, as the Kingdom’s economy has steadily reduced its dependence on oil.
The report added that non-governmental investments increased to SR907.5 billion, with a growth rate of 32.6 percent in 2022, while the number of private workers rose from 8.08 million in 2021 to 9.42 million in 2022.
Moreover, the number of Saudis working in the private sector increased from 1.91 million in 2021 to 2.19 million in 2022.
Highlighting Saudi Arabia’s success in its economic diversification efforts, the Saudi Chamber of Commerce added that the value of non-oil exports reached SR315.7 billion in 2022, accounting for 20.5 percent of commodity exports.
Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund said Saudi Arabia’s fiscal prospects are solid in the near term, with risks broadly balanced, driven by Vision 2030, which has been diversifying the Kingdom’s economy since its launch in 2016.
According to the UN financial agency, Saudi Arabia has sufficient precautionary reserves, and the peg of the exchange rate to the US dollar served the Kingdom’s economy well.
IMF added that Saudi Arabia has maintained its average consumer price index despite rising inflation in other nooks.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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The Kingdom achieved an economic growth rate of 8.7 percent in 2022, the highest among the member states of G20. Shutterstock
Moatasem Jibril, a young man from Sudan, is realising his dream of conducting technological experiments to manufacture robots by using recycled electronic waste.
Despite modest capabilities and living in a mud house in the city of Omdurman, west of the capital, Khartoum, Jibril did not give up on his dream of making a robot, even after having to quit university due to the deteriorating economic conditions of his family.
For about ten years, Jibril has been trying to create robots in a narrow space inside his family house, and he challenges poverty by working daily in the market to earn money to purchase the materials he needs for his project. He hopes that his dream will be funded by any businessman or institution.
Sudan is suffering from many crises, starting with a shortage of basic and imported commodities, as well as the depreciation of the local currency, in addition to the government’s measures to lift fuel subsidies at the request of the International Monetary Fund in 2021.
Childhood dream
Jibril’s dream of making robots arose from his childhood, inspired by cartoons.
“Making robots is a dream that has been in my mind since childhood, and I try hard to turn my dream into reality,” he said.
He started making robots nine years ago, after watching many movies that talk about inventors.
The young man mainly relies on the electronic waste that he obtains at a low price from local markets to build his robots, since the basic components exceed his financial ability.
He is searching continuously and painstakingly in electronic markets on the internet for any electronic parts offered for sale that are suitable for his industry, to buy them at reasonable prices.
Sudan is witnessing fluctuations in the abundance of foreign exchange, which raises the cost of imports and bears the final consumer the exchange rate differences, in addition to the rise in global prices, especially fuel and food.
Economic conditions
“In the initial stages, I moved more freely after studying and saving some money from my daily allowances,” Jibril said.
He was studying electronics engineering at the International University of Sudan. He often worked while studying, to save money to pay tuition fees and sit for exams. However, due to financial weakness of his parents, he missed many exams and eventually found himself dismissed from the University.
Jibril did not pay attention to the ridicule of his school and neighbourhood friends, and continued to implement his idea day and night.
“I still suffer from the mockery of colleagues and friends at the University when I begin to explain my project related to the manufacture of robots,” he said. “They consider it mere triviality, despite my continuous explanation of the idea of the project using engineering methods and three-dimensional designs.”
Jibril hopes that his economic conditions will improve, so he can return to the University to complete his academic studies in engineering and software fields.
He aspires to complete a project in building robots on a scientific basis and then start selling them.
As for his big dream, it is to go beyond the robotics industry and reach the stage of manufacturing micro-precision missiles and apply his motto that says: “Everything is possible with determination and persistence.”
He is looking forward to the future by completing his academic studies and hopes to find sponsorship from local or international institutions that will adopt his project to crown his success story and reach the world.
Sudanese Moatasem Jibril, who dropped out of his electronics engineering course for economic reasons, works on a robot in his house using waste products in Khartoum, Sudan on 2 March 2023 [Mahmoud Hjaj/ Anadolu Agency]
