Meet the finalists

University of Strathclyde 

Professional Achievement Award.

After completing his PhD in 2004 in Marketing, focusing on ‘Technology Transfer associated with Foreign Investments to Egypt.’ Dr Ahmed is currently setting-up a new food processing complex capitalizing on high quality local produce. He was the former Chairman of ‘Reef’. Before that, he was Chairman and CEO of BiscoMisr; and GM Kellogg Egypt. Ahmed was also the Senior Counsellor to the Chairman of the General Authority for Investment.

University of Cambridge 

Professional Achievement Award.

Dina is an internationally published children’s author and researcher. She represents Egypt as a Board member of the Egyptian Board of Books for Young Readers (EBBY), the local IBBY chapter. She is also a published books for underprivileged children and refugees in Jordan. Dina studied at the University of Cambridge in the strongest Children’s Literature department worldwide and this enriched her knowledge and capabilities.

University of Manchester 

Professional Achievement Award.

He is a globally recognised legal professional. He is the vice-president of the ICC’s International Court of Arbitration, and the first Egyptian President of the Arab Council (London Court of Arbitration), and IBA Arbitration Committee vice-president. He is a founding partner of Zulficar & Partners. His studies at Manchester University provided him with skills that contributed to his appreciation of enculturation and the rule-of-law. 

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) 

Professional Achievement Award.

Dr Sherif is the Director of ACTIS, Egypt, a consultant at The Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center, a member of the Finance Committee of the Board of Directors at Alfanar, Co-Chairman of the Investment Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, and Assistant Professor of Private Equity at the AUC Business School. He has led some landmark investments exiting in Middle East.

University of Northampton

Oxford Brookes

City University

Professional Achievement Award.

Sherif is an international law expert. He founded Levari LLP in association with Pitmans, an international law firm based in Cairo. In 2013 he launched the Levari Entrepreneur Model (LEM) Which helps start-ups with their legal services. Over 360 start-ups have made use of the LEM. Today, Levari is ranked in the top ten law firms in Egypt and has more than 75 clients with offices in Cairo and London. 

University of Leeds

Entrepreneurial Award

Prof Mahmoud established “SurgiNovi” to commercially exploit the novel techniques that came out of his PhD project at Leeds University. This innovation is called patient specific templates (PST) for total knee replacement. He applied PST on 300 cases including 45 for a charity. He became a winner in Cairo Innovates 2015 by ASRT, Egypt. Prof Mahmoud is currently developing SurgiNovi to provide services for the majority of complex bone and joint procedures.

University College London (UCL) 

Entrepreneurial Award

May is the founder of May El Tabbakh Architects, which is considered one of the leading practices to carry out architectural projects of outstanding cultural and environmental significance. May have participated in several prestigious international assemblies representing Egypt over the past years, such as the UNESCO expert meeting on the heritage of modernities in the Arab World. She also has a number of published research and publication.

Durham University 

Entrepreneurial Award

Despite officially launching his new business 5 days before the Egyptian revolution in 2011 and with all the economic and political turmoil, Mohamed was able to lead his company “Adrenalin” to be the number 1 paintball venue in the Middle East in 3 years. Then he developed Adrenalin to be one of the top 3 team building companies in Egypt, where it delivers corporate objectives and employee learning through untraditional customized games. 

University College London (UCL) 

Entrepreneurial Award

Dr Tamer El-Khouly is a lecturer in architecture and design studies in Ain Shams University and a research scholar in Dyson School of Engineering, Imperial College London. He founded Tamer El‐Khouly Studio where he is currently the principal architect & design manager, he designed and supervised several projects in Egypt (in Cairo and Sharm El Shiekh) and in the UK as well. 

University of Nottingham

Social Impact Award

She is the Advisor to the Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology for social responsibility and services. Her work was instrumental in changing the lives of many people from vulnerable and marginalised groups including persons with disabilities, orphans, inhabitants of slum and rural areas. Her ambition is to support other counties in the Arab region and Africa to empower the marginalized groups using Information Technologies.