Nahdet el Mahrousa (NM), or “Renaissance of Egypt”, seeks to

make a positive and lasting impact on Egypt’s cultural,

economic, and social development by activating and engaging

young Egyptians. NM’s flagship program, the “Incubator of

Innovative Social Enterprises”, leverages the ideas of high-

potential changemakers and empowers them to act as drivers of

social innovation in Egypt. Since its founding in 2003, NM has

incubated over 40 social enterprises – in areas such as youth

development, education, employment, healthcare, and culture

– which currently reach and impact over 10,000 individuals in

Egypt. NM is an Egyptian NGO registered with the Ministry of

Social Solidarity.

About Nahdet El Mahrousa:

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Updates from our newly incubated social enterprises Read them on pages 2-3

Social Innovation Starts With YOU! Find out who our featured winners are on page 4

Monthly Mondays Read about June’s gathering on page 5

Effecting change in the world around us. Learn about our mature social enterprises on page 6

NM Partnerships & Salon El Mahrousa (page 7)

Egyptians who make us proud Meet them on page 8

Nahdet el Mahrousa (NM) leverages the ideas and power of social innovators to tackle Egypt's toughest challenges. By activating and engaging young professionals, we make a positive and lasting impact on Egypt’s social, cultural, and economic development and help Egyptians take ownership of their country.

The first incubator for “early stage” youth-led social enterprises in Egypt and the

region

Akhbar El Mahrousa July 2012, Issue No.7

Akhbar El Mahrousa P a g e | 2 JULY 29TH, 2012

Newly Incubated Social Enterprises

Over the past 8 years NM has supported more than 40 social enterprises from across the Education & Employment, Environment, Self-expression, Citizenship & Civic Engagement and Public Health fields and that in turn have been impacting over 50,000 beneficiaries annually.

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Engineering Support Society (ESS) is a virtual network that aims to connect young professionals in the field of engineering to turn their innovative ideas into reality. ESS is working on establishing partnerships with programs, NGOs and foundations operating in the same fields including: Young Innovators Awards (YIA) and Nile University NU100. The projects ESS supported for the 2011-2012 educational year are finalizing their prototypes; readying their projects for discussion and participation in local and worldwide competition. ESS is preparing a huge innovation based event, full details will be announced on the 1st week of July. As ESS founder, Mohamed Mamdouh, heads to Germany to finalize his masters in Renewable Energy- NM wishes him the best and hopes to have him back soon. Vice President Mohamed Abd-Allah will be in charge of ESS operations and strategies as of August 1st.

For more information please visit: http://www.engineeringsupportsociety.com http://www.facebook.com/Engineeingsupportsociety

Nabta is an online social media website

offering opportunity for both physical and virtual engagement between different members involved in the civil society.

The Nabta community has started holding community gatherings in public spaces for children and adults living around the same area to meet and engage in artistic and educational activities. Nabta has also started working on holding brainstorming sessions for people involved in social initiatives wanting to explore income generating methods. They are also holding gatherings for trainers from the development world to share and explore new training methods. In the virtual world, Nabta are currently working with the Arab Digital

Expression Foundation (ADEF) to create their

online platform. Until then join their

recently launched Facebook page to get

their updates or get involved.

For more information please visit:

Website: www.nabta.me

Facebook page:

www.facebook.com/nabtame

Organ Transplant and Donation Initiative (OTDI) is a

growing public health movement aiming to take the lead in changing present misconceptions and misinformation about organ donation and transplantation.

In an attempt to bridge the gap between the societal stigma and the idea of organ transplant and donation, OTDI is working on developing several tools over the next period. Public Research is to be conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to achieve a better understanding of the source of the stigma. This is to be followed by a documentary and wide scaled public campaigning aiming to raise awareness about the topic. Alongside these public efforts, OTDI will be developing and extending its current Internship program to continue introducing more medical students to the idea.

For more information, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/otdi.eghttps://www.facebook.com/otdi.eg

Akhbar El Mahrousa P a g e | 3 JULY 29TH, 2012

HarassMap is a volunteer initiative that works to end social

tolerance for sexual harassment through community outreach programs and internet- and sms-based reporting. They are also winners of the BOBs (Deutsche Welle Blog) award for Best Use of Technology for Social Good.

Going back to basics HarassMap has once again rolled up their sleeves and taken to the streets. HarassMap had chosen the 16th of June to avoid exam season, instead, it later turned out it would coincide with the first day of Egypt’s presidential runoff. The team decided to exploit the predictable flooding of the streets with bored voters standing in line, to do a different type of “campaigning”, anti-harassment awareness campaigning. They stressed on the definition of sexual harassment and the inclusion of verbal harassment. While people were initially weary, reluctant to listen and respond they not only gradually came round, but they became convinced of HarassMap’s claims. Mission status: Success!

For more information please visit: Website: www.harassmap.org Facebook: HarassMapEgypt/info Email: info@harassmap.org

Nawaya (seed/intention) is a not-for-profit social enterprise that promotes sustainable agriculture and is a

platform that works with small-scale farming communities to transition them to organic, sustainable agriculture, improve rural livelihood through the formation of eco-villages, and change water and arable land use, toward sustainable, productive, and financially viable systems.

As of July 2012 Nawaya will be hosting Environmental Design Studios. These studios will use Nawaya’s demonstration site to conduct research and explore practical application of appropriate building materials and techniques for hot arid zones. Nawaya is building an eco-center at the Fagnoon Art School over the next 2 years. The center itself will demonstrate sustainability in architecture and will include a classroom space and hostel. The summer studios will be the first phase of research and experimentation with building materials that offer the best thermal comfort for the students and residents of the eco-center. The building techniques and materials will demonstrate energy efficiency through minimal use of cooling and heating all year round. A diversity of materials will be used for prototyping energy conservation including ricestraw bales, mudbrick, earth bags and recycled materials. The studio will be comprised of classroom sessions on the basics of design for energy conservation in hot arid zones, climatology, as well as heat transfer materials testing. For more information please visit: http://www.nawayaegypt.org Or watch a video on the project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ADb5jiFqv4

Akhbar El Mahrousa P a g e | 4 JULY 29TH, 2012

Bosletak.com aims to unveil human potential through an online platform that helps Egyptian youth realize

their potential and discover their appropriate educational and career paths.

Boseltak is looking for keen career coaches who believe in their mission to guide Egyptian youth. If you share their vision, please contact them using their contact information below.

Info: Website: http://www.bosletak.com Twitter: @Bosletak Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Bosletak E-Mail: info@bosletak.com Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/Bosletak

Kherna.com is an online social platform for all good-cause organizations and individuals to communicate and keep track of all the new initiatives and activities.

In June, Kherna promoted the ever-present need for volunteerism through a T-Shirt campaign. As a result, their team has been expanding and have several volunteers and interns helping them out on a regular basis, and they're always looking for more! If you're interested in helping out, visit their website or send them an e-mail to learn more about them. The team is also in the process of doing several Ramadan campaigns during this season, and have launched a social campaign, called "e3mel elsa7", that has been generating some great interactions on Facebook promoting simple acts of kindness.

Info: Website: http://www.kherna.com E-Mail: info@kherna.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Kherna Twitter: @KhernaME Blog: http://www.blog.kherna.com

WINNERS

Social Innovation Starts With YOU!

Akhbar El Mahrousa P a g e | 5 JULY 29TH, 2012

“Says Who?!” On June 4th, NM held its "Monthly Monday" gathering to talk about the extent of its impact since it's inception 8 years ago. The first section, entitled "Meet the Change Agents", showcased several of NM's social enterprises who pitched their projects in "Pecha Kucha" (Japanese for “chit chat”) format, 20 slides in 20 seconds. The second session was called "Impact: Are We Creating Any?" challenged several panelists to truly examine whether or not their projects and initiatives are creating true and lasting change in local communities.

NM Monthly Mondays

Akhbar El Mahrousa P a g e | 6 JULY 29TH, 2012

The Incubator of Social Enterprises

Green Arm aims to address challenges of the Egyptian urban environment. Its members are social and environmental activists, some of whom are among the founders of the cycling movement in Egypt.

350.org and the DEMENA Climate Ambassador Program organized a 2-day climate leadership workshop on June 29-30. A new generation of climate activists learned about climate science, campaigning, using storytelling for change, leadership and team building. The Green Arm's Ahmed Dorghamy, gave an interactive presentation about the importance of sustainable transportation in Egypt, considering the high toll that the unsustainable growth of private vehicles is taking upon the health, economy and climate of Egypt – the transport sector being the fastest growing contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Egypt. Dorghamy proceeded to show, through an interactive exercise utilizing a volunteer from the audience, named Mohamed, just how many cars Cairo will contain over the average life span of an Egyptian citizen if nothing is done to curb their 5% increase per year – from 3 million cars today to a staggering 34 million cars by the time Mohamed turns 80. Through this simple exercise Dorghamy stressed the absolute need for a change in existing transportation policy, to shift planning towards sustainable transportation (pedestrianization, bicycling mass transport). Dorghamy also described how the Egyptian cycling movement has grown over the past 4 years. The Green Arm has developed the “Kefaya Za7ma” campaign and first introduced it on Moving Planet – when 500 cyclists and marchers joined the 350.org global day of climate action last year and took to the streets of Cairo to call for sustainable transport. The Green Arm is working on further outreach activites under the “Kefaya Za7ma” campaign with the help of 350 Cairo activists and other partners, so stay tuned! On June 3, the Green Arm had the privilege of co-organizing the Cairo Transport Hackathon in collaboration with the World Bank, the Google Developers Group (GDG), the Egyptian Ministries of Transportation, Communication and Interior, as well as various youth organizations including Harassmap and Bey2ollak. This was the first installment in a series of events in which transport and urban planning experts come together with computer programmers and software developers to brainstorm potential IT solutions to traffic problems in Cairo. Better utilizing existing infrastructure, as well as encouraging a change in people’s behavior are necessary steps to improving traffic conditions in Cairo. Promoting non-motorized transport and other forms of sustainable mobility in Cairo will hopefully provide the much-needed momentum to begin effecting change in today’s culture. We look forward to discussing further solutions in the next session, scheduled for October.

Info: Website: http://www.greenarm.org Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GreenArm E-Mail: greenarm@nahdetmasr.org

The YIA Program aims to positively impact the scientific culture in Egypt, and to produce more equipped scientists in the future by helping undergraduate, graduate and PhD students gain access to training, funding, information, equipment, and supplies that may better meet the needs of their research projects at Egyptian national universities.

Currently YIA is announcing the winners for 2011/2012 competition, this year's projects were very outstanding and creative, we have a total of 338 winners in 60 different projects, 260 are males and 78 females. We have covered many public universities around Egypt, we have 5 agriculture projects, 3 computer science, 51 in the field of engineering and 1 in science. We will hold our closing event on the 15th of July, in which all of our winners, sponsors, university deans and evaluators will attend. We are currently working on a documentary with YIA winners from last year, who won an international prize in Sweden (Idea to product competition) for their innovative project, their project is titled "Smart Breadboard".

Info: Website: http://www.nahdetmasr.org/yia E-Mail: yia-info@nahdetmasr.org Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/yiaprogram Twitter: @YIA_Program

Akhbar El Mahrousa P a g e | 7 JULY 29TH, 2012

NM Partnerships

SALON EL MAHROUSA

The International Youth Foundation and Nahdet El Mahrousa in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation are implementing Egypt@Work. This four year program will collaborate with local implementing partners to provide 10,000disadvantaged youth with the skills, knowledge, and opportunities needed to find and maintain employment or to start new enterprises

First of all, the Egypt@Work (E@W) team would like to welcome its newest member on board; Mohamed Hamza, E@W’s coordinator. Secondly, this phase has been very eventful for the E@W programme. The team has reviewed and shortlisted the proposals submitted for the Targeted RFA issued last month. The team has also conducted initial meetings with the potential local implementing partners from Greater Cairo, El Sharkeya, Assuit and Sohag to further discuss their projects. As part of the Labour Market Assessment, the E@W team has been successful in interviewing employers (HR managers and/or upper and middle managers) who deal with the targeted beneficiaries, including organizations such as: Papa John’s, Romy Food, BMW, Nissan, Beeko, La Farge, Seasons (an Olympic group affiliate), Traintex, Jet textiles, Helco metals, Energia (Al Sewedy Cables) and Yasmina cosmetics. Currently, they are conducting focus group discussions with youth in order to further understand market gaps and needs. Moreover, they have conducted the 1st of a series of capacity building workshops with current local implementing partners (LIPs). The workshop addressed the pre-training needs and requirements that are vital for LIPs in implementing similar employment and entrepreneurship programmes. Lastly, having finalised the E@W rigorous M&E tools, the team has conducted M&E trainings for LIPs in order to be able to carry out a smooth programme evaluation process.

For any questions, please e-mail the team at: Egyptatwork@nahdetmasr.org

Doing Business in a Different Way: CSR & Beyond - 6 June 2012

Magda Hassan, Ramez Farag, & Dalia Abd-Allah

The first in a series of discussions meant to be the start of continuous learning and sharing between participants. Is there a different way of doing business that genuinely impacts the business, community and environment? Is CSR the answer? How do we take CSR beyond the short term measurables? How does or can CSR ensure real sustainability for all? How does a system/model that can serve business, community and environment look like? Is CSR/fourth sector/inclusive business one of the answers? Is there a blue print? How can we learn from and support each other?

Rethinking Post-Islamism - 27 June 2012

Dr. Asef Bayat

A fascinating discus-sion about the com-patibility of Islam and Democracy. Dr. Bayat has argued in the past that, while Islamism seems unlikely to embrace democratic polity, "Post-Islamism" may well be more compatible.

Akhbar El Mahrousa P a g e | 8 JULY 29TH, 2012

Egyptians Who Make Us Proud

YIA Project Winner, “Underwater Wireless Communication”, Featured in Youm El Sabe3 Newspaper

Among this year’s Young Innovators’ Awards winners was a group of University of Zaqaziq Communications Engineering seniors, celebrated for their graduation project and “innovation”. Their project enables wireless communication underwater, using ultrasound waves, which comes as a welcome replacement to previously used cables and wires and the problems they caused if they got torn. The project saves both time and money and is expected to help the oil and exploration fields as it has made underwater communication easier. In recognition of their talent and efforts, this group’s project was featured in one of Egypt’s leading news outlets alongside some of its counterparts as a major contribution to Egyptian society.

Local Agricultural Project Wins at Silicon Valley’s Global Innovation Summit

Abu Erdan, the egret, is considered the farmer’s best friend, helping him protect his plants. Abu Erdan, the project, founded by NM member Islam Khalil, is similarly a farmer’s best friend. Available on mobile phone devices, Abu Erdan aims to provide farmers with quick access to information related to the agricultural process. This information started with irrigation optimization then expanded to include information on plants’ irrigation needs, simple farming solutions, remote advice and consultation, cloud enabled sensors with weather stations as well as input optimization systems and market accessibility. The project’s importance and success made two farms work with the team to test as well as commit to buying it once finished. Abu Erdan has won prizes nationally from Pepsico, Nokia, Farm Frites, TA Telecom and Diwan. It also took part in the Global Innovation Summit in Silicon Valley earlier this month, and won

as one of the top 5 projects presented. The Global Innovation Summit is a yearly gathering of innovators and advisors from all around the world, seeking to “grow innovation ecosystems” like Silicon Valley, making innovation available to every and anyone despite geographical limitations.