We are pleased to announce our upcoming event featuring Noor Shaker, serial entrepreneur and Founder/CEO of SpatialX, the “AI to cure cancer”.

Noor is a serial biotech entrepreneur passionate about AI applications in healthcare and life sciences. She combines academic excellence from her Assistant Professorship in AI with deep industry experience to advance technological innovations. Her work has been recognised with several awards, including MIT Innovator Under 35, BBC 100 women, and Forbes Top Leaders in AI Healthcare. She is also an AI advisor on the board of several organisations.

In response to his famous blog post titled “I can’t sleep”, in which he describes his shock and anger at Silicon Valley’s response to the war in Gaza, Paul was ousted from the board of CircleCI, the multi-billion dollar tech unicorn he founded in 2011. As well as being the founder and CEO of Darklang, he recently founded TechForPalestine, a “loose coalition of 4,000+ founders, engineers, product marketers, community builders, investors, and other tech folks working towards Palestinian freedom.”

Join us for a fireside chat with Paul where we’ll be discussing his experiences in Silicon Valley, first as an immigrant unicorn founder and later as an outspoken voice in support of the Palestinian cause through TechForPalestine and other initiatives.

Saudi Arabia-based Noon Academy, founded in 2013, is one of the most prominent Edtech and social learning platforms in the region. With over 12 million registered learners, the company has revolutionised the e-learning experience for students in the Middle-East and India.

Founded by Mohammed Aldhalaan and Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Saeed, Noon Academy is an online learning community that enables students to engage with their classmates and teachers through virtual classrooms and live group study sessions. Incorporating social and gamification features, students love Noon for making learning enjoyable and collaborative. They’ve raised over $21m to-date from some of the most respected VC’s in the region.

Join us for a fireside chat with Mohammed to discuss the meteoric rise of Noon, the Saudi tech landscape, and why they’ve opened up offices in London.

Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram is Founder & CEO of Proximie, a digital platform that connects surgeons during live operations and helps them share their expertise from anywhere in the world. She is also a Consultant Plastic Surgeon and Director of Clinical Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

Borne of Dr. Nadine’s vision for a “borderless operating room”, Proximie’s platform has been used in tens of thousands of surgeries in over 100 countries, allowing some of the top surgeons in the world deliver care to areas without access to world class surgeons.

A plastic surgeon by trade, Dr. Nadine decided on the path of medicine while growing up in Lebanon and witnessing the terrible human cost of the country’s civil war. She founded Proximie in 2016 while working at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital in London, with the mission to raise access to surgical care from anywhere in the world.

Dr. Nadine was recently on the cover of WIRED magazine, you can find the feature story here.

Niama El Bassunie is founder and CEO of WaystoCap, the first online B2B marketplace focused on African businesses. She is also Managing Partner at The Baobab Network, an accelerator and investment firm in Africa focused on early stage startups.

Join us for a conversation with Niama starting at 7pm, followed by time to meet others in the technology sector. Light refreshments will be available.

Before founding WaystoCap, Niama spent years working across Europe and Africa in various roles from consulting to renewable energy trading.

Envisioning what she calls a “platform as well as a community—an ecosystem that not only facilitates trade in Africa but also fosters trade”, she set up WaystoCap in 2015 and soon became the first Moroccan CEO to graduate from Y Combinator and the first North African startup to be recognised as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.

After selling the business in 2021, she joined The Baobab Network, an Africa-focussed accelerator helping “founders who are leveraging technology to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the continent today”. Based in London, she is an investor and advisor in companies in Africa and beyond.

Abed Kasaji co-founded Anecdote to help businesses make sense of their data using artificial intelligence.

Before founding Anecdote, Abed was a Senior AI Product Manager at Meta where he build products for Facebook, and at Careem where he worked on their AI and Machine Learning Platform. He’s been building digital products for well over 10 years across MENA and Europe, and sold his first startup back in 2013.

Abed’s been deep in the trenches of AI for years now and has a deep understanding of the underlying technology and its potential. Born and raised in Amman, Jordan, we’re excited to hear his views on how AI will impact the Arab world and beyond, and his journey building products for some of the biggest companies in the world

We’re delighted to announce that our partnership with LBS Middle East Club continues and we’ll be supporting them for their 20th Annual LBS Middle East Conference on Friday 19th May 2023 at the London Business School campus. As an official media sponsor, we’re offering a 30% discount to all members of our community for their ticket. You can buy your ticket at https://lnkd.in/d_xpJpn6, please checkout using the code Kindi-Pass-V3F232. Early bird tickets are on sale now!

Our friends at LBS have secured an incredible lineup this year, featuring leaders and operators from all across the region. You’ll hear from the CEO of NEOM, Nadhmi Al Nasir, for their keynote, as well as from leaders across the business world such as Ola Doudin (BitOasis), Noor Boodai (Bounce), Raed Abudawoud (Aramco) and much much more.

Aside from these brilliant speakers, it’s also a great chance to meet like-minded people building great things in the region and beyond. We’re super excited to be a part of it, can't wait to see you there!

Join us at our next event on Wednesday 5th April, where we’ll be hosting a dinner in collaboration with the Middle East Society at London Business School. Come along as we bring two special communities together to connect and network - register using the link below to book a spot!

Please note that as it will be Ramadan, food will be served promptly at 7:41pm in line with the Iftar time for that day in consideration of anyone fasting.

The LBS Middle East Club is a community of students at LBS who hail from the Middle-East and from a variety of distinguished backgrounds in business, technology, finance, and much more.

Join us in conversation with CEO and Founder of Gaia, Nader AlSalim, to hear about his journey from the City of London to starting Gaia and revolutionising access to IVF treatment.

Founded in 2019, Gaia helps people access IVF using predictive technology, personalised insurance and payment plans. By “de-risking” the IVF treatment process, Gaia has opened up the IVF market to families that were previously unable to afford the upfront costs and uncertainty. Raising a total of $23m to-date from the likes of Atomico, Kindred Capital, Seedcamp and others, it is the first IVF insurance provider of it’s kind.

Dr. Adam Bataineh is a renowned medical expert and serial entrepreneur with a focus on longevity and ageing. A member of the Royal College of Physicians, Dr. Bataineh is specialised in internal medicine and has degrees in genomics and oncology. More recently, he was the co-founder of Span Health, a longevity coaching app, which he successfully sold to US-based Eight Sleep. He is currently working on his latest company, Numenor, which is a digital-first longevity healthcare service for cutting-edge treatments. Dr. Bataineh is also a public advocate for behaviour change for better living through his different social media and online platforms reaching hundreds of thousands of of people across MENA and the world. 

Join us for a talk with Hisham Al-Falih, Co-Founder & CEO, Lean Technologies. Lean builds simple, secure APIs to help companies build cutting-edge financial products in the Middle East.

Founded in September 2019 by former Stanford University roommates Hisham and Aditya Sarkar, and ex-Silicon Valley technologist Ashu Gupta, Lean’s platform allows its clients to integrate with their customers’ bank accounts to retrieve relevant account information or initiate instant bank transfers.

Since launching its flagship data and payments API this year, the company has signed on dozens of the Middle-East’s leading financial institutions as clients, connected tens of thousands of customer accounts, and processed hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions.

In February Lean closed a $33m funding round to expand their operations, led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India, with participation from existing investors Raed Ventures, Outliers, Shorooq and Jimco.

Prior to founding Nuwa Capital, Khaled was Managing Partner at Wamda Capital, a Venture Capital fund investing in technology-enabled companies in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. He started his career at Dubai International Capital where he supported the development of the MENA region’s first seed capital fund. Since then Khaled assumed a number of venture capital and startup roles including heading investments and strategy at twofour54 in Abu Dhabi.

Khaled has centred his career around identifying and investing in disruptive businesses that displace incumbent inefficiencies in traditional sectors of the economy. His areas of interest include e-commerce, fintech, marketplaces, digital content and enterprise solutions. Throughout his career, Khaled has focused on building lasting partnerships with the entrepreneurs delivering the region’s digital economy.

Khaled has invested in and managed over 150 early stage transactions including Careem, Eyewa, Mumzworld, Insider, Homzmart and Luxury Closet and Calo.

Hanadi was the driving force behind the creation of Accelerate Cambridge, which contributed to the Cambridge entrepreneurial cluster by providing help and support to innovators and entrepreneurs. To-date, she has supported the creation and scale-up of over 180 early stage ventures, building a portfolio of an estimated collective value of £1.5bn and over £300m of risk capital raised.

Hanadi was previously the managing director of CMS Ventures, an early-stage investor based in Cambridge investing in Biotech & Life Sciences start-ups in the UK. In September 2021 she was appointed to the Innovate UK innovation loans Credit Committee as an external member.

Most recently she has become the Managing Partner for Sana Capital, an investment fund which aims to drive innovation that can heal the world, demystifying deep tech at scale to drive positive change. Born in Lebanon and raised in France, she is fluent in English, French and Arabic and speaks another four languages. She lives in Cambridge with her four children.

*** Please register on Eventbrite to guarantee a place ***

Lila Ibrahim has held leadership roles across the technology and venture capital sectors in leading companies such as Intel, Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers, Coursera and DeepMind, where she is currently Chief Operating Officer. She is also Co-Founder and Chair of Team4Tech, which aims to expand educational opportunities for thousands of under resourced students by leading technology volunteers on projects around the world, as well as a member of the UK AI Council, an independent expert committee which provides advice to Government on the AI ecosystem.

Join us for a conversation with Lila hosted by Nafez Dakkak, Managing Director of BLDR Ventures and formerly Managing Director and CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation in London, where we'll be discussing Artificial Intelligence and Lila's experience across the technology and education sectors.

The event will be a 30 minute open Q&A session with Lila, followed by time to network and meet fellow members of the community.

Fawaz has spent the past two decades in the MENA startup ecosystem, having founded the region’s first technology venture capital firm in 2004, Accelerator Technology Holdings. His investments included early stage tech ventures in the Levant, North Africa and the US. Rebranded Silicon Badia in 2012, the group has invested in over 80 tech companies globally since its inception. He was formerly a member of Jordan’s government and advised other regional governments on their early tech strategies. He also served as director and chaired a number of foundations and holds directorships at leading institutions in the Arab world.

Fawaz will join us for a conversation about his experience pioneering the MENA venture capital industry, investing in early stage disruptive technology globally, and his thoughts on where the tech sector is heading.