The YAL Mentorship Program (YMP) 2.0 is now here! This program aims to educate and empower the next generation of leaders in the Arab World by turning innovative business ideas into a reality. It enables established professionals to serve as mentors as a way of giving back to the community and paying forward the support and guidance they received during the development of their careers.  

YAL Mentors & Startups

 

CyberHero 

Cyber Hero is a formal awareness program, aimed at training users of the potential threats to an organization's information and data, and how to avoid potential risks of losses. Its goals are to lower the organization's attack surface; empower users to take personal responsibility for protecting the organization's information, and to enforce the organization’s policies and procedures of the organization to protect the data.

 

Ramzi Ben Ouaghram - Cloud and Cognitive Software Technical Leader, IBM MEA

Ramzi helps organizations to transform and innovate with the IBM technologies. Ramzi is a fond technologist with a PhD in AI and strong technical background. Prior to that, Ramzi led the efforts of the C&CS technical teams in France and Europe to help IBM clients adopting the IBM technologies and innovations such as Hybrid Cloud, Data&AI and Automation. Ramzi also engaged with NGO to help reduce the environment footprint of large organizations.

 

Efate

eFate is a specialized company in managing and collecting e-waste and aims to achieve sustainability, as well as saving the environment by building a link between the e-waste consumers and the recyclers. eFate will support in placing the UAE as a leader in the field of recycling. In a 2019 four-week pilot campaign 1100kg of e-waste was collected, and the 2020 target is to collect and process 100 tons of e-waste.

   

Bassam Helmy - Area Sales Manager, Infofort UAE & Oman

InfoFort UAE and Oman, the leading Information Management Solutions provider in 20 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. He has over 18 years of experience in the Service Industry and started his MNC/Regional career in 2004. Bassam is a Sales management professional with certificates focused in Leadership and Supervisory Management (CSM) from Florida State University, College of Business – USA and the American University of Beirut (AUB).

 

Washing Space

Washing Space is an online laundry marketplace. The service includes door-to-door laundry services. The value proposition provided is ensuring quick service, fast delivery, reasonable price and traceability within a defined area. Using this technology, the marketplace will aggregate laundry service providers allowing customers to choose from a range of service- rated laundry businesses, creating a more efficient business model for a saturated industry.  

Heba Sayed - Head of Marketing, IBM Middle East

Heba's career included cool roles that sit at the intersection of strategy, marketing and technology, and has been advocating for the use of technology in the region’s most renowned conferences. She has been recognized as one of top 40 under 40 marketers in MENA and in 2019, was selected by Linkedin as a Top Voice in Gulf for her efforts in sparking conversations around emerging technologies.   YAL Mentors: IBM Developer Advocates

Khalil Faraj

Khalil Faraj is a Developer Advocate at IBM. He studied Computer Science and has a Master's degree in Software Engineering from the University of Southampton. He is a tech enthusiast, an app developer especially in Android, and has experience in multiple programming languages mainly Java and Python. He is interested in building and developing smart applications that rely on AI & Machine Learning APIs. Currently he is focusing on Data and AI.    

Mridul Bhandari

Mridul Bhandari is a Developer Advocate at IBM with experience in Specialised Delivery with a demonstrated history of working in Information Technology, Project Management and Non-profit Organizations. Strong Program and Project Management Professional graduate with B.E (Hons) Computer Science from Birla Institute Of Technology and Science, Pilani Dubai. Currently, he is focusing on Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Microservices.

 

Anam Mahmood

Anam is a Cloud Developer Advocate at IBM, Dubai. She graduated from the American University of Sharjah with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. She has experience in working with Agile Software Development and has worked on multiple Web Development projects using Python (Django framework), PostgreSQL Database, JavaScript, HTML5/CSS, and API Integration. She has a passion for AI, Data Science, Machine Learning, and has many blogs and publications on various Cloud technologies.  

Fawaz Siddiqi

Fawaz Siddiqi is a Developer Advocate at IBM. He is a graduate from the University of Wollongong in Dubai with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science majoring in Digital Systems Security and is currently pursuing his Masters in Information Technology Management. He has expertise in programming languages such as C++, Java, and Python. He has an interest in gaining insights and information from data and also has an interest in integrating emerging technologies.