As Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates framed it in 2010: “The Internet is becoming the town square of the global village of tomorrow.” By extension, social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, are the hangout spots surrounding that “town square.” That image is starting to come apart as countries follow the EU, the United States, and China in introducing laws limiting digital data exchange between local companies and residents with the outside world. Those policies and accompanying narratives refer to “digital sovereignty.” “Over the past decade, the notion of digital sovereignty has emerged as a central theme in policy discussions…
Author: Tamer Hafez
Scaling up a local startup to ensure its survival and success can be nearly impossible. According to Egypt Innovate, a think tank owned by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, “[The] grim reality [is that] eventually, 90% of startups bite the dust, and 51% of all businesses [that survived] die off within five years.” Verne Harnish, a serial entrepreneur, in his book “Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It … and Why the Rest Don’t,” explores the “paradox of growth” and challenges facing entrepreneurs. Growth fundamentals Scaling up a startup begins with changing the mindset of senior leaders.…
Since its commercial availability in 2009, underpinning Bitcoin, blockchain technology has become increasingly vital in a growing range of domestic and cross-border transactions, providing safety, speed, transparency, and (for better or worse) a means to bypass government regulations. “Its design reduces the risk of fraud and errors, making it especially valuable in industries where secure transactions are critical,” said IBM’s blurb on blockchain technologies. “Additionally, blockchain helps businesses improve efficiency and reduce costs by streamlining processes and enhancing accountability.” Egypt adopts a split stance on blockchain technology. While the law strictly prohibits using it for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoins, it mentions…
Safe, inclusive, low-cost, transparent, traceable, and innovation-enabling. That sums up the advantages of cryptocurrencies, pioneered by Bitcoin. Their downside is volatility. Data aggregator Trading Economics shows Bitcoin’s exchange rate versus the dollar jumped 55% between November and December, and almost 50% between April 8 and May 22. Between July 2024 and July 2025, Bitcoin’s value doubled. Enter stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to real-world currency, commodities, or financial instruments,” according to Investopedia, an investment platform. Therefore, their value fluctuations are more predictable and less extreme than other cryptocurrencies. Stablecoins are gaining popularity in MENA. According to…
For U.S. President Donald Trump, the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries are crucial to America’s economy and FDI. In his first term (2016 to 2020), Trump’s first trip abroad was to Saudi Arabia. In his second term, he added visits to the UAE and Qatar. According to a May press release from the White House, Trump’s 2025 GCC trip resulted in the signing of “investment agreements” worth more than $2 trillion for projects in the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. Turning those agreements into active projects requires all four nations to remain in good economic health. The…
Oil prices reached an inflection point June 1, shooting up 25% in 20 days (as of press time), driven by increasing geopolitical volatility across the MENA region. That complicates Egypt’s problem of rising energy costs, given it is a net importer of oil and natural gas and subsidizes them for individuals and industries. The straightforward response is to increase local oil and gas excavation and production. “Egypt seeks to attract more investments in the oil and gas sector by offering 61 new investment opportunities for research, exploration, and production,” Egypt Oil & Gas Group, a media company owned by the…
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a global buzzword since 2022 when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, an AI-powered Chatbot that parses the internet to respond to queries in natural language. The technology sparked an AI development arms race. “Meta [Facebook’s owner], Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Microsoft intend to spend as much as a combined $320 billion on AI technologies and data center buildouts in 2025,” media outlets reported in February. Meanwhile, Stanford’s 2025 AI Index Report estimated, “The number of newly funded generative AI startups nearly tripled … in 2024. AI has moved from the margins to become a central driver of business value.”…
Nearly six months into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term (2025 to 2028), the dollar’s status as the global currency for payments, reserves, and storing value is increasingly precarious. “The Trump administration’s economic policies bring into question the U.S. role as the central pillar of the global monetary system [and] its ‘exorbitant privilege’ of effectively being able to run indefinite trade deficits,” said an April paper from The Australian National University. What Trump and his administration intend for the dollar to achieve until 2028 is risky. Policies indicate the greenback needs to attract FDI to reduce trade deficits, retain its…
Healthy citizens, a resilient economy, and sustainable GDP growth rates have always been interlinked. “There’s a well-understood correlation that as the economy of a country improves, so the health of its citizens improves,” Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institute of Health, wrote on the World Economic Forum website. “What may be less obvious is that … improving the health of a nation’s citizens can directly result in economic growth because there will be more people able to conduct effective activities in the workforce.” Investors see potential in Egypt’s medical sector. According to Mohamed Haroun, Africa’s general manager for…
As most business leaders can attest, standing out in today’s marketplace is exceedingly complicated. Challenges include brands expanding product variety or selling innovative alternatives, noisier physical and virtual advertising spaces, and more customers pushing the “skip” or “close” button on pop-up ads. “The reality is we aren’t just in a race to get our products to market; we’re also in a race to communicate why our customers need those products in their lives,” Donald Miller stresses in his book “Building a Story Brand.” Getting communication wrong could be worse than offering products that aren’t competitive. “Even if we have the…