RiseUp announced the launch of its fifth annual summit in 2017, which will occur over the first three days of December at the Greek Campus of the American University in Cairo (AUC)'s donwtown campus. RiseUp offers many opportunities for entrepreneurs to enter the business climate with unprecedented strength, with more than 5,000 participants from several Arab cities, including Amman, Beirut, Dubai, Kuwait, Ramallah, Riyadh, and Tunis. "At our fifth consecutive summit, we aim to highlight creative and exciting ideas by driving ideas into their local, regional, and possibly international markets," said Dalia Kamar, director of RiseUp. More than 150 speakers from the world of entrepreneurship are taking part in the event, sharing their experience, led by Chris Doe, president of Blind, a brand design company, and founder of the The Futur, an e-learning platform for learning design concepts. Local speakers will include Naguib Sawiris, Hisham Al Khazandar, and Hend Sabri. Some of the other most prominent participants are Vishal Makhijani and Clarissa Shen, president and vice president of Udacity, respectively. Also taking part is Omar Hamadeh, IBM's cloud technology developer, who will give the audience an important technological perspective. On investment, scheduled to speak is Sharif Badawi, a founder of 500 Startups fund. In addition to these speeches, more than 20 interactive workshops will be held to discuss various needs of businesspeople and startup founders, during the three days of the summit. The events also include diversity in the presentation of new ideas through panel discussions, technology competitions, and networking events. As for the speakers' platforms, the experts will present different perspectives on their respective areas and discuss the most important elements of them. Attendees will also be able to listen to the "side debates", to be held on the sidelines of the summit, which are aimed at exchanging revolutionary ideas in the business world, and then introduce the personal experiences of entrepreneurs. RiseUp also features HIPOS, a startup program that is being organised in partnership with Algebra Ventures to shed the light on 20 companies with high potential for growth in the region.
