Startups Without Borders to Host a 4th Edition in Cairo This February

Startups Without Borders (SWB), a global platform that supports migrants and refugee entrepreneurs, will host the 4th edition of its summit on February 10th and February 11th at Cairo Business Park, East Cairo’s Business, Innovation and Entrepreneurship hub.

Following the theme of ‘Go Borderless’, this year’s summit will include four main tracks: Future Tech, Impact, Investment, and - for the first time - Talent Track, which is sponsored by The Room, ALX.

“For the past five years, we have gone from city to city in the MENA and Europe on a mission to build a transnational ecosystem for entrepreneurs, no matter where they come from,” Valentina Primo, founder and CEO of Startups Without Borders, tells StartupScene. “We continued to do so virtually during the pandemic, and now we couldn’t be more excited to gather in person again in Cairo, bringing startup delegations from unexpected places such as the Gaza strip and Baghdad and investors from all corners of the world, from Italy to Bangladesh. We are guided by the strong belief that talent doesn't have a passport, and the summit is our biggest and loudest testament to that."

The summit will feature speakers from the tech and startup space in the US, Europe, and the Middle East including Hashim Syed, Product Lead at Google EMEA, Ahmad Sufian Bayram, Regional Manager of Techstars MENA, and Tey Al-Rjula, blockchain entrepreneur and author of ‘The Invisible Son’.

Moreover, Sven Spannekrebs, the former swimming coach of celebrated Syrian champion Yusra Mardini and the Refugee Olympic Team during the 2016 Rio Olympics, will also participate at the summit. 

At this year’s event, entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to participate in a global startup competition with a prize of up to $1 million, as well as get matched one-on-one with investors from leading Angel Investment Networks in Europe, North America, and the Middle East, through the summit’s Investor Room.

Renowned investors, VCs and accelerators will also take part in this year’s summit, whereby they will be discussing the new investment landscape, hosting workshops, and providing valuable insights to entrepreneurs related to scaling, building sales funnels, and the intricacies of fundraising.

Some investors participating at the SWB summit include Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), Arzan VC, Plus VC, Acasia Ventures, Raya Holding, and Silicon Badia amongst others.

SWB has been hosting the Startups Without Border summit since 2018, gathering over 12,000 entrepreneurs from MENA and Europe. After two years of running hybrid summits, Startups Without Borders will return to Cairo with 88 talks, panels and workshops featuring 170 powerhouse speakers.