Conference

The Start-ups on Air conference which will take place from 27th to 28th November wants to develop innovative format ideas with a focus on economic topics. In addition, various online activities and expert talks will be offered. The conference is open to journalists, start-ups, founders, experts, investors and everyone who is interested in business topics and economic development in Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan and Lebanon!

The program will be published here soon.

Entrepreneurs, start-ups and founders from Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan or Lebanon who took part in the IdeaLabs of the conference to create new formats will be offered trainings on Marketing and Storytelling in 2022 by experienced DWA trainers.

A very simple registration for the conference will soon be possible via Zoomevents.

Here you can find the Agenda: AGENDA_Start-ups on Air_27-28 November 2021

AGENDA_Start-ups on Air_27-28 November_Arabic

Moderators

Yasmina Al-Gannabi

Yasmina Al-Gannabi is currently working for Deutsche Welle and Deutsche Welle Akademie as an Audience Development Manager and Social Media Security Officer and Trainer. She travels around the world training Journalists and NGOs in social media, storytelling, countering hate speech and digital safety.

Yasmina holds a Master Degree in Media Science from the University of Tübingen, Germany

Yasmina has a demonstrated history of working for German and Arabic media outlets.

Wafaa Albadry

Wafaa Albadry is a TV and online journalist currently working for Deutsche Welle in Berlin. She is a published co-author of the book “Unbias the News: Why Diversity Matters for Journalism. A prep-committee member at the European press prize. Hostwriter ambassador, and contributing regional editor at their globally diverse Newsroom Unbias the news. She was the idea giver and creator of the DW's She@work Facebook live-based talk show that tackled women's economic empowerment.

From 2008 to 2015, she reported for several international media outlets from Cairo, Egypt, then moved to Berlin as a Fellow of the International School of Journalism at Freie Universität Berlin to continue her journalistic journey. Her work and contributions have appeared in several international media outlets, including Deutsche Welle, BBC, business insider, and France24, among others. Besides news, she focuses on diversity and Women's rights. In her spare time, she advocates for equity and diversity.

Experts

Rüdiger Maack

Rüdiger Maack has been working with DW Akademie as a project manager, trainer and consultant since 2013. From then to 2016, he lived in Tunis, where he set up DW's office and managed a three-year project. Returning to Germany, he made Berlin his home. In his first life, he had been working for 23 years as a journalist, reporter, correspondent for North and West Africa, editor and presenter for various ARD radio stations. ARD is Germany's network of public radio and TV stations.
At DW Akademie he works mainly in the MENA region and in Africa, his work focuses on journalistic education and training, organizational development and economic sustainability of media.

Ute Mattigkeit

Ute Mattigkeit is the founder and Managing Director of gomie production, a company specializing in television and web production. For more than 10 years she worked in various management positions at ZDF (Second German Television – public broadcaster). Until 2020, most recently as executive editor for WISO – a weekly, renowned, award-winning primetime - TV magazine. In various ZDF projects, Ute Mattigkeit has also worked intensively on topics of digital transformation and the development of new digital storytelling approaches and formats with a user centric design.
Ute Mattigkeit also acts as a trainer for TV- and Multimedia Journalism - e.g. for “DW Academy” and the German Goethe-Institute. Ute also co-founded and acted as Managing Director of the Media Academy South Africa from 2009 till 2011.
Born in 1972, Ute Mattigkeit has been working in the media for over 25 years. After completing an MA in politics, history and economics at the University of Muenster (Germany), she went on to train as a journalist at a television production company in Cologne. Since then, she has worked for several public and private television stations, as well as print and online-magazines in Germany and internationally. As an executive producer, Ute was responsible for the launch and success of several television programs, for example nineandahalf, an award winning weekly news program, broadcasted on Germany’s first TV channel, ARD.
In 2004, Ute Mattigkeit began specializing in video journalism through training provided by German TV station Hessischer Rundfunk (ARD/HR). Since then she has been producing numerous documentaries and feature-stories in Europe, Afrika, Asia and the US. Ute Mattigkeit has been awarded several awards, such as the North American TV Award, the International Film Festival Award in Bangkok, the EMIL audience award and two nominations for the World Television Award in Canada.

Asma Abidi

Asma Abidi is an award-winning freelance journalist, media consultant and journalism trainer.

Since kicking-off her journalism career in 2011, Asma has been reporting on society transformations in the region after the Uprisings, and has followed her passion for media to pursue a master's degree in International Media Studies in Germany.

Over the past years, Asma has worked with various media development organizations to mentor and support journalists across the MENA region and to deliver educational workshops on topics such as content verification, fact checking and storytelling.

Asma works currently at DW Akademie as a media trainer and e-facilitator, focusing on journalism training and MIL projects.

Enas Qadamani

Enas Qadamani is a Palestinian journalist from Jerusalem. She has a BA in Media from Birzeit Univeristy in the West Bank where she majored in Television and Radio. Over the last five years, she has worked with many local and international institutions as a Trainer, Documentary Filmmaker, Script Writer, Producer and Presenter. Currently, She writes, films, produces and presents the “Meshkaki” program: a digital program that talks about current affairs and societal issues, she broadcasts at Yabous Radio in Jerusalem and specializes in digital media and content creation, and a freelance producer, Alongside her work, she is particularly interested in investigating and supporting humanitarian causes.

Riadh Ben Marzou

Riadh Ben Marzou is a Business Development consultant within the economic media, he manages the Digilab project on Express FM Radio which is a project consisting of a specialized program targeting IT players in Tunisia, a quarterly magazine and an annual show around the cloud and cybersecurity.

Mohammad Alqaq

Mohammad alQaq is a visual artist, and a multimedia storytelling trainer. He uses different artistic platforms to express his ideas: singing, videography, photography, presenting and acting. In the academic field, he provides assistance by judging art students’ graduation projects. Mohammad relies in his visual arts, photos and film, on simulating cases that are inspired by the real world and surrounding events.
Mohammad alQaq started his career as an art director at Rubicon. After 6 years of work experience, he joined the blogging world in 2005, and created his popular blog "Khobbeizeh", which was the first video-blog in the Arab region, and a key project in his career, which lead to him joining 7iber as a co-founder and trainer. As a trainer, Mohammad helps the trainees to tell their digital stories visually, creatively, as well as advocate them. In 2015, he was hired to direct Fikrezyon, along with the well known New Think Theater event. Mohammad is currently a self-employed art director, art consultant, and trainer. Stay tuned for more videos and singing projects.

Haifa El-Banna

Haifa El-Banna, journalist, marketing manager and social media trainer.
She has been in the training field for over 7 years. Started with Deutsche Welle Academy training in refugees camps in Lebanon on reports production. Currently, she trains in the MENA Region & Africa media related topics, digital marketing, social media platforms, media ethics and literacy.
She has done several trainings for journalists on communication and advocacy strategies, as well as working as a marketing manager at Toothpick.
As her journalism work, Haifa started her career with “Al Modon” Electronic newspaper, Reuters, and Al-Hayat newspaper, and produced reports for German television "Deutsche Welle" in the Arabic. She worked as a media officer & Coordinator at the International Organization “Witness” and as a social media specialist at the Lebanese "Al-Jadeed" TV.

Amina Mezghenni Ellouze

"I support leaders in their thinking, developing, and push them towards achieving their goals."
First, as an executive coach, I have supported leaders and management teams for ten years, helping them to develop their emotional intelligence and resilience, fill their roles with success, and transcend the complexities of their contexts. My clients are leaders and managers at all levels whose goal is to contribute the success of their organizations, and they are also organizations that want to improve their performance and results by holding their teams together through collective intelligence and developing employee personal brands.
Second: As a teacher at the University of Tunis-Dauphin, I offer courses in public discourse, leadership and communication for master’s students and also participate in the creation of an innovative training program called “Trajectoire" that accompanies students throughout their studies through training workshops to know themselves better and find a better way to communicate with others and the whole world. In addition to the above, I also accompany a politician to train him to clarify his vision, project, campaign axes, or communication axes in general. My role is to ask inspiring questions, which in turn push politics towards the awareness that is necessary to its developing.
Finally my credo is to know how to be together to know how to work together.

Chekib Abdallah

Consultant in Media Development / Expert media viability with over eight years of consultancy experience in DW Academy. As an international expert, I have an extensive experience in training different types of media ranging from public to private and associative. My trainings focus mainly on strategy building, financing, planning and development. My career as a media expert/ consultant spans over four continents, thus far including Germany, Canada, Yemen, Morocco, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Togo and Tunisia. Over the last few months, I have been working closely with more than 30 Tunisian radio stations providing them with day-by-day strategic guidance and learning on financial planning, management, organization, and marketing techniques. Supporting associative media in particular has been really a great achievement giving the various challenges and difficulties they are facing constantly. In my previous position as a Marketing Manager for media in North America and Tunisia, I utilized administrative know-how and academic performance to foster the team’s satisfaction. As an expert and consultant, I am described as personable, organized, pro-active, and extremely professional. Skilled in empathetic communication, management, and leadership.

Investor

SocialLab is European Company that covers a group of consultancy, research, and engineering teams dedicated to deliver unique intelligent solutions for global data challenges by combining technology with social and human sciences and transforming social data into meaningful information. In addition, SocialLab has contributed to developing open-source tools and solutions that help in strengthening Media Development and enabling SDGs. SocialLab is currently leading innovative AI transformation projects in Health, Climate, Education, and other industries in different continents.

Rami is founder and chief futurist & disruptor at Abnewnormal AI Venture Studio, and Professor of Practice at the School of Social and Basic Sciences at Al Hussein Technical University (HTU). Before joining HTU as faculty member and founding his venture studio he was the senior vice president and group chief innovation officer at Jordan Ahli Bank, and founding CEO of “Ahli FinTech” where he co-founded the 1st Bank fully owned financial technologies company and fintech accelerator in the middle east. Making him the first person to be approved by the central bank of Jordan for a c-level chief innovation officer role in a bank in Jordan.

Rami is a proud geek futurist, author, executive coach and advisor, sought-after speaker, strategist, investor, and executive. He travels extensively, addressing various topics, including breakthrough technologies, cross-industry innovation, and lean exponential business models.

Rami is a TEDx Speaker, and Innovation X speaker at NASA’s cross-industry innovation summit, a mentor at 500 Startups, Unreasonable Future, and Startupbootcamp fintech, chairman at Arcoten, Octonius.com, member of the board at Al Raed Arabi School, and member of the advisory board of Think Barter Network, Fintech Galaxy, Roybi AI-Powered Robots, and WAKE International in San Francisco.

Rami founded his 1st startup at the age of 19, he holds an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Jordan, and completed the Venture Capital Executive Program at HAAS UC Berkeley, and “The Leading for the future”, and “The Leading, Organizing for Action” Executive Programs at Harvard Kennedy School, and the Senior Executive Education Program at UC San Diego. Rami is a passionate advocate of the Lean Startup movement and is a regular judge, mentor & keynote speaker at the region’s main innovation, entrepreneurship & technology events. He designed and produced several events and interventions in this space, including the THINKLEAN speaker series, LeanStartupProgram, BackToStartupBasics, and his popular innovation/futurist talks titled: The future of banking and banks, The future of telecom, The future of retail, The future of corporates, The Future of ….

Ayman, is a specialist in road and bridge engineering, and his career shows that he was a pioneer in the field of rail transport. He is also responsible for profits and losses of more than one hundred million euros in three continents. Moreover, he has many experiences in the field of entrepreneurship in the company, where he worked for fifteen years, to develop himself and also contributed in acquiring and merging of 3 other companies. On a personal level, Ayman has invested in startups in Tunisia as well as in France, where he recently invested in its own stock market. In addition to that, he has a direct investment in a startup company in Silicon Valley.

After his initial training as an engineer and his first experience in the field of information systems auditing, Murad changed his career path for the first time by joining the L’Oreal Group, in which he worked in the field of finance as an administrative controller and then as a financial manager. Murad gained a new way of thinking after studying executive MBA, which prompted him to make another change in his course by creating Radio Express FM in 2010 which since then he was its director and through it, startups have gained prominence.