Job opening: Local Connectors for new social innovation projects in the MENA region (call closed)

[nadia]

Wherever we look we see individuals and groups trying daring, innovative new strategies to thrive in a changing world.

If you are reading this, chances are that you are, or know, some of these people- they might even be your friends, neighbours or partners.

This means you have the chance to get involved in designing a place for MENA youth to collaborate freely on groundbreaking projects in the quest for prosperous, lives full of meaning, love and mutual respect. A place where we come together as a global network of almost 4000 people in more than 80 countires, inspire one another and help each other to build creative solutions to problems which affect many people.

We know it can be done - some of us are already living and working in such a building in Belgium. We call it the EDGERYDERS OPENVILLAGE and are now reaching out to others who wish to build more such places with us in different parts of the world. This is your invitation co-design and co-live in the first one your country with us!

By joining the project you can learn and collaborate with your peers working on inspiring open source projects around the world. People like Hegazy who is building a transport map for the chaotic public transit in Cairo . You can collaborate with Winnie in using open science to make insulin cheaper and more accessible. You can learn from the many create solutions Matthias has to come up with to get coffee beans from nepali farmers to the european market in a way that ensures they get more of the profit. and how others bringing public cinema screenings to the himalayas…. and many more.

We are recruiting part time local community connectors and reaching out to our peers in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia.

The work involves recruiting participants in the area who are working on innovative projects; organising project storytelling and development workshops; interacting heavily on an online regional platform.

How to apply:

1. Create an account on edgeryders.eu
2. Write a short introductions to yourself and mention 3 other people/projects in your city/country you think are interesting for OPENVILLAGE MENA
3. Copy paste your text into a comment to this blogpost.

What we are looking for: See the other projects already in the project here

For more information:

1. Read this description of what we are doing and why.
2. Have a look at what others are working on in different parts of the world

Ask your questions in a comment below and we will reply within a day.

[amiridina]

3 other people/projects for Open Village Mena

I believe the following should be part of the Open Village Mena, as they do already work in other countries in the region or they can expand their business to other countries. They offer a sollution to environmental issues existing and persisting for example in a Lebanon.

1- Recyclobekia http://recyclobekia.com/about.php Contact Mostafa Hemdan

2- Dayera for Waste Management https://www.b2match.eu/greendays2014-pollutec/participants/299 Contact Mahmoud Galal.

3- El Re7la https://elre7la.com/ (access to a database of entrepreneurs and social innovators) Contact Dalia Said & Ahmed Salah

[monarezk]

3 projects for open village MENA

Hi all ,

Happy to write to you after this long time, I’d like to nominate these projects which are trying hard to make a change in Egypt:

1- Kon Nabat " Be a plant " the founder is Karim Elkazaz, he is specialized in Hydroponic . and he is working hard to plant the Egyptian desert in Sinai, Siwa, and other places  to produce the organic vegetables & fruits:   https://www.facebook.com/konnbat/

2- Readymade  is a project aims to produce furniture from recycled oil containers, Mostafa Hussein is the founder:  http://www.readymade-eg.com/

Readymade

3- Up-fuse, they are recycling plastic bags: https://www.facebook.com/UpFuse/

4- Wild Guabana, Omar Samra is the founder he is the first Egyptian who climbed Everest Mountain. he has a lot of social, Environmental and charity activities:

WILD GUANABANA - Life Changing Journeys

Omar Samra's homepage

wish you all the best ,

Mona Rezk

[m_tantawy]

Recommendation to OpenVillage

Hello all, I’m Mohamed Tantawy architect / master student from Egypt, I want to share these 3 initiatives with whom I worked with already. I hope from u to build cooperation with them.

1. Maarefa: Maarefa is Non portable Organization focused on Culture Awareness in Egypt with around 150 activity in 8 Governorates. Maarefa made huge change in the knowledge transfer between youth . maarefa branches is self organized within the same frame work made from 2010.

2. CILAS: Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences is inspired by the traditions of liberal arts education and preparatory schooling. Catering both to high-school and college graduates CILAS endeavours to become a center of excellence in learning and serve as a partner to a range of academic and non-academic institutions. CILAS mission is to nurture brilliant students through liberal arts education with the aim of building a more equitable and sustainable tomorrow.

3. Boldan: Boldan, is an initiative visiting different places on Earth to discover their architectural heritage and their traditional way of building that they lived in for hundreds of years.In our visits to those different places we actually build with our hands under the guidance of the local inhabitants with their traditional building techniques and local raw materials. Those materials could be stones, Karshef, clay, mud bricks or any other local material. In Boldan we aim at documenting the tangible and intangible aspects of the architectural, vernacular heritage of those places not only by taking pictures or writing about those beautiful buildings but also by experiencing the whole local building process by ourselves. And by observing the community interaction together during the building process.

[amiridina]

OpenVillage location

I would not recommend Egypt as a place for an open village in the region. Despite it being geographically ideal, positioned in the middle between North African and Asian Arab countries, the situation is chaotic and not encouraging . Sultanate Amman is a rich state and stable, Dubai as a dynamic cosmopolitan city, Morocco where people are nice but serious, has connection with European, Arab and neighborhood french speaking African countries, and finally Jordan are better options.

A country that encourages entrepreneurs and investment. Positive vibes and hope for a better future. This is my opnion you might have a different view. What do you think guys?

[hazem]

Let’s get them on-board

Hey ya @m_tantawy, is “Maerefa” still active ? how are they doing now under the current circumstances. anyway wanna chat about it and get them onboard, along with the others as well.

[nadia]

Hey Dina

Sorry for the Radio silence I’m back on a stable internet connection after being on the road in rural Maroc and in Beirut, battling food poisoning etc. Thanks for the heads up. I think there are a lot of considerations to take into account, we are going to open discussions around the project in a couple of days as we move to a nw platform. Rushing to get it done right now, there will be an email going out to everyone after which Ill be on this full on.

[monamakhlouf]

Hello world.

this is Mona Makhlouf a multidisciplinary designer, design educator and connector from Egypt.

I would like to nominate 3 projects that, I am connected to on a personal and on a social conscious level, we share the same vision.

Greenish

Greenish is an art project that delivers education and innovative solutions about environment (both social and physical) through arts. We offers a wide range of unique art workshops specifically tailored for any age group, a wide range of designed products, art exhibitions and performances.

Our preset list of workshops varies from; storytelling workshops, recycling arts, home planting Green, mandalas and stones art, drama and theatre workshops. As we believe art is a catalyst for social change and a right for every child, teen and adult to have access to art education and a venue for self-expression, Greenish dedicate 25% of every workshop and product revenue to fund workshops, performances and small grants in different underprivileged communities around Egypt.

Jereed جريد

Jereed introduces furniture, parquet and accessories made from palm midribs. Palm midribs is a discarded natural resource that could replace wood in product design and surfacing. The Palm midrib comes from the annual pruning of the palm therefore palm midrib is a valuable environment-friendly material significantly tougher and more durable than other imported wood.

Reform

Reform is An International Awarded Product Design Studio, was founded in 2013 by a team of young product design entrepreneurs, Hend Riad and Mariam Hazem, who were motivated by challenge and had an urging sense of commitment to the world, believing that doing what you love brings out the most of what you can do.

We are inspired by the authenticity of Egypt, eager to create a better quality of life through DESIGN.

[a_allouch]

Hi all, I am Ahmed from Tunisia. I am the vice-president of the organisation “Youth Without Borders-Tunisia” and i am involved in Civil Society activities and work, especially in youth field.

I will be happy to join your team and to be the Local Connector in Tunisia.

I would like to nominate 3 projects, I am directly involved as National coordinator or director:

• “SHEREKNA” Project, to support youth and empower local communities.
  This project aims to engage and empower community stakeholders, particularly youth, to identify community-level stresses (including VE drivers) and programming entry-points, to collaboratively implement community-level actions aimed at mitigating identified stresses. YWB is implementing this program in Douar Hicher, a location that suffer of multiple problems that have a direct impact on the lives of the community and Youth.

• “HEYA” Regional Program: HEYA Program aims to increase women’s active participation in public spheres in MENA region for sustainable and gender equitable changes in policies and practice to ensure that the voices of women at all levels, including the poorest and most marginalized, are heard.

• “Young Women Leadership in Political and Social Development” Regional Project: YWLD is an empowerment and advocacy program designed to enhance the leadership, advocacy, civic participation and mentoring skills of 600 young women (18-25 years old) through series of sensitization meetings, participatory and experiential learning workshops and orientation meeting. The ultimate goal is to create first and second lines of active young women leaders who should act as change agents within their communities for the civic participation and good governance practices.

[hazem]

hey guys @amiridina @m_tantawy @monarezk @monamakhlouf @a_allouch sorry for the very late replay but we were redesigning some parts of the process, Now Edgeryders is offering fellowships, so we are looking for fellows in the region.

Community connectors will receive a fellowship consisting of:

1. A ticket to Edgeryders Festival in Brussels (19-21 October) where we design the OpenVillage. At the festival you will be part of a team training on community building and digital security tailored for regional dynamics.

2. A ticket to the MENA community camp in December (26-30 December) in Morocco, to be announced soon.

3. A project residency in the Reef- MENA, in November, the exact location to be announced soon. The residency consists of an online and co-working/ co-living space for your project, where you will prototype and test results, as well as model it for future sustainability.

so you guys can start by writing an in-depth post here about a project you are working on,or a project that you see valuable ( you can interview the people working on it ) and leave thoughtful comments on the other stories.

so for example @a_allouch welcome in edgeryders btw, nice to see you here, can you tell us more about what you do in “youth without borders” the story of how it was initiated,their challenges, possibilities what do they actually do, and of course your personal story. ( just a suggestion)

@monamakhlouf @monarezk @m_tantawy @amiridina you can pick one of the suggested initatives/projects and tells us more about it in a separate post if you like, or you can also tells us about your own ideas/ initiative or so

sorry again for the late post, please replay if you have further questions

[amiridina]

I got this list from a post of someone who was interested to learn about the social enterprises that have an impact.
Some ideas are innovative others are coworking spaces that have access to databases or projects. I believe that maybe we need to set a criteria to be able to understand what you are looking for exactly and find it.

Nafham - نفهم

نفهم هي خدمة تعليمية إلكترونية مبتكرة على الإنترنت تقدم شرح مبسط لمناهج التعليم المدرسي في مصر والسعودية والجزائر وسوريا والكويت، من الابتدائي وحتى الثانوي عن طريق فيديوهات مدتها من 5-15 دقيقة … الخدمة مجانية بالكامل لطلبة المدارس وجميع المستفيدين منها.

Nafham is a free K-12 online education platform, we provide 5-15 min. video lessons covering Egyptian, Saudi, Algerian, Syrian and Kuwaiti curricula for all students starting from primary 1st to Secondary 3rd.

Website: http://www.nafham.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nafhameducation
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nafhameducation
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/nafham
Android application : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nafham.education
iOS application: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nafham-school-curriculum/id918512434?mt=8

Give them hope
HOPE, 2012 started with a simple idea … contacting requesters to blood donors using smart phones.

2013 nominated of the 11 social MENA entrepreneur finalists in “Innovation Tournament 2021 Award”.

2013 selected of 50 Synergos Pioneers of Egypt for our social impact …

2014 we’re changing the blood donation social interaction, by building a social rewarding system. An echo-system where the society awards the donors and highlights the fact that he is doing something to the community.
By which we believe will increase the awareness of blood donation and the importance to saving lives…

HOPE released on Android platform 2012 and in 2014 we’re deploying the 1st Social Aggregated Mobile Platform for Blood Donation …

for more info contact on how to be our partner in your country: info@givemehope.co

مؤسسة الدواء للجميع الخيرية
مؤسسة الدواء للجميع الخيرية اول مؤسسة متخصصة في مجال الدواء الخيري في مصر و الشرق الأوسط. …نجمع الدواء و نفرزه و نتأكد من الصلاحية ثم يوزع بالمجان للفقراء و المساكين و المحتاجين بعد دراسة مستفيضة للحالة طبيا و اجتماعيا من اجل توفير احتياجات المرضي من الدواء بشكل تكافلي …ساهم بالدواء أو لشراء الدواء , حساب بنكي بنك البركة فرع العقاد 090599

: مؤسسة الدواء للجميع الخيرية مشهرة من وزارة الشؤن الاجتماعية برقم 9276 لسنة 2013 إنجازات المؤسسة في 3 سنوات
حصلت المؤسسة علي من أفضل 10 مؤسسات في ريادة الأعمال mit Arab forum 2015
مبادرون مصر 2016
عضو مبادرة من أجل صحة أفضل العالمية بواسطة جمعية أشواكا العالمية
من أفضل 100 مبادرة في اليوم العالمي للصحافة
إنجازات رقمية
حجم الدواء المتبرع بها
300 الف 2013
600 الف 2014
1.6 مليون 2015
أكثر من 100 قافلة طبية في 2015
أكثر من 30 جمعية خيرية نتعاون معها
أكثر من 60 الف مريض استفادوا من المؤسسة و خدماتها في 2015
أكثر من 300 مريض شهريا روشتات شهرية
علاج 30 مريض من فيروس سي

Gramophone
is your second home where you can discover your own artistic passion and explore various kinds of arts from different cultures.

Nilebot
نايل بوت هو نظام مراقبة لجودة المياه في مزرعتك السمكية ، يقوم بقراءة وتسجيل وارسال نسب العوامل المؤثرة في حالة الماء مثل (الأس الهيدروجيني-الأكسجين الذائب-الملوحة-درجة الحرارة) الي حساب خاص بك علي الانترنت تستطيع الدخول عليه في أي وقت و من أي مكان !

نايل بوت يمكن استخدامه في جميع أنواع المزارع (أسماك - جمبري) و مالحة أو عذبه .

تفادي أي خسارة في محصولك بسبب مشاكل المياه مع x

Nilebot is a water quality monitoring system for your farm, where it reads, records and sends different measurements (Dissolved oxygen-pH- Salinity-temperature) to your personal account that you can check at any time and any place

Nilebot can be used with all kinds of farms (Fish – Shrimp) and in different environments (Salty water-Fresh water).

Avoid the losses that can be done in your crop because of the decrease in oxygen or any different kind of water problems with Nilebot
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Nilebot/about/?ref=page_internal

Thaat is the brainchild of Peri A. Abou Zied, who prefers to be described as someone who holds a lamp over her head rather than a social entrepreneur. Peri is based in Cairo and holds a MFA in Outsiders art and an MA. in Social Entrepreneurship from Goldsmiths college.

Our work philosophy: We seek smaller numbers of beneficiaries at each initiative because at Thaat we want to influence the way our beneficiaries handle their craft and design businesses.
We will also focus on expanding our craft/design and business related industries networks-that are significant in supporting long-term sustainable social, cultural and economic benefits.

The freshers hub
https://www.facebook.com/FreshershubEG/?hc_location=ufi

yomken
https://www.yomken.com/ar/

Faces Studios is a full service marketing and social media marketing agency, located in Egypt, Cairo. Our services include photography ( food, products, events, places), graphic design ( magazines, branding), filmmaking ( short movies, promos, video making), web design, also we manage all the different social media platforms ( facebook, twitter, instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, pintrest, Google+).

We believe that great content is the key when in need for marketing in order to attract the right traffic to any business and social media platform, that’s why we make sure to provide the best quality of services. Anything you need to market your business like no one else, we got it cover.

We are creative, talented, fresh/young minds yet humble, willing to go out of the box whenever its needed because we strive to be the best in our field.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/facesstudios/about/?ref=page_internal

home accessories and products locally-made of wasted date palm midribs.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Jozourwood/about/?ref=page_internal

ITJanus
We have extensive experience in many diverse areas of software development and System Administration. Our experienced staff of professionals has worked with a wide array of platforms, languages, and tools in the course of our various projects.
We develop creative products and services that provide total communication and information solutions. Among web design and development, mobile development, tailor made applications, ERPs, CRMs, e-commerce solutions, managed hosting and internet portal management are few that we offer.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Zaategypt/about/?ref=page_internal

Mishkah coworking space https://www.facebook.com/pg/Mishkah.space/about/?ref=page_internal

Giranapp is a mobile application that enable neighbors to: connect, collaborate and reach out for better neighborhoods.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Giranapp/about/?ref=page_internal

Our mission is to provide all our customers with creative social media material that will help their brand to send their message. https://www.facebook.com/pg/sonetine/about/?ref=page_internal

HealthCare Dental Solutions - its a dental company - focused to offer the best dental equipment with the best after sales support.
HealthCare Dental Solutions is the representative of :

1. FONA DENTAL

• Dental units (Germany components Assembled in China )
• Handpieces ( Made in Germany )
• Autoclaves ( Made in Italy )
• Laser ( Made in Germany )
• Extraoral imaging products ( Made in Italy )
• Intraoral imaging products
  ( Xray Made in Italy ) ( Sensor Made in USA ) ( ScaNeo Made in Germany )

2. BGLIGHT :

• Dental Curing Light ( Made in Bulgaria )
• Bleaching Unit ( Made in Bulgaria )

HealthCare Dental Solutions products are known for their high reliability, reasonable prices and excellent quality.

HealthCare Dental Solutions focus on after sale support with a premium maintenance team always available for you.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/healthcare.Dental.solutions/about/?ref=page_internal

[amiridina]

In a separate post in the comments you mean? Tell you more about what it’s history? What it does? Why should it be part of open village???

[hazem]

Hey @amiridina thanks for the effort
You can start by picking one of them ( probably one that you know the people there ) write about them in a separate post here.
You write about your experience with them, or you can interview one of the people there and post it.

we are building this openvillage together, and it stands on a network of these people even if they can’t physically be there. we will use this space to work on open village related stuff. ( Brussels base + Morocco new base + …new nodes )

[m_tantawy]

@hazem

l active ? how are they doing

hello hazem , yes sure they still active until now but they dont have alot of public events in Cairo for example but in many other places in Egypt there is Events .

[hazem]

please, share your progress in a write up here ya @m_tantawy Ma’refa is a very interesting project.