Entrepreneurs in Egypt: Assim Tulba

Young entrepreneurs in Egypt are part of a new wave of self-employment sweeping the nation, and Mostafa Shahat writes about them.

Diversity is healthy for the entrepreneurship community in Egypt. It enrichs the community with ideas that everyone brings in – diversity not just in business ideas, but also in the types of entrepreneurs, whether social or business or another type of entrepreneur called a wanterpreneur. A wanterpreneur is the one who wants to start a business as an entrepreneur, but s/he needs specific technical and personal skills first.

Assim Tulba is one of the few entrepreneurs who merged the three types of entrepreneurs in his personality. His skills and achievements have proven his capabilities of managing both social ventures and business enterprises at the same time.

Assim studied at the Faculty of Computers and Information at Cairo University in 2012. Since he was student, Assim joined different students organisations where he realised how social entrepreneurship is mandatory and essential to develop Egypt. He believes that social entrepreneurship is the only way out for all the developing countries.

Because of his excellent leadership, Assim was nominated to join the Entrepreneurial Leadership Discovery Program (ELDP) funded by IIE (Institute of International Education), where he attended several intensive classes and workshops about social entrepreneurship, business development, marketing and other related topics.

In 2012, Assim joined G.O.L, a youth organisation that supports Egyptian youth with trainings on social entrepreneurship, career development and soft skills. It helps young people meet market needs and gain competitive caliber as well as develop the entrepreneurial thinking abilities and prepare future business owners.

As the Head of the Academic Department, Assim designed curriculums for the trainings and delivered trainings himself on social media and personal branding at Cairo University, BUE (British University in Egypt), IRC (Information Resource Center) – US Embassy in Cairo and many other places. Recently, Assim has been promoted to G.O.L vice president.

During the same year, Assim won the Business Idea Competition in the AUC (American University in Cairo) and participated in a Social Entrepreneurship Training in I3P – The Innovative Enterprise Incubator of the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, where he has attended several intensive classes and lectures on business modeling, secondary research, primary analysis, online marketing and pitching.

Assim has founded a social enterprise named Tourist Navigator, a web and mobile application that gathers all offers from tourism agencies and where anyone can search for a specific destination within a specific budget.

‘I have been working on Tourist Navigator for a while, it took a lot of research and development’, says Assim. ‘From the experience of founding an enterprise, I realised that being an entrepreneur isn’t a piece of cake. It requires specific skills and talents to be able to run the operation and team and manage the whole project until it can stand alone’.

Assim is currently working as Regional Project Manager for Fritill, which is a digital agency and software house, and Country Representative for worcbox, which is a social enterprise that showcases work and connects businesses with talented people.