Maged Harby: Inside Middle East EdTech, Egypt’s Talent Engine and How Localization Decides Startup Success – E650
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
31 min
1 speaker
5 chapters
transcribed 17 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
If they don't know the culture, this will be the main mistake. Because under this culture you will find a lot of things. If I'm pricing my products here in Asia with ten dollars beans in Egypt, five hundred Egyptian, which is expensive. So you need to do a lower price. But it could work. In Saudi Arabia, this will be ten dollars thirty-seven point five Saudi Area. So you need to adapt. This is one Of the important things.
Welcome to Brave. Learn from Southeast Asia's best tech leaders. Build the future, learn from our past, and stay human in between. No BS on Success. I'm Jeremy O, Venture Capitalist, Sarah founder, Harvard MBA, science fiction nerd, and dad of two daughters. Every week, we debate startup news, interview change makers, answer listener questions, and share personal insights. Join our movement of over 40,000 members and get transcripts, resources, and community at www.bravesea.com. Stay well and stay brave. Hey Megan,
I'm so excited to have you on the show. I'm happy and excited for this podcast.
Yeah. And I think what's amazing is that you had such a wonderful panel talking about the Middle East and the region yesterday at Tech Asia Conference. Excited to have you talk a little bit about your personal experience. Also, I think share people who are curious about the Middle East as a region from an Asia perspective. So could you introduce yourself?
My name is Maggit Harbi. Yeah. I'm a general partner at VMS. VMS is a corporate venture studio based in Saudi Arabia and Riyadh. We are focusing on helping startups to expand their business to the Middle East, especially to Saudi Arabia, through a program called the Bridge. Also, we help and support startups through another program called Saudi Breneer. And also we do investments in startups plus other partnerships. With the government and private entities. Before that, I was managing a company called Adventures. Adventures is a corporate venture capital focused on education. I started this position in 2019. Before that, I was the operation manager. And I left in December 2024. Before Adventures, I was in Naditmus.
This is one of the biggest publishing houses in the world. In the Middle East. They do the curriculums for Ministry of Education in Egypt and other countries, Arab countries and African countries. I was managing the rights department. I was concerned with getting the rights and the license from different publishers like Cambridge, like Disney, like National Geographic, and others to have these books and curriculums to be distributed and published in Egypt and around. Before the After my graduation I started my career as I stayed a few months, then joined one of banks called Barclays and then also stayed around two months and then left joined and then Adventures. Now I am at VMS. You grew up in Egypt.
Actually I grew up in Saudi Arabia. I was born in Saudi Arabia in uh nineteen eighty six. I'm thirty nine years old now, father of two kids, uh one Maraon, one daughter and one boy. And I stayed at Saudi Arabia until grade five. Yeah. Then starting from grade seven, yeah, I was in Egypt. I continue My journey in Egypt, then graduated from the university and continue my career path until joining Frimes and return back to Riad. That's it.
So obviously now you're an education tech, but I have to ask, were you like a good student? Were you a naughty student?
I I I think I was a good student, one of uh people like studying, doing the homework, having a good grade, all of these things. And my target was to to be engineer. But in Egypt there is something called a degree in order to graduate from school to university, you have to bring a specific grades to go to the university that you need. But my mother at that time told me you have to get ninety percent in order to go to engineer school. I was studying hard to get this grade. Yeah, I got uh ninety-one. But at that time the engineering school required ninety one point four or point two, something like this. So unfortunately I couldn't join engineering school and decided to go to business school.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:11
2
What is VMS and how does its Bridge program help startups expand in the Middle East?
6:11–11:59
3
Why do Egyptian parents still push children toward engineering or medicine?
11:59–19:00
4
How did Maged build EdVentures into a leading EdTech incubator and accelerator?
19:00–30:32
5
What is driving Gen Z in the Middle East to choose entrepreneurship over traditional jobs?
30:32–31:51
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
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