Threads is the new Twitter?

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TONIGHT

THIS EVENING: Egypt, Turkey restore diplomatic ties and appoint ambassadors

Good afternoon, friends, and welcome back to the grind. We hope your return to the office has been smooth sailing as we race towards the next weekend.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Egypt, Turkey reappoint ambassadors: Cairo and Ankara announced today the restoration of full diplomatic ties by appointing ambassadors for the first time in years, marking the end of a prolonged period of tensions between the two countries, according to a joint statement. Amr Elhamamy will serve as the Egyptian ambassador to Ankara, while SalihMutluŞen has been appointed as the Turkish ambassador to Cairo.

The story got coverage in the international press:Bloomberg |Reuters | Associated Press.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

The unrest between Palestine and Israel has been dominating the conversation in the international press today: The onset of Israel’s raid on the Jenin refugee camp which has been the most fierce in the past 20 years, deployed troops, snipers, drones, and bulldozers into the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. The IDF has claimed that this attack has completed its objective, which was to capture militants and their command center in the camp. The attack reportedly claimed 10 Palestinian lives and injured more than 100 civilians, while thousands have begun to evacuate the camp as the operation comes to a close. Reuters | Financial Times | Wall Street Journal | Associated Press | CNBC

A suspected car ramming and stabbing in Tel Aviv has injured six people and received praise from Hamas. Despite commending the attack as heroic, the militant group did not claim responsibility. The suspect, who is reportedly Palestinian from the West Bank, has been killed. BBC | Reuters | Sky News | Associated Press

** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

Abu Dhabi Tourism Investment Company (ADTIC) has earmarkedUSD 95 mn to build a “large hotel” in the Giza pyramids area, in addition to a separate USD 80 mn to modernize its hotels in Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada.
More EV charging stations in the works? Two new local firms, a subsidiary of Elsewedy Electric dubbed Elsewedy Plug and Ikarus Electric, have each received a one-year license to build EV charging stations.
Auto sales record their best month so far in 2023: Auto sales remained low in May compared with a year ago but rose steeply from the month before.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS- The Enterprise Finance Forum is taking place on 18-19 September at the St. Regis Hotel in Cairo. This flagship forum is the latest in our must-attend series of invitation-only, C-suite-level gatherings that allow senior members of our community to openly and frankly discuss critical issues in key sectors of the economy.

Day one is our Banking Forum, where we’ll dive deep into topics of interest to commercial and investment bankers, from an outlook on the 12 months to come in M&A, IPO, and debt capital markets to the national, regional, and global trends that are (re)shaping our industry.

Day two is all about Fintech and Non-Banking Financial Services. We’ll take a deep dive into everything from the magic of client acquisition to the prospects of consolidation and the coming of challenger banks.

** NEW: MORE NETWORKING TIME- Our agenda includes expanded networking time, including an expanded coffee break and a post-event networking room for you to interact with your peers and speak one-on-one with the team at Enterprise.

TAP OR CLICK HERE if you want to express interest in attending. We’ll be sending out the first batch of invitations soon.

Do you want to become a commercial partner? Please click here.

STAY TUNED for more detail about our agenda.

DID YOU MISS THE ENTERPRISE EXPORTS AND FDI FORUM? Tune in to the Enterprise Podcast and listen for yourself: The Enterprise Podcast is back with another installment of our forum series, where we bring you audio recordings of what was said on stage at the Enterprise Exports and FDI Forum,which took place in May.

IN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE- We looked at how Egyptian companies can identify and pitch foreign partners and how they can identify them. We asked how do companies figure out what they’re looking for — and whether that dovetails with what they want or need. We were joined on that panel by Hossam Abou Moussa, partner at PE firm Apis, Cheick-Oumar Sylla, director for North Africa and Horn of Africa at the International Finance Corporation, and Hassan Massoud, associate director and head of private equity (Southern Mediterranean) at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Expect us to drop an episode every Sunday morning. You can listen to the Enterprise Podcast where ever you get your podcasts including: Apple Podcast | Spotify | Google Podcast | Anghami.

ENTERPRISE IS LOOKING FOR SMART, TALENTED PEOPLE of all backgrounds to help us build some very cool new things. Enterprise — the essential morning read on all the important news shaping business and the economy in Egypt and the region — is looking for writers, reporters and editors to help us build out new publications. Today, we run four daily Egypt and MENA-focused publications, five weekly industry verticals, and a weekend lifestyle edition designed to make our readers feel just a bit smarter.

We have tons more in the pipeline — come help us build new publications. We offer the chance to work in a fast-paced newsroom on a broad range of topics and in a variety of formats. Our goal is simple: To create value for our growing community of >250k daily readers by telling stories that matter.

Journalists looking to explore business, finance and economic stories are welcome. So are recent journalism school graduates.

That said, we’re looking for gifted story-tellers from all walks of life and across all professions, as long as they show a keen interest in learning to write about the stories, topics, businesses, and figures moving markets. Egyptian and foreign nationals alike are welcome to apply. So are job-switchers: If you’re an equities analyst tired of the rat race, we’re a great place to come work.

NEVER WORKED IN A NEWSROOM BEFORE? We have the Enterprise Business Writing Development Program. Whether you are a recent graduate, an industry vet, or looking to switch careers, the Enterprise Business Writing Development Program will give you the tools you need to tell the most important stories to our audience of C-suite officials, government ministers, diplomats, financiers, investors and entrepreneurs.

During the program you will learn:

The key news stories and trends shaping business and the economy in Egypt and the region, across various sectors;
Business and finance for non-finance people: Whether it’s industry jargon or key concepts or simply how to read a balance sheet;
How to construct an Enterprise story: From idea formulation down to the structure, style and tone of writing;
How to develop sources that will give you the key insights needed to tell a complete story;
How to communicate these stories with the confidence and language of an insider.

Not an internship program — a career: The three-month program will see full-time, paid participants take part in workshops and lectures from veteran business journalists, while also working on and filing stories that will run on any of our publications. Those who have successfully completed the program, will then be given long-term job offers.

Apply directly to jobs@enterprisemea.com and mention “writing development program” in your subject line.

!_Insertline_!

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect sunny skies as the mercury hits a high of 39°C before dropping to a cooler 23°C in the evening, according to our favorite weather app.

Nubian hydraulics predate Chinese peers + Threads in, Twitter out?

Meta’s answer to Twitter: A new social media platform, Threads, to “share ideas and trends with text.” The upcoming app, which is already on the Apple App store and will roll out for iOS users this week, will allow Instagram users to transfer their username and followers to Threads, the Financial Times reported yesterday. It is unclear when the app will be available for Android users.

Stop us if this sounds familiar: Threads is being positioned as an app that is rather similar in concept to Twitter, whose users are being subjected to content moderation and other adjustments that aren’t sitting well with the social platform’s large base since it was purchased by Elon Musk late last year, the FT notes. Over the past few days alone, Twitter rolled out unexpected changes like limits on the number of tweets people can view.

Ancient hydraulic water engineering systems dating back three millennia were found in Northern Sudan, indicating that these systems were created in the ancient Nubian empire before China, which was previously thought to have the oldest known hydraulics system, according to a study published in the Geoarchaeologyjournal cited in Science Alert. A team of researchers from Australia and the UK used satellite images, drones, diaries of a group of travelers from the 19th century, and a 200-year-old map to determine that some 1.3k stone walls — or “groynes” — stretched along 1k km in the area between the first Cataract in southern Egypt, and the fourth Cataract in Sudan. The Nile river groynes are now proven to be older than gyrones found on the Yellow River in China, which dates back to 2,500 years old.

Why are these structures essential? These multi-purpose water systems are used to control the water flow for better land irrigation, grab more fertile silt, curb seasonal floods drawbacks, reduce erosion of river banks, and prepare river channels for navigation, in addition to establishing ideal fishing ponds. The “momental river groynes” created a bond between the Nubians and old Egyptians across the Nile, north and south, as it opened a channel for transporting people, armies, and resources. “This incredibly long-lived hydraulic technology played a crucial role in enabling communities to grow food and thrive in the challenging landscapes of Nubia for over 3k years,” University of Western Australia archaeologist Matthew Dalton said.

Hydraulic systems have stood the test of time: These systems are still applied by local people in different areas as the Nile’swater flow in this region is inconsistent — due to climate change over the past three millennia.

Controversial Stan Lee documentary on Disney+

📺 ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
(all times CLT)

Five years after his passing, Stan Lee’s voice narrates his beginnings in the comic world and rise to global fame: In a new 86-minute-long documentary, we are transported to the West Side of Manhattan where Stanley Martin Lieber was born in 1922 to Eastern European parents. We learn about his humble beginnings and how, upon entering the world of comics in 1939, he took up a pen name because he did not consider what he was doing to be “real writing.” Little did he know this would become a whirlwind adventure where would end up collaborating with Jack Kriby to create some of the world’s most popular superheroes.

But criticism has been harsh: Jack Kirby’s son, Neal, is one of those people who are less than thrilled with the feature’s outcome. The late artist’s son issued a statement on social media in which he lambasted the new documentary, calling it “Stan Lee’s greatest tribute to himself.” And some comic experts seem to implicitly agree: Kirby was far more than simply an illustrator, his contributions included naming characters and drafting plots, Stephen Krensky is quoted as saying. Catch the documentary — and form your own opinion — on Disney+.

⚽ One step away from Paris: The Egyptian Olympic football team will be playing in the semi-final match of the U23 African Cup of Nations against Guinea at 8pm today, aiming for a victory — and their ticket for the Olympics in Paris next year. Meanwhile, Morocco will be hosting Mali at 11pm for their qualifying match, as the occupants of the first three places will head to the Olympic games, and the fourth place will go to an Asian qualifier. The Pharaohs have had the African title since they hosted the games in 2019.

Egypt Cup quarter-final matches to catch tonight:

Zamalek v Arab Contractors at 8:30pm
Enppi v Nogoom at 6pm

Bookworms, Dawayer Cultural Festival is for you: Tanmia and Diwan are co-organizing this cultural festival starting from this Thursday, 6 July until Saturday, 15 July at Cinema Radio in downtown Cairo. The festival will include several activities that vary between creative writing workshops, storytelling circles, seminars for prominent authors and novelists such as Buthaina Al Essa and Ibrahim Abdel Majid. Check out Dawayer’s website for more information and the full schedule of events.

Amr Diab is coming to Sahel: When the light fades and the sun goes down, head to SOL Beach Bar at Marassi on Friday, 14 July to attend Amr Diab’s sunset party. The party will begin at 7pm. Tickets are available on TicketsMarche.

Mahmoud Saad will host movie star Karim AbdelAziz in a new installation of the SoldOutlive interviewsseries on Friday, 14 July at 8:30pm. The live interview will be held at Ewart Hall at AUC’s Tahrir campus. You can book your ticket from Tazkarti.

The authentic Zar arts are here: Mazaher Ensemble (Zar) will perform tomorrow at the Egyptian Center for Culture and Arts – Makan, with the performance starting at 7:30pm. Tickets are available on Makan.

Sharmoofers, Shaheen and El Waily x Alexandria: Sharmoofers will share the stage with the rap star Shahyn and the music producer El Waili at Al Ittihad Alex Club, Smoha branch on Thursday, 20 July. Doors will open at 4pm. You can book your tickets through TicketsMall.

Cairokee Empire returns: Cairokee is hitting the stage with two mega-concerts at New Cairo’s Manara Arena on Thursday, 27 July and Saturday, 29 July. Tickets are available on Tazkarti here and here.

Tech geeks, get ready for theRoute Tech Summit: The summit will be held on Friday, 28 July from 9am until 10pm in the Greek campus, offering a chance to meet tech recruiters, apply for jobs and attend workshops. You can register through this link to receive your invitation for the event.

What have years done to us? A new play that uncovers the disparity between what we think, we actually say and what is lost in between when it comes to relationships and love will be showing on Rawabet Art Space starting from Friday, 7 July until Friday, 9 July. You can book your spot through TicketsMarche.

Haruki Murakami’s After Dark is a moody novel which explores the lives of Tokyoites in the night. While 19-year-old Mari intends to spend the evening at a local Denny’s, she encounters a man who insists he knows her sister, setting her out on a night of running around the sleeping city. Murakami — while exploring themes of reality and how different people perceive it — beautifully illustrates human relationships and connections and just how easy they can develop when one is open. The book provides sensate and deep descriptions of the city and its civilians, which immerses the readers in Murakami’s world and makes the 208-paged novel appear as not long enough. After Dark is an enjoyable read if you are interested in magical realism and novels centered around human relations. The book is available from Diwan or on Amazon.

What the markets are doing on 4 July, 2023

The EGX30 fell 1.1% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.47 bn. Regional investors were net sellers. The index is up 19.6% YTD.

In the green: Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals (+3.3%), Mopco (+2.1%) and E-finance (+1.2%).

In the red: Elsewedy Electric (-5.0%), Eastern Company (-3.1%) and CIRA Education (-2.7%).

Meet our founder of the week: Muhammad Nagi, cofounder of MQR and managing director of MQR/Greek Campus

OUR FOUNDER OF THE WEEK– Every Tuesday, Founder of the Week looks at how a successful member of Egypt’s startup community got their big break, asks about their experiences running a business, and gets their advice for budding entrepreneurs. Speaking to us this week is Muhammad Nagi (LinkedIn), cofounder of MQR and currently the managing director of MQR/Greek Campus, which recently merged into one entity.

My name is Muhammad Nagi, and I’m the cofounder of MQR and most recently, the managing director of MQR/Greek Campus. My co-founders and I started MQR in 2012, while I was still in university, because we couldn’t find a place where we could properly work. Back then, we didn’t know that this was called a coworking space. The aim was to not only provide a place to work, but also to help people meet each other and build a community.

We spent about 3-4 years educating ourselves and the market about what a coworking space is. We had to differentiate between it and other existing spaces, like tutoring centers, libraries, and cafes. This gave us a chance to properly understand the industry and also become part of the rise of entrepreneurship back in the day. In 2017, we decided to pivot because it became very difficult to scale and even to raise funding.

We became a real estate management company. This means that instead of opening our own spaces, we partnered with real estate developers and individual landlords to convert their existing, unutilized spaces into work spaces and operate these for them. This made us asset-light, more cashflow-efficient and allowed us to scale faster. Today, we operate 12 spaces across Egypt, with a strong focus on building communities, and most recently merged with the Greek Campus, which is a significant milestone for us. In industries that are not easily scalable, consolidations are very important, in my opinion, and it comes at the right time for both entities.

I can’t say that I gave up anything to be an entrepreneur because my co-founders and I created this business out of passion and we did not put too much pressure on ourselves in our first years.As a founding team, we were adamant to take things slow and build a solid footing without rushing, which helped me learn a lot along the way. Of course, in terms of social life, my circles changed and maybe I gave up some financial security. I remember at the beginning of our journey, the only money that would be left over would be the EGP 600 that we would make from the cafeteria in our first coworking space, which then had to be divided among all the co-founders.

While covid was one of the toughest times for our business, it also worked in our favor.Our model was and still largely is based on physical interaction and events, and during the pandemic, we had to close our doors for three months. However, during lockdown, everyone understood what “remote work” was and realized that they needed places to work from that had the proper infrastructure in place. We even opened new segments, like passes for companies that enabled employees to work from our spaces to avoid overcrowding their office buildings in response to social distancing measures.

My advice to anyone starting a business would be to just start. I see a lot of people with great ideas, but they often waste time by not taking the decision to actually start implementing them. Others take a very long time to research and prepare the idea. While this is important, your initial product, pricing, and business model will probably change based on how the market reacts to your idea. So, don’t waste too much time on intricate planning. A quick start and flexibility are crucial for any business.

The main KPIs I look at every day are our topline and occupancy rates. Other than that, I look at functional KPIs, customer and team satisfaction, and capex returns to our landlords.

For advice, I turn to my co-founders, Abdelqader Ahmed and Sherif Ashraf first. I feel that we have really grown together.After them, I turnto my mentor Tamer Azer, partner at Shorooq Ventures, who has been with us since we decided to scale up, and is our first investor and main supporter. For strategic issues, I talk to Eslam Elsaadany, our strategy consultant, to validate our direction from time to time.

As MQR, we raised a small amount of money, but other than that we bootstrapped the company from the ground up. The main investors were Cairo Angels (now Acasia Group) and Alex Angels. During covid, we carried out a capital increase with both of them as existing investors, and added a few more angel investors.

Our plan now is to continue building communities and expand. After the merge with the Greek Campus, we want to focus on leveraging our momentum and expand even more across Cairo and Egypt, while also building a new value proposition for a new segment.

My parents and wife are very supportive of my career choice. At the beginning, my parents saw MQR as a side project, as opposed to a main source of income. But over the years, they’ve seen it grow, and so they’re completely on board now. For a while, I wasn’t able to balance between work, my family, my wife, and my two daughters, but I’ve managed to create a system and routine that works for me and them. However, I owe everything to my wife and daughters for bearing with me.

The last great thing I watched was WeCrashed, which revolves around the WeWork story.For me, I was impressed by it because it was so real to me. What WeWork founder Adam Neuman was building was very similar to what we were trying to do. It helped me heavily reflect internally on our team, because every one of us was watching it. We were able to draw comparisons and differences between our and WeWork’s story, which was very intense for us. One of the main takeaways we reached was that Adam Neuman was growing and scaling at a very fast rate, while we were set on taking it slow and building a solid model. The show is very useful for anyone who wants to build a company.

In my freetime, I play sports and Fantasy Football. I’m a huge football fan (I cheer for Al Ahly, Real Madrid and Manchester United), but I spend a lot of time on building my Fantasy Football team. We even host a team- and community-wide Fantasy League, which I’ve won twice in a row in the past years.

THE ENTERPRISE ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR

JULY

5 July (Wednesday): Hals concert, Rawabet Art Space, Qasr El-Nil, Cairo.

5 July (Wednesday): Mazaher Ensemble (Zar), Egyptian Center for Arts and Culture, Downtown, Cairo.

6 July-15 (Thursday-Saturday):Dawayer Cultural Festival, Cinema Radio, Downtown, Cairo.

7 July-9 (Friday-Saturday):What have years done to us?, Rawabet Art Space, Qasr El-Nil, Cairo.

7 July (Friday): Medhat Saleh with the masters, Cairo Opera House, El-Zamalek, Cairo.

14 July (Friday): Amr Diab Sunset Party, SOL Beach Bar, Marassi, North Coast.

14 July (Friday): SoldOut live interviews, Ewart Hall, The American University in Cairo (AUC), Tahrir.

18 July (Tuesday): Islamic New Year.

19 July-23 July (Wednesday-Sunday): Egypt Summer Festival, Heliopolis.

20 July (Thursday): Sharmoofers, Shaheen and El Waily concert, Al-Itthad Alex Club, Somha, Alexandria.

20 July (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Islamic New Year (TBC).

23 July (Sunday): Revolution Day.

27 July (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Revolution Day.

27 July (Thursday): Cairokee mega-concert, Manara Arena, New Cairo.

28 July (Friday): Route Tech Summit 2023, Greek Campus, Tahrir, Cairo.

29 July (Saturday): Cairokee mega-concert, Manara Arena, New Cairo.

AUGUST

2 August-3 August (Wednesday-Thursday): Fintech Revolution Summit at 9:30am at Cairo Festival City.

SEPTEMBER

26 September (Tuesday): Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (TBC).

28 September (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (TBC).

OCTOBER

6 October (Friday): Armed Forces Day.

13 October- 20 October (Friday-Friday): El Gouna Film Festival (GFF).

NOVEMBER

15-24 November (Wednesday-Friday): Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF).

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2023: The inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum.

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THIS EVENING: Egypt, Turkey restore diplomatic ties and appoint ambassadors

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What the markets are doing on 4 July, 2023

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Meet our founder of the week: Muhammad Nagi, cofounder of MQR and managing director of MQR/Greek Campus

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THE ENTERPRISE ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR

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