Karima El Hakim: Enabling Egypt's Startup Ecosystem

With her extensive background in ecosystem-building, venture capital investment, and startup acceleration (and incubation), Karima El Hakim has played a vital role in enabling entrepreneurship within Egypt for the past few years.

Currently standing as the Country Director of Plug and Play (in her home country), a world-renowned corporate innovation hub and one of the top venture capital investors for early-stage startups globally, the 32-year-old is poised to make a significant impact on the Egyptian entrepreneurship scene.

In conversation with Machinelab, Hakim sheds light on her work with Plug and Play, her passion for self-development and more…

What are some of the biggest challenges facing startups in Egypt, and how is Plug and Play helping address those challenges?

We bring an inclusive element to mentorship with flexible program support, efficient mentorship (in terms of time consumption and receiving value) and a very hands-on, mature team for follow-up and support. It’s not re-inventing the wheel, but I believe we manage to have a unique imprint on the startups we support in Egypt. 

Can you walk us through the process that startups go through when they work with Plug and Play Egypt?

We have various ways that we engage with startups in Egypt. The most straightforward way is our direct relationship with them, which is part of our sourcing for the direct investment component. The ventures team is constantly on the look-out for early stage investment opportunities that would complement our Egypt and Africa portfolio. We also run an innovation program under the vertical of Smart Cities in partnership with The Egyptian Ministry of ICT, its technology arm ITIDA, USAID, The National Bank of Egypt and the Egypt Post.

In this program, we provide startups with world class mentorship, corporate introductions, access to capital through VC introductions and office space at the Sultan Hussein Kamel Creativa Innovation Hub. We run our early stage and growth programs simultaneously over the course of 3 - 3.5 months, culminating into an expo where cohort companies meet with investors, corporate decision-makers and government officials in a closed door networking environment. 

Finally, we provide Egyptian startups with overall ecosystem growth support. We are partners with the Egyptian government who trust us with the mission to support through knowledge-sharing and open innovation with our regional and global networks. We also host special networking events and champion the Egyptian ecosystem and the success stories we back, in Egypt to our global stakeholders. 

How do you see the startup ecosystem in Egypt evolving over the next few years, and how is Plug and Play positioning itself to be a key player in that evolution?

I am confident that we will be able to grow our portfolio of startups and cohort startups in the coming years. Also, we hope to see a collaborative ecosystem that is kind and resilient, accepting and learning from failures and aiming for ambitious goals. I hope to build a thriving and inclusive ecosystem with Plug and Play’s global network, powering our local talent in Egypt.

What are your goals and priorities for Plug and Play Egypt in the coming years?

We will collaborate more, soft-land companies in and out of Egypt, and I can anticipate interesting partnerships to be announced with both private and public sector partners that will enable the developpement of new programs and innovations in the regional market. 

As we grow our footprint here, we hope to be investing more in early stage Egyptian and African startups that complement our portfolio and synergies with our partners. I can’t imagine doing this without further engaging our global offices, now covering 34 countries! We successfully brought Plug and Play’s open innovation tracks to Egypt and hope to grow our platform to mirror the potential of this market. 

What's your personal development routine like? I know you're a big fan of Robin Sharma’s book, ‘The 5am Club!’

I’m a pretty early riser. I’ve also been a Megaformer teacher and VersaClimber since 2018. It’s something that I have been practicing for longer as an avid Burn Client and now I teach every other morning before going to work. It anchors my day, brings me energy and allows me to develop my communication skills and overall wellness. Having said that, meditation is something I really hope to practice more, so that I can bring mindfulness to my everyday tasks too. I use an app called Calm, it helps me add a 12-minute ‘morning calm’ meditation practice by a very special coach called Tamara Levitt. 

I also consume a lot of audio books! Some of the books I highly recommend for self-development are; The 5am Club (by Robin Sharma), This Naked Mind (by Annie Grace), The Tipping Point (by Malcolm Gladwell), The Forty Rules of Love (by Elif Shafak), and The Donkey of Hakim (by Tawfikal-Hakim).

What advice do you live by? A motto or a guiding principle...

Behind every decision is a human being. Always be kind.

All photos supplied by: Karima El Hakim