"Most developing countries look at youth as an inexperienced demographic, whose voices don't matter, who are not part of any entities of significant influence. They are told what to do, what to think and what they should be come.
On the other hand, most developed countries look at youth as a critical resource that needs to be refined, enriched and empowered to become country's engine for economic growth and where solutions to many of its problems will come from.
Developing countries will never become developed countries unless they make a major shift in mindset regarding their relationship with youth. At SPARK our mission is to empower youth to think of how the world should look like rather than learn to see it as is, and to equip them with a knack for solving problems and creating opportunities.
We are dedicated to building a young generation of renaissance men and women and enabling them to accomplish what they are told is impossible. At SPARK, impossible is our playground."
Sherife is a passionate entrepreneur, dedicated to shaping the energy, entrepreneurship and education industries. He founded Future Energy Corporation (FEC) in 2009 and grew it to become one of the world's leading renewable energy companies with subsidiaries in Europe, Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. FEC has pioneered groundbreaking energy solutions that are currently disrupting the conventional energy industry. Sherife also founded SPARK Ventures in 2007, which at the time was one of the first pioneers of entrepreneurship in the Middle East and is now serving entrepreneurs around the world. Sherife was selected by Yahoo! as one of the top 10 social entrepreneurs in Egypt, profiled as one of the 500 most influential people in the Middle East by Arabian Business magazine, and chosen as one of the top 200 economic leaders in Africa by L'Institut Choiseul -- and was the youngest on all three lists. He holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Sam Co-Founded Demandforce, in 2003 and served as its Chief Sales Officer, his company was later acquired by Intuit for $424 Million in 2012. This was the second largest acquisition of the year after Facebook's acquisition of Instagram. Sam grew Demandforce from an early stage startup to one of the worlds leading providers of SaaS services to businesses, achieving $100 Million in revenue in 2014. DemandForce was also voted the number 1 place to work in the bay area. For the past 15 years, Sam has been building emerging growth companies in the technology sector in Silicon Valley. He regularly advises some of Silicon Valley's darling startups, in addition to many others with angel and venture capital investment. He earned a BS in Biology from California Poly State University in 1994.
Farida has a strong passion for law, cleantech and innovation. She has practiced banking and finance law in London and Cairo. While working with EBRD in London, Farida advised on sovereign loans, high value syndicated facilities, private equity transactions, oil & gas, and renewable energy law & finance. Throughout her career at Baker & McKenzie, Rizkana & Partners and other firms, she also advised on venture capital transactions, intellectual property, and convertible notes. Farida holds a doctorate degree (S.J.D.) in innovation law and policy from Harvard Law School. She also earned a Master’s degree in Law (LL.M.) from Harvard Law School, a Bachelor of Law (LL.B.) from Cairo University and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Economics from the American University in Cairo. She is a member of the Egyptian Bar Association and speaks fluent Arabic, English and German.
Mohamed is Vice President of Product Development at News Corp., a global media conglomerate with $8.6 Billion in revenue. At News Corp, he leads the team that is developing cutting edge mobile and web applications for the company and its various subsidiaries in addition to assessing startups for acquisitions, which can present strategic opportunities for NewsCorp. Prior to News Crop, he was CEO and Co-founder of CloudPress, a marketing platform that enables brands to create, launch, and track interactive, shoppable campaigns online, which was later acquired by News Corp. Mohamed graduated from the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of Washington, upon graduation he worked for Adobe Systems with the Adobe InDesign team in Seattle, and for a variety of mobile and web startups.
Henry has held different positions at NASA, Microsoft, eBay, MIT Media Lab, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which reflects his rich talent for engineering, finance and technology. He holds a Masters and Bachelors degree from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in addition to a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering also from MIT. He holds prestigious memberships in honor societies such as Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi. He graduated from SPARK in 2010.
Emad is a software development wizard. He became an International Olympiad in Informatics at the age of 16 and went on to win various programming and robotics competitions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Emad held software engineering positions at a variety of innovative companies which includes Dropbox, DE Shaw and Leaf. He holds a Bachelors of Science Degree and Masters of Science Degree, from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT. He graduated from SPARK IN 2008.
