From Idea to Impact
Founders, programmes and partners behind three years of youth entrepreneurship across Egypt, delivered by icealex with Plan International Egypt and funded through the Danish-Arab Partnership Programme.
We build runways, not only programmes.
When we started icealex in Alexandria in 2011, we made a simple bet: that the next generation of Egyptian and African founders would not come only from the capital, and that the hardest part of entrepreneurship is not the idea but everything that has to happen after it. More than 20,000 community members and over twenty countries later, that bet has become a method.
Since July 2024, with Plan International Egypt and the Danish-Arab Partnership Programme, about 4,000 young people from Alexandria to Assiut have come through our hackathons, leagues and accelerators. More than half are women. Around 114 startups received seed capital. Behind every number is a person who chose to build rather than wait, and a team that made sure they did not build alone.
Grants are the first step, not the ladder. We treat ours as micro-impact funding: small, fast and tied to evidence, and we work to multiply it. Capital follows proof; our job is to produce proof.
Dr. Ahmed M. Bastawy, Managing Director & Founder, icealex
Talent should not have to move to the capital. Opportunity has to move to talent: skills, capital, markets and institutions, built where young people already are.
Innovation, collaboration, entrepreneurship. Since 2011.
icealex is a social innovation and entrepreneurship hub founded in Alexandria. We design and run programmes, operate innovation hubs, build ecosystems in secondary cities and connect founders to markets and capital, across Egypt, the Middle East and Africa.
years of work in Alexandria, 2011 to 2026
incubation and acceleration cycles delivered
people in the icealex community
countries reached by our programmes
Ecosystem building
Policy dialogue, mentor training, the Mentoring Lounge and networks that connect founders, institutions and capital.
Ventures Launchpad
Incubation and acceleration for youth, women, green and creative ventures, in-house and with partners.
Hubs and ESO development
Public innovation hubs, university centres, Hub in a Box, the Borg El Arab electronics complex, a FabLab.
Innovation research and consulting
Innovation strategy, sector mapping and impact diagnostics for corporations, governments and INGOs.
Innovation ignition programmes
Hackathons, sustainability awards and circular-economy training that open the pipeline.
59 partner organisations
21 development and funding partners, 10 public institutions, 11 universities and schools, 17 business and ecosystem partners.
One programme, built by many hands.
The Youth Inclusion and Employment Project (YIEP), known in Egypt as “Ready for Tomorrow”, is led by Plan International Egypt and funded through the Danish-Arab Partnership Programme. Since July 2024 icealex has designed and delivered its entrepreneurship track, through public-private partnerships with government-backed innovation hubs, universities and business associations, with a dedicated green track, the Sustainability Innovation Award.
Plan International Egypt
Leads YIEP, sets its direction and keeps its focus on young people, above all young women, and on safe, inclusive practice.
Danish-Arab Partnership Programme
Denmark's Ministry of Foreign Affairs funds YIEP through DAPP, with Dansk Erhverv, the Danish Chamber of Commerce, as a partner.
icealex
Designs and delivers the entrepreneurship track with local partners, from outreach to seed grants and alumni follow-up.
A programme for every stage of a venture.
Founders do not need the same help at every moment. Our portfolio follows the startup lifecycle, so each venture meets the right programme, the right jury and the right capital at the right time.
Egypt Cities Hackathon
The umbrella: Delta Cities, Upper Egypt and Impact editions. Three-day sprints on local challenges. 20 cycles, about 2,100 founders.
Ladies Startups League and Sustainability Innovation Award
An accelerator for women-led teams (8 cycles, about 360 women founders) and a green and blue economy award (6 editions, about 880 green innovators).
Craft Makers and Mentoring Lounge
Heritage and handmade businesses, many run by women from home (4 cycles), with mentors matched to each team's assessed needs.
Startups of Africa Accelerator
Our flagship: twelve weeks of mentoring, customer validation and investor readiness, ending in a jury and seed grants of up to EGP 125,000. 4 cycles under YIEP.
Alumni Connect and Angels Garden
Investor matchmaking, peer network and impact investing, so founders come back as mentors, employers and investors.
Peer-to-peer mentoring
Alumni success stories in every session, and founders coaching the next cohort.
Impact Diagnostic
Every founder is scored at entry and at exit with the icealex Impact Diagnostic, a 0 to 100 rating across founder readiness, social and economic value, scale potential, ecosystem contribution and long-term sustainability.
Catalyzer
Our virtual incubation platform carries the curriculum between live sessions.
The capital ladder.
Change happens on four levels at once: people, ventures, ecosystems and systems. Capital is only the first step.
Micro-impact funding
Seed grants of EGP 20,000 to 150,000, fast and tied to evidence. About EGP 6.9M to 114 startups.
Matching funds
A government innovation hub matched EGP 190,000 over two years; a business association now matches from its own side.
Follow-on capital
Investor readiness, Alumni Connect matchmaking and Angels Garden put proven founders in front of investors, banks and competitions.
Beyond capital
Mentors matched to assessed needs, peer-to-peer support, market access through Chimney Talks with MSMEDA, association memberships, and an alumni network.
Three years with Plan International Egypt, programme by programme.
Awareness workshops in Alexandria universities reach 307 young people. Ladies Startups League Cycles 1 and 2. Startups of Africa Fast Track. Sustainability Innovation Award editions 2.0 and 3.0: Carbonera and Cotton Town among the winners. Innovation Hackathons with technological schools.
1,026 entrepreneurs · 39 seeded · EGP 2.1M
Delta Cities Hackathon, 6 cycles, 21 winners. Startups of Africa Cycles 1 and 2: Bekya Pay, Chocotini. Ladies Startups League at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and in Assiut: MumGuard. Craft Makers in Alexandria and Assiut. Upper Egypt Hackathon at Badr and Sphinx universities.
1,681 entrepreneurs · 54 seeded · EGP 3.16M
Egypt Cities Hackathon, 7 cycles, including Creativa Ismailia and a research edition at Suez Canal University. Chimney Talks with MSMEDA at the Bibliotheca. Alumni Connect, three editions. The Impact Edition: 200+ founders, Demo Day 19 November.
~1,294 entrepreneurs to September · 21 seeded · EGP 1.66M
Six operation nodes. Twenty-four governorates.
Alexandria, Beheira, Menofia, Qalyubia, Ismailia and Assiut are where our teams, hubs and partners run cohorts. The young people who come to them travel from far wider: in 2026 alone, participants came from 24 of Egypt's 27 governorates.
Wide by design. Selected for impact.
Sector data for the 105 startups classified in the icealex alumni register, of 114 seeded.
More than half are women.
women-led applications to icealex's main accelerator, before and after the women's programmes
of 2024 participants were women
seed grants won by women-led teams, December 2024
women among 539 young people in Assiut, 2025
Fourteen stories, MumGuard first.
Every venture answers a real local or industry challenge: a gap in early breast-cancer detection, millions of tonnes of farm and household waste, classrooms without data, crafts at risk of disappearing.
01 · MumGuard
Dina is a pharmacist and researcher. MumGuard combines contact thermography with bio-impedance sensing to detect early signs of breast cancer without radiation or pain, in a device designed for clinics far from the big hospitals. With YIEP's seed grant, mentorship and network, MumGuard reached its fourth prototype, completed preclinical trials and a pilot study with women, and registered as a company. The programme also gave her a free annual membership of the Alexandria Businesswomen Association with access to B2B deals to test the MVP. In October 2026 Dina joins the icealex delegation to Copenhagen for PlanBørnefonden's International Girl Award.
02 · Bekya Pay
Pays households for sorting waste through a simple digital platform. Alongside its YIEP grant: second place and EGP 125,000 at the Shell Intilaaqah Egypt Annual Award 2024, and EGP 1 million at the Youth Summit 2025. Capital follows proof.
03 · Chocotini
Egypt throws away about 300,000 tonnes of date pits a year. Chocotini mills them into a chocolate-style spread with less sugar and no palm oil: nutrition for families, income for date farmers, waste turned into value. Her first bazaar sold out in days.
04 and 05 · HNDL and MEDEX
HNDL is a fleet-management platform registered in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with 1,760 active vehicles. MEDEX collects expired medicines and converts pharmaceutical waste into energy, with 16,000+ active clients as reported by the company.
06, 07, 08 · Carbonera, Cotton Town, The Outliers
Dr. Maha El Attar turns farm residue into biochar and activated carbon. Heidi El Gendy links Egyptian cotton producers to brands and recycles offcuts. Arwa Basha teaches teenagers AI skills by doing. Three of the 39 startups seeded in our first six months.
09, 10, 11 · Wheel Tires, Tally Bint Al-Jabal, Al-Israa Library
Adham Mustafa shreds discarded tyres into rubber for playgrounds and asphalt, 300 tonnes in year one. Ihsan Ismail Ali keeps Assiut's tally embroidery alive and pays women to work it from home. Three sisters turned a stationery shop into a growing family business. 539 young people, 67% women, 17 startups seeded in Assiut.
12, 13, 14 · Passos, OMREX, Techy Global
Passos keeps schoolchildren safe with a screen-free AI smartband (first of 27 teams, EGP 150,000). OMREX marks exams in seconds and is live in classrooms (first of 78 teams). Noha Fayed's Techy Global has taught 25,000+ students and she now coaches founders on icealex programmes, after joining AFD Campus's Social and Inclusive Business Camp through icealex.
Support that reaches founders directly.
In 2026 icealex brought Egypt's Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA) to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to meet YIEP founders. icealex first assessed each startup's needs, then seated founders at roundtables with the MSMEDA expert who could answer their question: 152 founders, 100+ startups matched, 18 sectors. icealex does the matching, government provides the depth, and founders get a direct line rather than a brochure.
Seeing it where it happens.
In November 2025, Ms. Rozan Khalifeh, Country Director of Plan International Egypt, visited icealex to review the project's progress. In June 2026 she and Dr. Ahmed Bastawy went further, to alumni at their own premises in Beheira: Carbonera's lab in Damanhour and Awani's pottery workshop in Abu Hummus.
It was inspiring to interact with the young people and see first hand the energy, creativity and commitment they bring to the programme.
The next chapter needs partners at every level.
The Egypt Cities Hackathon Impact Edition 2026 is under way with 200+ founders, ending in a Demo Day at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina on 19 November. Here is how you can be part of what comes next.
Fund matching pools
Co-fund our winners' grants, as a government innovation hub and a business association already do, and extend the runway of strong founders.
Adopt a challenge
Corporates and ministries set a hackathon challenge and meet the teams that solve it.
Invest early
Investors join juries and Alumni Connect to meet validated founders while they are still raising their first rounds.
Host a cohort
Universities, hubs and associations host cohorts and extend our map to new governorates.
Mentor and judge
Experts coach founders and sit on our selection panels.
Learn together
Co-design how we track jobs, revenue and follow-on funding, and share what works across programmes.
From Idea to Impact: YIEP Founders 2024 to 2026
The full 28-page booklet presented in Copenhagen in October 2026, with every founder story, the figures behind three years of work and the partners who made it possible.