Janek Hermann-Friede

Main Facilitator – cewas

Janek is one of cewas’ senior project managers and trainers with a geographical focus on the Middle East and East Africa. As a business coach and entrepreneur, Janek is keenly interested in the question how social and ecological challenges can be overcome through economically sustainable initiatives. He supports innovation processes and helps enterprises to become investment ready. In our training programmes, Janek strives for the right balance between group exercises, active participation, introducing practical examples and different perspectives and ensuring technically sound solutions. 

Maisam Otoum

Mentor – cewas

Maisam is the Jordan country manager for cewas Middle East and has a diverse experience in Water, Energy, and Climate Change programs with national and international NGOs. He is responsible for managing cewas activities in Jordan with focus on green entrepreneurship, innovation in water and sanitation, and ecosystem development through partnerships and institutional collaboration. He is a passionate trainer and mentor for emerging entrepreneurs. Maisam holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering (Jordan University of Science and Technology) and MSc in geophysics (University of Houston).

Rami Deeb

Mentor – Revolve Media

Rami is a communications and marketing expert, storyteller, video editor and content creator. For the past 7 years, he had been managing the design and execution of numerous high-impact communications strategies targeting the various parts of the world. He has extensive knowledge in the latest technologies and trends in digital communications and serves as a brand consultant for many tech startups.

Cora Craigmile

Mentor – cewas

Cora graduated with an MSc in Environment, Politics and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and wrote her Dissertation on the intersectional realities of water systems in Cape Town’s informal settlements for which she was awarded a distinction. She later did an internship at UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme where she carried out extensive research for the 2019 World Water Development Report. Cora has been working at cewas since March 2020 and is currently involved in the facilitation of several online trainings, including the Mediathon.

Hamza Saidi

Mentor – Konrad Adenauer Stiftung

Hamza Saidi is currently Project Coordinator of the Regional Program Energy Security and Climate Change in the Middle East and North Africa (KAS – REMENA), based in Rabat, Morocco. During the past two years in this position, he has been in charge of coordinating the planning and execution of expert discussions and young experts’ trainings. Prior to working with KAS – REMENA, he was an adjunct professor at Mohammed V University of Rabat for a semester and a Program Leader with Rustic Pathways for 3 years where he was in charge of educational tourism programs for students coming from different parts of the world. Hamza Saidi received his General Studies diploma in the English Department from Mohammed First University of Oujda, his BA in theoretical Linguistics from Mohammed V University of Rabat, and his MA in Sociolinguistics from University of Cadi Ayyad of Marrakech.

Owice Hammad

Mentor – cewas

Owice supports on-ground activities in Jordan in addition to the one-on-one coaching and mentoring he provides to cewas’s start-ups. He also gives training in team development and formation. What he offers stem from the collective experience of practicing engineering, research, writing, human-human connections, and master studies. Owice is the founder of Turjumaa: a company that provides water and sanitation translation services, which is his side job. Owice holds a bachelor degree in Civil Engineering and a master’s degree in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).

Celia Schmidt

Mentor – cewas

Celia is an anthropologist with a passion for participatory processes and innovative thinking. She holds a postgraduate degree in International Cooperation for Sustainable Development from the Humboldt University in Berlin, where she is also based. Celia has worked in several African and Latin American countries in urban agriculture, climate change and natural resource management. As a trainer and coach for cewas, she develops and facilitates change processes in the areas of integrity management and business development. She speaks and works in German, English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Youmna Naufal

Guest Speaker

Youmna Naufal is the Executive Director of the “Lebanese Youth Forum,” previously titled “Lebanese Student Society,” a Beirut based foundation focused on giving Lebanese young an opportunity to articulate their vision by preparing them for their professional endeavors and connecting them with the right stakeholders. Naufal is also the Producer and Host of “Y Chats,” Lebanon’s first up close and personal discussion show in the English that is meant to give hope and a voice to the young generation facing obstacles in the country. Previously, she was the Head of the English News division at Future Television (broadcast throughout the GCC) where she was tasked with producing and anchoring the daily news bulletin and conducting live interviews with political figures and analysts.

To date, Naufal has interviewed more than 600 figures including Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange, former US Senator John McCain, Author of Science Lucy Hawking, UN Special Representative for Iraq Nikolay Mladenov and Brazilian Football Legend Ronaldinho. To date, Naufal has participated and/or moderated more than 70 high level panels, most recently in Davos where she took part in panels regarding the evolution of political Islam as well as the role of the public sector in attracting millennials. Naufal received her MA degree in International Relations/International Business from New York University in New York.

Lama Amr

Guest Speaker

Lama Amr is the Chief Operations Officer at BuildPalestine. With extensive experience in crowdfunding, she has coached over 35 projects to raise $350K+. She is passionate about working with early stage social impact projects in Palestine to help them grow their impact, and lead the design of BuildPalestine’s Social Innovation Bootcamp. She is also the Local Leader for Founder Institute Program in Palestine.

Born and raised in Dura (outside of Hebron), and a graduate of Birzeit University, Lama is passionate about creating educational opportunities for youth. Her interests include Nature Photography and Video Making.

Ziad Barouni

Guest Speaker

An international multi-award entrepreneur speaker and expert in Entrepreneurship, Storytelling and Critical Thinking. He is also a certified consultant and trainer in media sustainability, content and e-learning. Ziad founded of several successful startups in media, he also received the Microsoft certification of excellence and he is the founder of the Start Innovating Initiative.

During the past few years, he was a speaker and worked on several projects in the EMEA region, among which is his work with the United Nations, Geneva, to map and create innovative content based on storytelling about entrepreneurship and innovation for a 100 hours online learning curriculum/ platform.

He also worked with organizations to develop new business models for media and to create innovative educational curricula for Journalism. Ziad also continues to work with different universities around the world, incubators and organizations to coach and mentor students and startups founders and help them to tell their stories, grow and scale their business models.

Daniella Diegelmann

Konrad Adenauer Stiftung

Daniela Diegelmann is Head of the Regional Program Energy Security and Climate Change in the Middle East and North Africa, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS REMENA) which has been newly established in 2017 in Rabat, Morocco. The program focusses on resource security/energy, water and mitigation and adaptation to the consequences of climate change. Prior to this, she worked for three years as Desk Officer Maghreb and Coordinator for Energy and Climate Projects in the MENA region at the KAS headquarters (Berlin). Following her first position as Deputy Head of the Foundation’s office in Mexico City from 2009 to 2011, she had served the institution for another three years as Desk Officer in the Domestic Program Division of the Department of European Cooperation.

Stuart Reigeluth

Revolve Media

Stuart is an entrepreneur, writer, editor and senior executive advancing the triple bottom-line of sustainability based on what is good for the environment, good for society, and can be great for business. He is Vice-President of the non-prof-it Revolve Water and founder of the communication agency Revolve Media and its quarterly international publication REVOLVE. Stuart has contributed to many publications including Foreign Policy, EurActiv, al-Hayat, El Pais, Gulf News, al-Ahram Weekly, and other Arab and European outlets.

Kareem Hassan

UN ESCWA Technology Centre

Kareem Hassan is currently the Executive Director of ESCWA Technology Centre (Jordan). Formally he was the Director of Youth and Innovation Program at the Global Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (GIWEH, Switzerland), and the managing director of BENAA Foundation (Egypt). He was also a lecturer and researcher at Zewail University for Science and Technology (Egypt). He got his Bachelor of Agricultural Engineering at Ain Shams University (Egypt), M.Sc. of Environmental Engineering at the American University in Cairo.

He worked as a researcher at King Saud University (Saudi Arabia), the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), The American University in Cairo (Egypt), and The Swiss Federal Institute for Science and Technology (Switzerland). Kareem has initiated and led more than 50 international projects, including knowledge production, capacity building, and participatory implementation.

Aline Bussman

cewas

Aline is the Co-Director of cewas. She has more than 12 years experience as a resource management expert and business development trainer and her regional expertise lies in the Middle East, North and Eastern Africa, where she is based for many years. Aline coordinates and manages all cewas activities in the Middle East, with a strong focus on environmental business development & ecosystem support programs in the region. Based on her experience in entrepreneurial support, she has developed comprehensive sector-specific ecosystem strategies in several MENA countries and initiated partnerships and coordination platforms to enhance innovative finance mechanisms, talent growth and specialized business support. Aline is providing tailored technical and business support to high-potential start-ups at the incubation and acceleration stage. In the context of long-term support programmes, Aline has been the lead trainer and coach for more than 50 start-ups/companies in Jordan, Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon over the past four years. She has an extensive water, environment and business -related network and knowledge she can draw upon to scale sector-specific businesses and support developing respective markets.

Youmna Naufal

Freelance Media Expert

Youmna Naufal is the Executive Director of the “Lebanese Youth Forum,” previously titled “Lebanese Student Society,” a Beirut based foundation focused on giving Lebanese young an opportunity to articulate their vision by preparing them for their professional endeavors and connecting them with the right stakeholders. Naufal is also the Producer and Host of “Y Chats,” Lebanon’s first up close and personal discussion show in the English that is meant to give hope and a voice to the young generation facing obstacles in the country. Previously, she was the Head of the English News division at Future Television (broadcast throughout the GCC) where she was tasked with producing and anchoring the daily news bulletin and conducting live interviews with political figures and analysts.

To date, Naufal has interviewed more than 600 figures including Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange, former US Senator John McCain, Author of Science Lucy Hawking, UN Special Representative for Iraq Nikolay Mladenov and Brazilian Football Legend Ronaldinho. To date, Naufal has participated and/or moderated more than 70 high level panels, most recently in Davos where she took part in panels regarding the evolution of political Islam as well as the role of the public sector in attracting millennials. Naufal received her MA degree in International Relations/International Business from New York University in New York.