Diversifying The Global Tech Sector With Manara: TLWC Ep#100! — The Leaders Who Care

Welcome to The Leaders Who Care, a podcast powered by Dynamis Group. We are here to give the stage and support to those committed to create a positive and lasting impact way beyond the profits and margins. The leaders of the world who care for others and serve a bigger purpose. Join us on the journey of creating a better, more caring world. And now to your host, Marian Timelkov.

Happy New Year, dear audience. Uh, today we have a very special event and starting the episode 100, and we are marking here with a, a special, uh, guest. In fact, two of them, exceptional leaders that who care and, uh They really make such a difference, promote people thriving, a topic that is very dear to my, my heart. And before we move on to and introduce the wonderful guest today, I just want to wish everyone a happy new year and prosperity in every category of life— spiritual, mental, physical, financial, and relationship. And it's going to be an important year to lay a lot of foundations for hopefully more sustainable and caring world. And now I'm really privileged to welcome Laila Abudahi, and the co-founder of Manara, and CTO and co-founder, and Ileana Montag, who is the CEO and co-founder of Manara today. You guys have been such an inspiration for so many and helping so many out there. Welcome, first of all, and thank you for taking the time.

Thank you for having us, Marianne.

It's such a pleasure to be here.

Yeah, well, I'm just really— there's so many questions that I want to ask you, but how did the two of you got together?

We actually met in Gaza, of all, out of all places. So, um, let's start with a quick intros if we can, and then we'll tell you the story. Uh, so my name is Laila Abudahi. Uh, I was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, I got my first degree in computer and telecommunication engineering from Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Some would argue is one of the best universities in Palestine. And then I moved to the US on a Fulbright scholarship where I attended the grad school. I got my master's in electrical engineering from University of Washington in Seattle, and then I moved to Silicon Valley to start my career as a software engineer. So you can say that I kind of hacked my way from Gaza into becoming a software engineer in Silicon Valley, working at top startups and companies in the Valley. And this is exactly what we decided to productize and offer to the Manara community in the Middle East and North Africa. And Ileana, to you, if you want to introduce yourself.

Yeah, so my background's a little bit different. I grew up in Belgium and the United States with Polish parents. I had no connection to the Middle East region in my family. But I always grew up across lots of different cultures and meeting people and seeing the importance of that human-to-human connection and believing that every human being on the planet has something of value to offer. My mom grew up on a farm without electricity, without running water, and I saw how everyone there was just an incredible person, and it didn't matter where you came from. And so I started studying Arabic when I was in high school because I'm a language geek. There's a long story behind it, but essentially I eventually ended up not knowing what to do with my life. I'd gotten a degree in Arabic. I knew I wanted to help people, but I wasn't sure how. I was thinking maybe I'd become a doctor, but that didn't feel like it would have enough impact. I wanted to help a lot of people, not just one-to-one, the patient in front of me. So for a while, I joined tech companies in Silicon Valley because that's where I was living, and I thought, might as well see what they're up to. I'm sure I'll learn a lot. Then I moved to the nonprofit sector because I thought, okay, I've realized I really just need to be helping people. That's my purpose. And I thought the way to do that was nonprofits. And eventually I was realizing there needs to be a way to combine these things— the best of the for-profit sector, which was bringing scale, especially in the tech sector, innovation, a lot of the brightest minds in the world, and really, really a focus on helping people— with my passion for the Middle East. I'd studied Arabic for 6 years at that point. I'd been all over the region, and I'd never figured out how I could combine that with my career. So I went in the opposite direction of Laila. I moved from the United States to to the Arab region. I moved to Jordan, and from there I got recruited to launch the first startup accelerator in Gaza. And my first day in Gaza, there were sonic booms overhead from warplanes. We were getting ready for a war to break out, and there were 60 people in a space as small as the space behind me, like a really humble space. 60 people all pitching their startup ideas to me and saying, you know, don't worry about what's going on outside. We're used to instability. Please don't let that distract you. We want to be creating innovative companies. We don't want humanitarian aid. We want to be making a change in the world. And it was actually through there that I met Laila. So circling back to your question, Laila was one of the founders that was in that space. She was working on a startup. And long story short, I mean, we can talk a little bit more about what happened when I came back from Gaza to the United States and how we launched Menara. But essentially we reconnected here and we wanted to do something to connect those two worlds that we were both so familiar with.

It's a fascinating, really, story of how the two of you met and how the opposite way worked out. You went, you hacked your way to US, and which is a system, a pattern of how to do that. Then you went the opposite and actually said, you know, I'm going there to give back. It's amazing. And how are really YouTube connected, but also it's great to see the human spirit despite all the trouble. And I'm a great, really, believer in peace and care unites us all above any differences, religion and so forth. If we, people respond to care and I think when people know when you're real and when you're not, and that's really, you can feel, you can sense We are really, that's the essence of humanity. And you address a very dear topic to me, which is how to unlock the human potential. I'm very passionate about to see more people thrive at work, not survive. That's what we do at Dynamis. But really, when you talk about unlocking the human potential and focusing on Palestinian women, what a great mission. I mean, women, Women are the, uh, the ones who— the only one who can give life. That's like, uh, really, I can't give life, I can give birth, you know. It's like, if, you know, even though it's like, if you say we stop doing that, the future is doomed. We have no future. So, so really, and at the same time, helping women to unlock their potential to thrive is a great honor. How do you do that? What's that? That's just the That's why I get so excited about it, because I know it's not easy to be a mother and at the same time to thrive with work and everything else. How, what really is the driving force and how is that possible?

I'll let Laila answer how we do it. But just before we go there, I also want to point out the business case for it, because obviously we care. We came to this from a place of caring and knowing about the challenges that people face, but also we knew about the value that women in this region face and frankly the whole region, how much value it can provide. And so data shows that businesses that are inclusive, that are diverse, perform better. Businesses that have women leaders and other diverse leaders on the team perform better. And when I had moved back to Silicon Valley from Gaza, I was working at a tech company that could hire software engineers and other people from anywhere in the world. And our team of 300 engineers literally had 3 women on it and 4 Middle Easterners versus our user base, which had just as many women as men and was global. And we needed to be building a product that served these users and we needed the innovation that comes from having a more diverse team. So that was also the reason behind this. This was not just that we care about helping people. It was also that our businesses— and Laila also at that point was working at a tech company that needed more talent. And she knew, I went to school with women engineers who are excellent. Why are they not here at my company? Why am I working on a team that only has male engineers? But I do want to make sure we answer your question about how we do this. Laila, do you want to maybe explain it since you've experienced it so much and you've designed our solution at Monara?

Yeah, I mean, it's just to basically add to what Ileana said, the trigger, the driving force was that we were in tech companies, global tech companies that they could hire anywhere in the world. And my team was noticeably not as diverse as I would like it to be. And the same time, I was approached by people I know from Palestine that frankly, they're way smarter than me, more like I would hire them like this, but it's just like, I couldn't, there was no way, like these tech companies in Silicon Valley weren't familiar of how to vet talent in the Middle East. They didn't know the top schools, they didn't know the top companies, so a resume coming from the Middle East to a company in Silicon Valley, it looked completely, irrelevant, and it could easily be screened out. So there was that learning curve that we needed to show these companies how to screen these resumes. And I also noticed that my friends and colleagues back home didn't know how to— they weren't familiar with the process of applying to these companies. So there was also a gap of familiarizing themselves of the process, what to expect, what to study, what to focus on. What are the right things to say in an interview? What are the things that are irrelevant in an interview? So I started doing that in my, you know, nights and weekends, just mentoring a few friends. And then at the same time, Liana was focusing on a side project of like how to create more jobs in Palestine. So we decided to join forces, and I was like, you know, I've done it. I've like, I kind of like, learned the hard way how to do it, how to get a job at these top companies, and I'm putting a, like, a play, um, a playbook together. Like, we— it's actually very hackable, like, 1, 2, 3. It's that— it's, it's, it's, it's something that anyone— and I, I don't— like, anyone in the Middle East can do, uh, uh, and frankly, a graduate from Al-Azhar University or a university in Gaza or Palestine is very comparable to us. To a graduate in Stanford and these companies. I don't think the gap is huge, uh, and we saw that when we focused on like bridging that small gap, like our, our, uh, hiring to, um, our referrals to companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, where we're getting hires all over the, all over the, the place. So we showed that the quality exists and we can bridge it, uh, with, with just a small, a small, uh, training.

Why do you think there's limited female talent pool in the tech industry?

So it's a really good question. And one thing that's really fascinating when you compare this region to other parts of the world is that in other parts of the world, when you look at, for instance, computer scientists and how to build a pipeline of women computer scientists, you go down and you look at universities and there's not enough women studying computer science at the university. So then you go down to high school, there's not enough women who are really focused on science in math in high school. And so there's a whole kind of pipeline problem to solve that's much larger versus in this region, women are studying computer science in many countries at the same rates as men. There's this one of the most inclusive regions in the world when it comes to studying STEM. So anything STEM, physics, engineering, etc. Women are going to universities at the same rates as men, and women are studying these fields at the same rates as men. And so for me, an aha moment was actually when I was in Palestine and I was telling women, oh, you know, there's this stigma around women in STEM. And they were like, what stigma? What are you talking about? We know women are better, or at least just as good as men in these fields. Like, we shine in these fields. We study them. We see role models all around us. Right. And so in the US and Europe, Often I hear this issue around women just not studying it in the first place. And I think, you know, we can talk about hypotheses and whatnot. I know one data point that's relevant, and then I also have one hypothesis that's relevant. One data point is that when women and men actually study, or girls and boys in high school, study math and English, languages, and all these other topics together, uh, they perform differently than when they study it separately. When you actually separate girls and boys girls' performance goes up in math and science, and boys' performance goes up in languages and literature. And in this region, there's often separation of genders at the high school level. And I think— there's no research that shows this point, but my hypothesis is that that's one of the reasons why there's such strong performance. The other is, once you have momentum, it just builds momentum. And so You know, if you go back far enough, this region just has had women in engineering and science and mathematical fields for long enough that people in this generation, in Laila's generation, have grown up with role models of women in these fields and expectations that they're going to go and study these fields and they're going to become physics teachers and all of that.

But to this point, my mom is a math teacher. And it's just like when I first moved to the US and I went to grad school and I was like, I think it was me and two other girls in the entire class of engineering, and I was like, where are the women? Like, I'm used to, I'm used to being like, actually the majority of my class in Palestine was more women. Like, we were at like 60% women in the computer engineering class versus 40% men. So that, that problem in the pipeline of women not studying computer, computer science and math and STEM field in general, I don't think it exists The problem starts after they graduate, after they finish school and they look for jobs. So, Eliana, you were saying something, sorry I interrupted you.

Oh yeah, no, thank you so much. And you know this better than I do from your own experience. In the region, women are not always expected to work after graduating from university. So there's a high expectation of working— sorry, of studying, going to university. But not necessarily with the expectation that you'll work after. There's this kind of societal standard that men are going to support families after university.

And that is the role of the man. But at the same time, how can you— how the role of the woman can thrive and be fulfilled, not just by raising children, but doing more?

Exactly. And women are eager to. And there is a societal expectation around what kinds of jobs they're going to take. So teachers, for instance, is a very common field for women to go to. And so you have to kind of push against the boundaries of what's expected to decide, no, I'm going to go to an office full of men who are studying, working in front of computers, and I'm going to sit there as one of the only women in work. Right. That's the barrier in the region. And also, this is a region that just suffers from immense rates of unemployment. So throughout the region, it's actually the highest youth unemployment in the world, higher than Sub-Saharan Africa.

What is the percentage?

It's 40% youth unemployment around the world, around the region. 70% of college grads in Gaza have no job. So it's actually the only part of the world, this Arab region, where the more education you have, the higher rate of unemployment you have. And so there's just not enough jobs, period. And then when you combine that with the societal expectations that men are going to work, you end up with this dynamic where the limited jobs go disproportionately to men. And women are sometimes told to their face things like, sorry, we have a limited number of jobs, we're going to give it to a man because men are expected to support their families. So women want to work, but they don't even know necessarily that there's this appetite for them at global companies, that they could work remotely. It's just not something that people have heard of. And so they don't know about how much opportunity there is.

Wow. Why do you think the Middle East and North Africa are overlooked for top talent in the tech space?

I think it's just not a region that is known for talent, unfortunately. I think it's the stigma around what we see in the news. You know, people, when you think of the Middle East, you think of conflicts and wars. But what we're doing in Al Manarah is literally rebranding the Middle East for what it is, which is a hub of high-quality talent. The question is not whether you're going to college or not. The question is, what are you studying in college? It's a region that values education to an extent that I don't think it's unmatched anywhere else. And I think this is what we're doing, we're just like basically highlighting the highly educated population in that region, and just making it more accessible to the rest of the world. And one of the things we do is actually teaching companies how to vet that talent, like I think companies at the global and international market are just not familiar with the region, They don't know what the top schools are, what the top companies are. We do, right? Like, when I look at a resume and I see the name of the university or the name of the company that this person worked at, I know that this is the top, a top engineering talent from the Middle East, unlike recruiters who are not familiar with the region. So I think it just needs a little bit more investing and learning about the region, learning about the ecosystem, and one sad thing that we usually, like, all of these companies have like EMEA recruiting teams, but usually that means Europe and Africa, and they just overlook the Middle East, so we're trying to put the Middle East back on the map of talent, and just educate these teams about the ecosystem and how to screen for it.

I also would just add that on the— that's— that describes the company side really well. And on the talent side, it's a little bit like if you go back to India, um, uh, maybe 15 years ago. It's only recently that people have really realized that there's opportunities in tech and have started studying computer science. So when Laila and I met in Palestine, most people that I would meet who were deciding, you know, their top students— in fact, I think, Laila, you might have had this experience yourself, so you can share your own story. But there used to be this really immense pressure to go become a doctor, to go become an architect. You know, there were certain fields that you were supposed to study— a dentist if you were really doing well on your high school exams, and you could only apply to one thing and that was it. And so you got, you know, this percentile, and so you went and studied this. And now there's an exponential growth of people studying computer science because organizations on the ground, even before Manara, have been trying to create that awareness. And also because with tech, with people sharing their success stories online, you know, people are starting to just see a little bit more where the, where the opportunities are in the future.

Fantastic. I mean, you've previously increased women's participation in pipeline activities from 25 to almost 50% and run the largest crowdfunding in the Arab region. But as an aspiring, obviously, female leader in the industry, you faced a number of struggles in your career, I'm sure. Give us, obviously, what is the biggest struggle that you had to face to be where you are and to drive in making such an impact? Because that's a journey you went through. But, you know, we learn a lot from our struggles. And I wonder, what was that for you?

Yeah, it's funny because as a woman, I never felt like I faced any struggles. And in fact, I kind of was brought up in this generation where I was taught that women are equal to men. I didn't see anything that would say otherwise. I was basically equal to my brother at all stages in growth. He was just 1 year ahead of me. I got into an Ivy League school. So I always felt like I could do whatever I wanted. And when I actually ended up in Gaza and working on increasing our women's pipeline at the startup accelerator that I was running, it wasn't because I had come thinking, oh, women need more support. Like, I didn't have that personal experience of it. And as a woman, if anything, I was one of those people being like, we should just stop complaining and like, everything's fine. We've grown up equally, right? But when I saw just the fewer women in the pipeline, I got curious. I started asking questions. We started running experiments. And that's, you know, I learned a lot and we can talk about that more later. But that really inspired me, even though I hadn't had that personal story. And I think that's important because I think often leaders who care, there's this concept that you have to have had the experience yourself personally to care. And actually, That's not always true. You can care. And I see sometimes the people who are making the biggest difference in terms of diversifying their teams in tech sometimes are white engineering leaders, men who have no background in any struggle that they may have experienced, but they're just quietly in the background aware, and they're huge advocates, and they know what a difference it's going to make for their teams to be successful, and they put a lot of work into it. So anyways, that's in terms of that there wasn't necessarily a personal connection as a woman to this specific mission. It was more seeing others. But that doesn't mean I haven't had any struggles as a leader. Of course, I think every leader has struggles. And I, in my life, believe that the biggest struggles have been internal. And I don't think that's rare, that even frankly, my friends who've been through really different, much more difficult things than I've been through, still ultimately find that the biggest struggle is usually your own mental health and emotional health and how you deal with challenges. So the biggest challenges I had, for instance, was right before launching the crowdfunding campaign that I ran that became the biggest that had been run in the history of the Middle East at the time, or in the Arab region. I was so anxious about it and thought it was going to become this huge failure and this huge public failure, and that I was going to— the whole reason of the campaign was to save this programming that we were doing in Gaza that was helping people like Laila get into tech, I felt so much pressure. Like, this is the only chance. If I screw this up, these people are not going to have any opportunity. I, um, yeah, I was very unhappy that month, constantly torturing myself. And then it ended up being this huge success. And nowadays, I also— I still find that, like, I launched Monara, um, from a passion, and it's such an honor and dream come true to be able to do my passion work and get paid for it. And, you know, just have this big vision that I can do full-time and not just as a side project. And at the same time, you know, it's so stressful so often because of me and because of how I think. And so I have to keep training myself to think more positively, to remind myself that everything's going to be okay, And that there's a world of possibility no matter what big challenge you're facing, and that you need to go through a lot of learning curves to be able to grow a company. And that's expected, right? So one of the things I've done recently is I've gotten this little calendar of positive quotes. I go through it every day. You know, it's my new calendar for the year. But anyways, you have to do what you have to do. It reminds me of things that I need to remember regularly. And it's part of the way that I deal with that challenge.

Building systems, that's going to help you, and that's one of them for sure. No, this is really great to show this, that passion can make a big difference when you're committed. Of course, you need talent and skill, but also your attitude, your passion, that you really believe in, that help you overcome a lot of those shortfalls and maybe blind spots, because people will join you along the way, and that's That's a great example and really a story for our audience that follow your passion, follow you really what you are passionate about and you could turn it from a side project to a really something significant that you can actually sustain a way of living and really make a difference. So that's really a great story and I'm just thinking now looking at how can global tech companies improve on hiring more diverse talent or top talent?

Just to, just to go back a little bit to the story about that big challenge, as you were speaking and talking about that, it reminded me there was a moment when Laila and I— so we were doing this as a passion project. Malara had no name at the time. It was just something that we believed in deeply. We never thought at the time that it would become something full-time. And there came a moment when we were both burning out because we had full-time jobs and we were working on Monada on the side. And we started wondering, you know, what are we going to do? Like, we can't— and also the scale at which we were operating at the time was 10 people per cohort, one cohort per year. So we were helping a tiny number of people and we were burning out completely and wondering if we could continue, right? And so we had a talk and we said, listen, We believe in this. Like, the only way to make this happen is to put more time into it. So how are we gonna do that? And initially we said, well, let's just take 6 months off from work and like for 6 months just focus on it. But like, we can't, you know, sacrifice our careers. We have a journey, a path we're going on, but let's just, you know, maybe our companies could give us 6 months off to work on this, right? And then we started thinking about it more and we decided, well, maybe we could actually raise money and do this. Maybe, and maybe, and you know, and the maybes, maybes eventually grew to the point where we realized we could totally do this, but it was still so scary. I was on a call with my friend every day deciding whether to quit my job and go do this full-time before we had raised any investment capital. Because what happened was COVID had hit. We were running a beta pilot cohort at the time. It was our fourth pilot, the last pilot before we decided, okay, we've got it. We have something we can really go launch publicly now. And companies had stopped hiring basically. They were like, well, you're— some of— we do both relocations and remote work, by the way. Whatever person's dream is, we believe in helping them with what their dream is. And at that cohort, we had a lot of people who wanted to relocate to go work at Google, Facebook, et cetera. And the companies just said, sorry, COVID is happening. We're not doing relocations. And so I actually ended up making the decision to quit my job to help that cohort get their jobs. Before we even had any funding and we didn't know if I was going to be making a salary or not, right? So these are the kinds of things that looking back, I'm so glad that I made that decision. But at the time I was on a call with my best friend every day being like, is this the right thing to do?

It is a step into, of course, it's a risk, but what a story that turned out the way it did. It's just fascinating that, that you managed to get, get to that stage today. And, uh, looking at where you are, what's— what is your hope for the future, perhaps? Where do you want to take this if there was no limits?

Yeah, I think what we're imagining, our vision for Manara, is to, as I said, like, rebrand the Middle East for what it is, which is a hub of high-quality talent. We want We want a future or we want a world where when a tech company is thinking of hiring remotely or hiring offshore, they think of the Middle East. The Middle East is the place to go to get high-quality talent, very not only diverse, but also very high caliber and something that you can depend on. So that's the big vision here. But we are also working on launching our completely self-service tech product where we can take people from not knowing where to start, taking them onto a path, a learning path that takes them to their dream job with little to no resources involved. So we want to stream the process to get people to their dream jobs, and we want to do it at scale. My dream is to help a million software engineers from the Middle East and North Africa reach their dream in the next, you know, hopefully 5 years, but maybe before that.

And when we do that, when we do that, what it does is it redistributes global wealth. And so it gives this region access to financial opportunities that currently are often only available in the United States and Europe. It also redistributes networks and knowledge capital. And so what we're doing by getting these people into these jobs is accelerating their career paths. And by doing that, because you never learn what you need to learn just by going to university. And so if you go to university, you know, people are not generally going to be like a Mark Zuckerberg who launches Facebook right after college or during college, right? Most people to be able to build successful companies have to go and experience it first. And so this talent pool that we're investing in by getting them into these jobs is going to be coming back to the region or staying in the region or working remotely like Laila to basically launch startups in the region. And when they do that, that's going to create even more innovation, even more companies that care and leaders that care in the world. And more jobs. And ultimately my vision is that anyone who has talent should be discovered. There shouldn't be no concept of undiscovered talent. There should be no glass ceilings. And products like LinkedIn work very well when you already know how to use them, when you already have the soft skills of reaching out, asking for help, writing messages, when you already have a brand that makes sense. Right? It doesn't work so great for emerging markets. And so one way to think about it is we're building that new solution, the new LinkedIn for emerging markets, starting with the Middle East and North Africa.

And what about— because what you talk about is great and fantastic here— what about developing talents? So what about maybe people may not have certain skills, may not have certain— you talk about how I believe everybody has a talent, So the question is, you know, how do you find and unlock that talent? And sometimes you need to develop certain skills to get to that place where you really thrive and you really can be talented. So I'm just trying to— and of course your focus is more on tech and software engineers, and like Laila was saying, but what about everyone else?

Yeah, so our focus to start is really in tech because there's so much opportunity there and it's something that can bridge the world. And so, uh, for places like Gaza and Palestine, it's such an important approach because you can be— you know, Gaza is basically like an open-air prison. It's a tiny place the size of Silicon Valley, and most people have never been more than 30 kilometers from their homes. Um, and so for them to be able to stay home and get the same job that I can get here in Silicon Valley is life-changing. So that's one of the reasons that we're really focused on tech. And there's still so much opportunity there. I think eventually we can expand beyond tech jobs. But right now, that's really the place where we think we can have the most impact. And because the region has such a high interest in STEM fields, it's such a good talent pool for the tech sector, right. But in terms of your question around building skills, we're building a platform that gives people a learning path because the knowledge is out there. It's not that the knowledge isn't out there. It is, but people don't know what they should go learn. And so often, for instance, we see people in, um, Palestine right now studying Flutter. There's tons of communities on the ground studying Flutter. Flutter is a great engineering language, but, uh, the truth is there's not a lot of demand in it. And if you're gonna try to go find a job later, it's not actually going to help you that much. So people don't know what they should be studying to be able to accelerate their careers. It's not that they don't have the access to the material. And then even if they do know, they often lack the motivation and the confidence to do it, especially women. Women often lack the confidence. And so a big part of what we're doing is building the community that helps people stay confident and motivated. And that community is partly each other. So we're running cohorts and, you know, groups online where people are sharing their success stories. I have so many screenshots from people. Like, there's this woman, Semah, for instance, who through Manara got into Google. And I was just looking back recently to when she was still in, uh, the Manara training phase, and mostly we were just connecting her to people like her and giving her this learning path so she could study on her own. And I saw this message she wrote back then where she wrote, oh my gosh, the first time I went to an interview, my mind just went blank. I don't know if I can do this. I don't remember ever feeling this stupid before, right? And other people in the community writing back and saying, don't worry, it's normal, I had the same experience, right? And so that's a really big part of this, is not so much creating the knowledge but rather creating the community that then motivates you. And our community is the peers, the alumni who come and give back. It's a commitment that they make when they join Manana. It's a part of creating an organization, um, and a tech company that is all about caring and about giving back. And it's also a global mentor network. Our mentor network is critical to what we do, and it's people like Laila and people like me who have a passion for supporting others in their journeys, but don't necessarily have the ability like us to go do it full-time. And so what they want is a chance to jump in and mentor, give a mock interview or a career session or an English language practice session. But then if they do it all alone on their own without our platform, they feel like it doesn't ultimately create results because a little mentorship here and there is only impactful if it's a full circle solution, a 360-degree solution where ultimately you end up opening those doors to those jobs as well. So we see a lot of this kind of informal mentorship already happening in the world. And then later people banging their heads against a wall because they can't get that person an actual interview. Right. And that's why we plug those people into our platform, into our network, and they do their magic. They do their inspiration and motivation. And later we do making sure that there's companies that will actually give these people a chance.

This is really powerful because you can follow the whole process and then that can culminate to an outcome because the outcome is having at the end of the day, a role or a job that you can make a difference, thrive, and then of course impact the community. And you just described that. So the model of Manara, you mentioned that is a network, is giving back, but just tell us a little bit more about the company and how it works, and what it— how do you sustain yourself in terms of the revenue sources?

Yeah, so the way we work today is we build a solution to find and vet the top software engineers in the Middle East and North Africa. We find the top engineers, we enroll them in a cohort-based a program. We run 2 cohorts a year, uh, and for each cohort there are, uh, like a training, technical training, and a soft skill training. And what we found, actually what we're finding out, and we're realizing that the technical gap is not that huge. It's mostly the soft skills and learning how to interface with an international, uh, uh, with the international market, international professionals. So they do the training, then they graduate, and they work with a talent rep or a career coach to find their next job. But we are a three-way marketplace where we work with engineers from the Middle East, we work with hiring partners and companies that we, we basically recruit and sell to, and we work with our mentors who are very integral part of this community, and we give everyone a place to basically share knowledge and thrive. So it's the training program and the community together, and we do that through our platform, and in terms of the business model, we are an outcome-driven business model. Manara doesn't make any money until we create the impact we promise. So for the engineers, it's free until you get a job. So we have an income sharing agreement with the participants, with the engineers. They can go through the entire training program, get all the career coaching, and get referred to as many companies as we have. And then once they get a job they want, their dream job, they then pay us a percentage of their salary for a year or two. And this approach makes sure that all incentives are aligned and that we can offer our services to the people who need it the most and who don't necessarily can afford it right now. So you get the services for free and you only pay after we, we find you the job that you dream of. And we also monetize on the company side. They pay like a percentage of the salary at the time of placement. And the way which— the reason we charge on both sides, we wanted to make it more affordable for both parties. So everyone is incentivized to be a part of this.

Fantastic. That's really, really great to hear because that gives me confidence it's sustainable because you need that resources to be able to impact more and give more. So So that's really appreciated. You found a way. It is not only— and that's what, Ileana, I guess you came up with the best of the nonprofit with the best for-profit to try and give back. So that's really— I believe that's the future. It's not the future. I don't believe it's just accumulating billions and then give them back for the rest of your life. I believe this kind of models is the future. What you do is where you integrate by doing what you do. You do good, but you still profitable. Sustainable. So I just feel that that's what I'm very passionate about, a future of work. And I believe that these kind of models is really what's going to make a difference.

Totally.

Yeah, to that point, like, I was working in Silicon Valley as a, you know, senior software engineer building self-driving cars, working on cutting-edge technology. I thought this is all what I needed, but something was missing. I didn't feel that my day-to-day work is actually contributing to the community I care about, creating the impact I care about. So I really wanted to build a business that is inherently creating social impact. I wanted to design a business that is just creating good by just existing and operating and being sustainable, is creating good for this community. And I— we're doing our best to like come up with a business model that makes sure that all incentives are aligned. And our incentives are aligned. We want to help this talent, we want to help these, the, uh, this community because it makes both, uh, social impact sense and business sense. Uh, so yeah, I think this is what we do. That's why we quit our job to do it, and this is what we're hoping to achieve.

Look guys, you do so much and working such an impactful mission and showing care for so many in the future tech talent, but how do you take care of yourself?

I walk in, I go on walks in the morning, like as an extrovert, like I'm an extrovert that was hit hardly by COVID and having to work remotely from home, it was a struggle. So now like every morning I need to, you know, dress up, leave the house, go for a morning walk before I feel sane and a human again, go get my coffee, then come back. And I call my mom every morning. It's something that I need to recharge. And sometimes, sometimes feels like a waste of time, but she's like, she's, she's, she's amazing. She just tells me about all the gossip in the neighborhood, about the family, and then I'm good for the day. Now I can start working. I just feel that I'm connected to my roots and my community and, you know, my family. It's like just half an hour in the morning, a walk, and then I come back home ready to, you know, basically tackle the day. Iliana and I also have this thing we call founders therapy session. So once a week, we—

once more—

so once a week we just have this. We either go for a walk or just schedule it virtually if we can't meet in person. It's like a an hour of like just venting, like me telling her about, you know, what is bothering me during the day. Like, one thing about being a founder and a leader is like, you don't report to anyone. There's no one you can tell them to fix your situation. Like, you're the only person there that, you know, you're responsible for all of these people, you're building this company, and you're not reporting to anyone that can just fix your situation. You need to fix it. And one thing I'm very grateful for is that I have a co-founder. I can't imagine doing this alone, right? It's like, if I have one advice for any entrepreneur is get a co-founder. I don't know how—

The right one.

The right one. Well, keep trying until you find the right one. I can't imagine doing this as a solo co-founder. I would go crazy, honestly. So we just schedule these sessions, we vent, I tell her about my week, what worked, what didn't. I'm struggling with prioritization, I get her help prioritizing. I apologize if I had, I don't know, a fit during the week or something was frustrating me and I took it on her. She tells me what bothers her, I tell her what bothered me during the week. And that way, you keep that relationship healthy and fresh. And I get the support I need to keep going. You can vent to your partners, but your partners are going to fed up with you very, very quickly. So you really need to work on your co-founders relationship and keep it healthy and fresh. And I think that's what keeps me doing. When we skip those sessions, I feel it. Like, I feel that like, you know, like something is not right. I really, I want that session with Ileana to like keep going and stay motivated for the week.

I almost started crying while you were speaking. It's so true. It's like a marriage and so much is happening every week. So much. And so often we're our own toughest critics, right? And so I'll come to Laila and I'll say like, I screwed this up. I did this wrong. I'm sucking at this. And Laila's like, wait a moment. This is not as bad as you think. Look at this thing that's going really well, right? And so the sessions are really, really helpful for that. And I think that connection to family, like remembering you are more than just what you're building, especially when you're building something that you're doing out of so much passion and purpose and mission, when you're really trying to help the world, it's so easy to conflate that with your entire life because it is like such a core part of you, right? It's not just a job. And so then you forget that you're more than this and it just starts to make you feel like everything that's happening in that defines you. When actually you also do have other parts of yourself as a human being and you have to have a complete diet, right? Like if you just eat your favorite food all the time and nothing else, it's not a complete diet. Eventually you're going to start to feel unwell. Same here. And so things like, I know Laila sometimes builds things or creates art, right? She has this whole other side to herself. And I feel like it's important to explore that and continue to give to it. For me, Often it's hiking, backpacking, outdoor stuff, traveling. I have other languages that I speak as well, not just Arabic. So sometimes it's connecting with my groups that speak Spanish, my Latino community that I used to be really involved with, my Polish community that's, you know, my roots. Kids, spending time with kids, my nephews, because they are such a completely different mindsets from work, right? And it brings me back to the ground as well and reminds me that as much as I care about this and I feel like it's so important and I need to get it right in order to have my impact in the world, there's also just the rest of my life.

This is awesome, guys, and thank you for— it's so refreshing to hear, especially those founder sessions. It's fantastic. I want to give honor to my founding partner, Ellie. She's been fantastic. And I completely relate to you. It's just been such a blessing for having someone like this. So I advise, definitely support for you to find that right person too, because it's who you become and how you get there. It's the greatest fulfillment and, you know, becoming a blessing to humanity and sharing and growing together. It's just a fantastic feeling, you know, that you can have. Not just get on the very top and there's no one around you, like you want to have work.

Very lonely being a founder. So yeah, you better do it with a co-founder.

The thing is, in our community, I think the key thing about how Laila and I approach each other is that we are willing to share our vulnerabilities with each other. And the beautiful thing about Monara is that we're building a community that supports each other and we can reach out to them for support too. And I do that sometimes with the mentor network. There's people in our mentor community that I will reach out to when I am having a down day or I need strategic advice. I don't know how to approach anything. And people are so smart and so open and supportive if you tell them what's going on. But the most beautiful thing happened just 2 weeks ago. One of our alumni, Dalia Abudahi, Laila knows her, reached out to me out of the blue on WhatsApp on my personal number. My— the people from back in the day still have my personal number, and they read. But I hadn't heard from her in a long time. I know there was no reason for me to necessarily reach out to her. She reached out and said, hey, how are you? And I said, hey, I'm fine. What's good? Like, you know, what's going on? How can I help? And she's like, no, I'm reaching out to find out how you're doing because I haven't seen you posting online in a while, and it made me wonder, is something wrong? Are you okay? Which is just like the sweetest thing ever, right? It's one of our alumni. I was here in the role of helping her reach her dreams, and now she's checking in with me to see how I'm doing. And part of the story is that Laila and I both had medical emergencies that happened this year, and there were a few that I had in a row, and I just ended up starting not to be as present on social media and everything because I just needed to take some time inside to recover. And she noticed, and it never occurred to me that somebody, you know, that this community could support me as well in so many ways that it's really, really this motto that we've created of giving back and paying it forward is also going to impact us and come back to us. It's the sweetest thing.

It is. Look, that is a principle, spiritual principle, that receiving starts with giving. It's just, you know, people in the world is interested not necessarily what you want, but what you give. And I think you, you, you started with that. I mean, you, you've made a sacrifice at the very beginning of your own comfort and life when you started this out. So I have no doubt a lot of great things are just coming your way. You, you just stay there, right? Don't, don't go anywhere and keep, keep staying in the game, keep doing what you're doing, and a lot of great things are coming. And, uh, I'm sure there's a lot of value. Talk— you talk about companies and And coming back to the question I asked earlier, maybe not only for companies but also for leaders and CEOs, how can CEOs and global tech companies, you know, improve their, you know, hiring more diverse top talent? What would be your advice to them apart from reaching out to Manara? The tips that you can share.

Yeah, I'll take this one because I'm on calls with our company so often and they're such a critical part of what we do. We want to and there's so many different ways we can support. We actually had a company reaching out this week asking us for consulting advice because they're going to be recruiting in Egypt and they know that we know this region and they want to learn and they want to do it themselves and also reach out to our talent pool, but they want to learn. And I think that is the key thing for companies is knowing that it's so easy to keep doing the recruiting of the talent you've done because you've learned it. It. But that doesn't mean you can't go learn how to recruit another type of talent, right? And it doesn't take that long. If you go and explore a new market, if you go explore a new, you know, people with a different background, it might not work the immediate first time. But don't give up. Because just like everything else you do in your business, especially in tech, you're always iterating, you're always doing pilots, right? Approach this that same way. And the other big piece of advice I would give is don't hesitate to look for partners. I think that there's this mentality around recruiting in tech where there's almost like a pride of doing it yourself. And when you're trying to recruit diverse talent, uh, often what's important is that this talent have a community, that they have people who are supporting themselves and each other, that you as a company, as good as your intentions are, you might not be able to do it alone, and that's okay. It's not like something that reflects negatively on you. In fact, it reflects very positively if you help invest in these communities and build these communities and partner with groups instead of trying to do it all alone, because ultimately it's a bigger problem that the entire industry needs to solve, and working together to solve it is going to be much more successful than having every company just out of their own ego work on it on their own.

Fascinating. And just to quickly address our, the young generation, the ones that really are the beneficiaries of all this and that need that guidance and support, that orientation. What is your advice to the young generation wanting to pave themselves a career in tech?

I would say believe in yourself. That's the first thing we had to overcome is that confidence that we had. Like, when we first started Manara, we had to convince people that Google wants them. That, like, people were like, why would Google hire me? Why would this— like, whatever, Google, just an example. But why would a global tech company want to hire someone in a refugee camp in Gaza? And our answer was like, they don't care where you are. They care about the talent. If you're technically strong, if you're a high a quality software engineer and you can pass that interview, you will get hired. You just— and they were like, no, but I'm not a genius. I was like, you don't have to be a genius. You have to like— it's more about practice and it's more about commitment and motivation. So the first hurdle that we had to overcome was actually their belief and confidence in themselves. So believe in yourself, you can definitely do it. The second thing is be part of a community that supports you. When you're trying to find a job or we're trying to start a career or invest in your career, it's a very, very lonely journey and you need to plan for that. You need to plan to be in a community and in a network that supports you because it's going to get hard. There will be moments where you're you're going to think about giving up. And the only way to plan for these moments is to basically be surrounded by people who are in it with you, people who are with the same mindset, preferably going through the same journey as you and can support you at moments when you're feeling down. So I would say, believe in yourself, you can definitely do it and surround yourself by the right people and the right community. And what else? Liana, do you have anything to add?

That's the most important thing. And just to demonstrate that, one example that popped to mind while you were speaking is there was a guy in one of our cohorts, Adham, who was getting so nervous before his interview at a big company that he was very excited about because he had just had another interview that went roughly and he was feeling shaken. He wasn't sure how he was going to do. Somebody from his cohort, Rand, reached out to him and said, you are going to rock. I have seen you at every step in this way. You are so smart. You're so ready. I know you're going to do so well in this interview. And he checked in with him every day for like a week before this interview happened, right? These are the kinds of things that make a real difference. And yes, like Laila said, you have to plan for it. You have to know you're going to want to give up. So find structure, build structures that will set you up for success before you even start pursuing the goal or while you're pursuing it.

This has been awesome, guys. Just an hour flew by talking to you, and I just want to thank you so much for all the insights and then the value in what you do. Really, it's fantastic. And hopefully we could see more of those really setups, ventures, and more partnerships, as you say. Just so much alignment here. Would love to talk to you also separately. So many ideas that comes to mind that this can be scaled and help. So final question here. When it comes down to your vision and really hope for more caring world, what does that look like? What is the really— it's not just Manara, just looking at our, like, kids and generations, what can we— what is your hope? What's your optimism about the future?

Such a beautiful question. And the first thing that pops to mind is caring globally. I think so often, especially when things get tough in the world, people kind of shrink back and care about their only close circle because It's like you feel like you have to help the person that you identify with the most. So for instance, when layoffs are happening, suddenly it's like, let's help the people who are here in the United States because it's shocking that anyone in the United States might not have a job. And suddenly the focus becomes much smaller as opposed to let's help all of humanity. Let's support each other. Somebody who is in Palestine is just as worthy, or somebody who's in Ukraine is just as worthy as somebody who's in the United States. United States. And so I think these affiliate networks have a lot of power, and I think we need to go beyond our affiliate networks and feel that same sense of affiliation with people who might not look like us and give them the same level of care. And for me, one very personal example is that when I was working at Upwork before I worked at Monara, my team of engineers was mostly in Ukraine. And I stay in touch with them on Telegram every month, checking in with them. And the experiences they're going through now are so familiar to what happens in Palestine all the time and has been happening for so long, right? And I think now finally the world is starting to wake up and see, oh yeah, this is similar. And oh yeah, this can help. This can happen to people who look like me. And so I just want to invite the world to cast a much wider sense of affiliation. Every human being you should feel affiliation with and share that same kind of care with, personally and professionally.

Well said, Ileana.

Thank you, guys. What a phrase, caring globally. That's just a fantastic way to finish. And this is our invitation for everyone for this year, 2023. Actually, caring globally is actually A great way to finish this episode. And once again, thank you. This is the nicest word, everyone. If anyone wants to reach out to you, what is a CEO of a company or, or somebody young talent, what is the best way to reach out and can they get connected with, with Monara?

So yeah, that we have a website and there's contact forms you can fill out, or if you're a CEO, you're looking for talent, there's a form you can fill out on our website. That's the best so that it can quickly move through the process. And you can also reach out to us on LinkedIn or through our email. So it's just Ileana@manata.tech or Laila@manata.tech.

Thank you so much for being with us today, for caring, for who you are. And then again, God bless you and everything you do in your families, in your work, and looking forward to see more.

Thank you. Thank you for having us, Marian. Really had a great time being with you on the show.

Thank you, guys.