Women taking the lead in Egypt's economic revolution

By bringing progressive ideas to the country’s business development sector, Egyptian female entrepreneurs are taking the lead in social and economic change.

In this sphere, “women can lead the economic revolution — nobody is putting any glass ceilings there,” said Sherine Allam, CEO of the Association for Women’s Total Advancement and Development (AWTAD).

Since Egypt’s uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak last year, calls for social and economic progression have echoed around the world, with youth at the forefront. Along the way, more and more young women rose to claim their place in society.

Finding their role in the community, a group of young women from various educational backgrounds came together to establish SuperMamma (www.supermama.me), a website launched in 2011 that provides women with advice on various topics from pregnancy issues to balancing work and family life.

“Any woman has a super woman inside of her,” said 31-year old Yasmine El-Mehairy, co-founder and CEO of SuperMama, who previously worked in the fields of technology and business.

“My other partners, Zeinab Samir comes from a web development and design background and Shereen El-Samaa, comes from a marketing background,” she added.

The website, with the slogan “Everything is under control,” offers advice in English as well as Arabic to serve the needs of Egypt’s diverse female population. They recently got a boost after attending a startup bootcamp in Denmark.

“What we do is provide tools to help [women] find these super powers. We are currently starting a new series on the website to help encourage women work from home.”

Although El-Mehairy has found a growing need for this work in the Middle East, their startup faced problems finding financing, because the country still lacks a support system for small businesses.

With a growing youth population taking to the streets of Egypt every day demanding unfulfilled change, many unemployed but ambitious youth find themselves at a loss of hope.

Allam is among many female frontrunners moving to contribute to society’s needs by helping youth and women reach their potential.

But women will have to continue fighting especially in the coming period of Egypt’s evolution because the idea of rebuilding in Middle Eastern society will often be seen as a “man’s job,” said Allam.

“People think it is not a woman’s job to take the lead because we are rebuilding, that this is a man’s job, when in reality, women are natural mediators,” she added.

“While we have accomplished a lot, we as women have not recognized our role and abilities to rebuild the economy.”

AWTAD works to mobilize the role of women as development agents to leverage Egypt’s human capital.

Since the revolution, Allam has witnessed a rapidly growing number of unskilled, uneducated women entering the workforce, becoming sole-providers for their families as their husbands have lost their jobs due to the economic crisis