Hedayat Reda Our energies have finally settled and we have caught up on some much-needed sleep, so we’re finally able to clearly digest the mind-shifting experiences that RiseUp Summit 2026 has left us with. For three electric days at the Grand Egyptian Museum, Cairo felt less like a city and more like a live wire—founders, investors, creatives, and operators moving with intent, badges swinging, coffee in hand, ideas mid-sentence.
It’s been almost 10 years since I last attended the summit (my bad—that’s on me), but I was blown away by the fact that the energy and momentum remain exactly the same. The scale has grown, the stages are sleeker, the production tighter, the ecosystem louder—but the pulse is unchanged. There is still that unmistakable hum in the air, the sense that something is being built in real time.
When you scale a business or an event, it is hard to hang on to the core of what makes it unique—the experiences the attendee values and keeps coming back to. Growth can dilute magic. But RiseUp has clearly guarded its secret sauce well and found the sweet spot between education and networking—and kept it. The programming is intentional, the stages curated, the conversations purposeful. Panels don’t just inspire; they ignite side conversations that spill into corridors, courtyards, and coffee lines.
As an ex-RiseUp employee (‘16 and ‘17 content team!), RiseUp this year was very personal to me. Friends that started out with me in the startup ecosystem back in ‘16 took to the stage this year to share their own stories of how they have built their companies and raised investment. It was a full-circle, 360° moment when Hana Zaghloul, Dayra’s co-founder and COO—and my old RiseUp content co-conspirator—spoke about the responsibility of companies to teach financial literacy and challenged the culture of “buy now, panic later.” Having once stood together behind the stage, building agendas and chasing speakers, it was surreal to see her commanding that same stage with clarity and conviction. To witness that growth within the very ecosystem that shaped us is the kind of magic RiseUp offers: a community that builds you, champions you, and remains loyal long after the badges come off.
While RiseUp does not position itself purely as a networking event, the mixture of experts and talent is so well-rounded and thoughtfully dispersed that even as you are walking to grab a coffee, you inevitably bump into someone you know, want to know, or should know. Investors and startups alike gravitate toward this summit not just to be inspired but to solve real-world problems—taking the expertise of speakers to heart and extending those conversations into roundtables, hackathons, and AMAs. Deals don’t necessarily close on stage—but they begin in the margins. At the end of a transformative Capital Stage talk on investment, I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in years, an ex-startup founder behind a major F&B success story. He had come seeking inspiration for his next venture. “What is it?” I asked, curious. He smiled. “I don’t know yet—but I’m sure I’ll find it.” And that, perhaps, is the point. RiseUp is less about having the answer and more about being in the right room when the question forms.
But to me, a lover of education and the exchange of ideas, the heart of RiseUp remains in its talks and panels. There is something profoundly energizing about listening to builders speak candidly about failure, funding, pivots, and persistence—then being able to continue that dialogue face-to-face minutes later. Ziad Elhadary’s Naydin story inspired me to dream bigger, to seek out-of-the-box solutions and imagine ventures that don’t yet exist. Victoria Cana’s game-building philosophy reframed the way I think about financial fundamentals—reminding me that creativity and structure are not opposites, but partners. The best sessions did not just inform; they expanded.
I never quite know how to quantify the experience I gain from RiseUp. It is part exposure, part heart-warming reunion, part audacious dreaming. It is momentum in human form. It is the quiet reassurance that the ecosystem is not only alive—but maturing, evolving, and reaching outward.
All I know is this: I will never miss another summit.
Until next year.
