Mapping Innovation

Mohab Anis is an Engineering Professor at the American University in Cairo, CEO at INNOVETY; a leading innovation management consulting firm and Principal at IXL Center North Africa & Levant. Mohab loves helping companies build new business opportunities, and has consulted widely in the areas of innovation strategy. This includes auditing organizations' innovation capabilities, intellectual property strategies, business planning, startup and SME operations to scale up, technology transfer, and go-to-market strategies. Mohab consulted 300+ businesses covering 10+ sectors in 15 countries mostly in MENA. He spearheaded 20+ innovation and industrial strategies for 5 MENA governments. In 2018, he overlooked the ICT for development roadmap for Swiss Terre des Hommes in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

Earlier, Mohab spent years as a tenured professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at University of Waterloo, Canada, to which he's now adjunct. There, he consulted in the US and Canada to a variety of Fortune 500 companies, and was also involved with Waterloo's technology transfer office where he worked on identifying technologies that have the highest potential for commercialization.

As an academic, he authored 170 international papers, 5 books and 3 US patents. He has been on the Editorial Board of 10 international journals and has supervised 15 PhD & 16 Masters students. Mohab was awarded three of Canada's highest awards for excellence in innovation (The Early Research Award from Ontario's Ministry of Research and Innovation, the Colton Medal for Research Excellence and the IEEE International Design Award), as well as both of AUC's top awards in Teaching and Research & Creative Endeavours. At the AUC, Mohab teaches electronics & VLSI design, advanced microelectronics systems, innovation strategy, economics and management of nanotechnology, business consulting, and introduction to business.

Mohab holds a PhD in Computer Engineering from University of Waterloo (2002), an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University with a concentration in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (2008), and a Masters in Management Sciences with a concentration in Technological Innovation (2008).

Sarah Chawky is the innovation manager at Innovety, a regional innovation management consultancy firm specializing in digital and innovation management. She has extensive experience in working with teams from businesses of all sizes, to support them in capitalizing on technological and non-technological trends in order to develop their products, services, and process. Her experience extends to a number of sectors including telecommunication and information and communication technologies, engineering, oil and gas, development. In 2018-2019, Sarah was the assistant regional officer at Terre des hommes (Tdh) for the MENA region's ICT for development (ICT4D), where she supported the region's four delegations to design new programs that are ICT-empowered, for increased scalability and sustainability. Sarah is a certified "Innovation Management Level 1: Innovation Associate" by the Global Innovation management Institute.

Aya Abdel Halim is an Assistant Consultant at Innovety. She has contributed to multiple projects in the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology transfer and commercialization in various industries in Egypt and Lebanon. The projects she has worked on provided her with extensive knowledge on the innovative adoption of technologies for the creation of value, reaching of new markets, and streamlining of value chain processes. In addition to her work in innovation management, Aya holds a B.A. in Economics from the American University in Cairo (2018) and was her class's recipient of the Ahmed Zewail Prize for Excellence in the Sciences and Humanities. She is also currently studying for an M.A. in Economics at the American University in Cairo.