Mohamed Nabil, an Entrepreneur who founded the leading AI communication startup across the MENA region

He overcame surrender and did not despair despite his projects having been rejected, at the beginning of his career, but eventually became an entrepreneur in technology across Middle East-wide through his company “WideBot,” which specializes in artificial intelligence “AI” and its influential role in customer relationship management (CRM) and digital business management.

He is “Mohamed Nabil,” a 35-year-old, from Alexandria who graduated from the Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Mansoura University in 2007.

From his first day in college, he was extremely impressed and attracted and dominated by the idea of having his own business and a technology company,

but at the time, entrepreneurship started to emerge slowly, and it was not very widespread in Egypt.

Immediately after graduation, he began to think seriously about how to start his own business, he had already set up companies, some companies have failed miserably and some have succeeded, but it was not a great and overwhelming success.

During Mohamed's struggle, he supported him and stood by his side, Ahmed was his college friend, and he is also with his technical co-founder.

And during 2014 and 2015, they worked together on the idea of one project that was a 3D virtual market consisting of an environment all with a 3D gaming experience, and it is like playing a game in a particular supermarket,

it is like you are moving in, choosing the products from the supermarket shelves and holding them to your hand and walking around the items, finishing all your e-commerce and check-out until the order arrives at your home.

And their work on that idea took about two years, they presented their idea to more than one large supermarket in Egypt and abroad, but unfortunately, it was not successful enough and the idea of their project was very new to the market.

And they did not overcome the challenges they faced with their project, including that they needed strong hardware and mobile application development to develop software applications for mobile devices.

In the same period, and specifically in 2016, they were looking for freelance work with companies outside Egypt to be able to fund their company.

In 2016 there was an Argentine client who asked them to conduct a project based on a chatbot for his benefit that needed to develop a Custom engine and that client was out of their target,

Ahmed supported Mohamed in preliminary technical information about the chatbot and suggested that he work together to establish a startup project based on Chatbot and specialize in Arabic,

to serve (MENA) the Middle East market and all Arab countries such as (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Lebanon, Levant "Lebanon, Jordan, Syria", Gulf, and North Africa)

His field of study has helped him on the ground by understanding the technology industry in general and of market needs and how to analyze the product through information technology consulting.

After Mohamed did market research on the Chatbot industry and found it will be an extraordinarily strong industry in the coming years, they found it an exceptionally good opportunity through which they can be Entrepreneurs in that industry.

There has never been interest in serving companies and enterprises in the Middle Eastern market through artificial intelligence powered by Arabic,

and from here came the idea of artificial intelligence (AI),

so, they decided to start their company.

In that period, they applied for the "TIEC Incubator" program, 

they were accepted and selected to obtain funding for their Startup, worth up to 120,000 EGP, From TIEC and get a free office in Smart Village Egypt for a year.

Technology is always imported from Providers outside Egypt and the Arab region,

so, Mohamed had the vision to be an inventor of technology through an Egyptian-Arab company with an imprint in the development of an immensely powerful artificial intelligence engine powered in Arabic and its results have higher accuracy than world competitors such as (Google, IBM, Microsoft, IOS, Chatbot)

and it was a passion and a goal for them, and to achieve that through “widebot.net.”

“WideBot” services: 

- Main service: is automation services:

performing customer service by human interaction replacement process to answer calls and Chat Messages through Software and Artificial Intelligence Engine, such as (completing a sale responding to inquiries, and solving customer problems).

- He provides his company services for various sectors: from "business to business" B2B, such as:

(Government entities, banks, telecommunications companies, restaurants, hospitals, schools, and e-commerce platforms). 

His company offers customer relationship management solutions (CRM) distinguished from traditional companies as follows:

- They feed their engine with accents, words, and sentences, and each accent, data, and transaction in different fields and automated through the platform with an artificial intelligence engine.

- They have an AI engine that supports all languages and their support English language.

- They constantly develop the engine to make the accuracy ratio up from (92%: to 95%) for the Arabic language and its different accents to be the accuracy of answers is extremely high, the opposite of competitors using global translation engines.

There are challenges he faced during his journey with “WideBot” and overcome by:

- Insufficient experience in running a business with difficult technological skills

and beat it by building a formidable team of consultants - board members to take their opinions in every detail.

- How to convince fundraising for his company?

It was a challenge that lasted a long time with them, and he was able to overcome it by marketing his company through Branding from (the government, ministries, or competitions),

after a while, he was able to obtain funding from investors in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

During that period, it had built a strong portfolio, through which it was able to obtain good funding.

- There was a challenge at the beginning of “WideBot” project

 it was how to build a formidable team with little potential and cost

and beat it through Talent Internship Program for two or three months in (AI, Business, and technical specialties), through it the company presented a training value and returns it with a profits value based on the principle of the win-win,

after that, selected the most qualified interns and recruit them at the end of the program for full time.

Now, the team is fifty members, they also receive tendering and awarding contract to them because they are stronger in Arabic than global competitors.

The most important personal and professional skills that helped him to achieve his professional accomplishments which made him a successful Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of “WideBot” included:

- He has good and strong relationships that are scalable with all those in the market (stockholders, partners, his team, competitors, and service providers).

- His ability to learn well and exploit good opportunities through his good consultants in various fields (technical, business, and Fundraising consultants) and search for all the latest information and experience.

It all helped him grow amazingly fast.

There are factors that have made Mohamed motivated to complete his journey of success, including:

- He is someone who wants to succeed and prove himself.

- Sense of responsibility to the team, employees, investors, and founders and his role in building expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness by working to raise the spirit of cooperation for all to have their own distinctive imprint in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and in this way they will be able to enlarge the work based on the principle of the win-win.

- Passion and sense for the real value of good services provided by his company to companies and institutions to help clients to satisfy and delight their customers and increase value and enlarge their brand.

“WideBot” assists his company's clients by:

- Improved workpiece quality, the accuracy of answers and automation Save long time and effort.

- Providing value through the solutions and will benefit from Return on Investment (ROI).

The strongest partnerships with “WideBot” that led to more confidence and credibility in it were:

Technical partnerships with:

- Amazon Web Services (AWS) to publish their AI papers on the platform and take extraordinarily strong progress through it.

Marketing partnerships:

branding was strong for his company as a startup through better marketing of his company and its services on a portfolio of companies aimed at small and medium enterprises, “WideBot” was offering an extremely competitive and low price and through the good ratings and reviews that his company got, its profits increased,

these partnerships were:

In Egypt with:

- Vodafone Egypt: By subscribing to Vodafone Business Marketplace Egypt.

- Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Egypt).

- In Saudi Arabia with:

- “STC” is the largest telecom provider.

- Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Saudi Arabia).

- In the UAE with:

(Department of Government Support and telecommunications companies).

Every stage has its own launch that helps to sustain their enthusiasm, whether in Egypt or outside Egypt, they have contracted with:

- At the beginning of “WideBot,” the Government of Dubai was their largest client.

- Saudi Arabia's government ministries such as (the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Commerce (it was a big start,

and in 2020 King Abdullah economic city, it is a whole big economic city, they managed the city's chatbot software from the first bookings, rentals, and city pass.

- In 2021 banking sector and Central Bank of Egypt, such as (Credit Agricole Egypt Bank).

- In 2022 Egyptian ministries such as (Central Agency for Organization and Administration (to provide government software services by auto-linking feature to help employees in the whole country, and this will be a new launch for “WideBot”.

Their services are not limited to offering Chatbot and artificial intelligence services help all fields that need to communicate with fans or customers (commercial, governmental, technical),

not just that, they've been able in the last few days to present their smart chatbot solutions for Influencers Whether (artists, celebrities, and footballers) to make Comedic communication with fans (instant - easy - fast) and Increase Social Media Engagement on their pages.

Among the special clients they currently have an Egyptian comedian actor (Mohamed Henedy).

There were also supporters and backers of Mohamed during his career trip,

and they still believe in what he does and always encourage him to complete his career trip without stopping, and they are:

- Comes first, personal and family supporters always come from his mother, siblings, and his friends from outside the tech field.

- Also, professional, and technical support,

where there are consultants, business monitoring specialists, and guides with him, 

he always turns to them in every detail related to “WideBot” from the first day of his project, among them:

- Eng. Walid Khalil, Eng. Khedr, 

Dr. Osama Imam, Dean of the College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, Helwan University,

Dr. Nader is a financial expert and Omar Rabie is a Legal expert.

And about his latest accomplishments and his current projects that are being prepared:

In the current period, he’s Seeking through his company “WideBot” to complete large and successful partnerships to expand further in different markets such as “the Gulf and the Levant.”

And about the future goals that he aspires to:

The big goal is that he is seeking through “WideBot” by the end of 2023

to serve more customers and reach up to five hundred million end users of their solutions.

Of the best advice he would like to give to young people, especially in the current period of the global economic crisis, Mohamed said:

- Whether entrepreneur or employee of a company,

you must continue to learn without stopping before you start or enter any business or your job,

and you always must build a good network with many sources and have consultants to learn from them, because the advice from consultants is bigger than you and someone who has experienced the same experience before, it will save you a month of tiredness of research and will serve you and help you get your job done.

- Technology market is open even under the global economic recession, you must always be ready for personal development and keep up to date with the technology industry,

as technology jobs with the highest demand are increasing year by year, and their financial return is extremely high.

- Perseverance without boredom and lack of despair and without losing hope quickly, you must take the hit and stand again,

because continuity is the fastest way to succeed in any field, by continuing what you do, God's Willing will get you to your goal.

All so that you also can continue your career properly, both in entrepreneurship and in public.

He also expressed his pleasure and gratitude at completing his dialogue for Concept Egypt magazine.