1st edition2013
The first edition
- Where
- GrEEK CampusCairo, Egypt
RiseUp Summit '26Thirteenth edition
The Turning Point
Bringing founders, investors, creatives and policymakers together
Since 2013, the region has planned its year around three days in Cairo.
RiseUp Summit began in 2013 and has run every year since, bringing founders, funds, operators and regulators into the same square kilometre for three days.
That proximity is the whole mechanism. Thirteen editions of it is the part a newer event cannot copy.
’13’14’15’16’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
Headline speakers
Four hundred speakers across three days of stages, masterclasses and content tracks.
Main Stage
Runs a logistics company across four markets, and has raised at every stage from angel to Series C in the region.
Omar Hassan
Co-founder and CEO
Marfa Logistics
Capital
Leads early-stage investments across MENA and has sat on both sides of more term sheets than she will admit to.
Lena Adler
General Partner
Northbound Ventures
Build
Took a forty-year-old bank’s product org from quarterly releases to daily ones, with the models to prove it.
Karim Fahmy
Chief Product Officer
Meridian Bank
Growth
Scaled an infrastructure business from twelve people to eight hundred without leaving the region to do it.
David Mercer
Group Chief Executive
Orbit Cloud
Policy
Writes the digital-economy frameworks that founders in eleven countries build against.
Tomas Vogel
Director of Digital Economy
MENA Digital Council
Presented with
The institutions backing the thirteenth edition.
Investment Partner
Financing Partner
Automotive Partner
Digital Live Partner
Technology Partner
Four ways onto the floor
Take the stage, back the summit, show what you have built, or help run it. A ticket is not the only way into the room.
Share your impact on stage alongside global, regional, and local thought leaders driving transformation in business, technology, and innovation.
RiseUp Summit offers a range of partnership packages, including tailored options, designed to align with your brand’s goals and position you within the region’s leading entrepreneurship platform.
Showcase your innovation to industry leaders, investors, and potential partners by exhibiting at RiseUp Summit — the region’s key platform for entrepreneurship and innovation.
Join the RiseUp Volunteers Program to gain hands-on experience, connect with leaders, and help bring the region’s biggest entrepreneurship events to life.
Testimonials
What the room says afterwards.
Founders, investors and operators on what three days in Cairo actually changed for them.
We came to raise and left with a term sheet, but that is not the part I tell people about. It is the four hours in the hall between sessions, talking to operators who had already solved the thing we were stuck on.
Omar HassanCo-founder and CEO, Marfa LogisticsI see more of the region’s founders in three days here than in three months of scheduled calls. That is the entire reason the fund books it a year out.
Lena AdlerGeneral Partner, Northbound VenturesThe density is the product. You cannot manufacture the conversation that happens when the regulator, the bank and the startup are all standing in the same queue for coffee.
Tomas VogelDirector of Digital Economy, MENA Digital Council