RiseUp Summit '26Agenda

Seventy-two hours, five stages.

Stage Agenda

Explore every session.

Forty-six sessions across three days and five stages. Filter by what you came for, or read the whole thing in the order it happens.

46 sessions

09:30Saturday 26 December3 sessions

Founders & LeadershipKeynoteFoundational
Opening keynote: The Turning Point
What changed in the region this year, what it means for the companies being started now, and what the next twelve months ask of everyone in the hall.
Omar Hassan
Marfa Logistics
09:30–10:15
Main Stage · Grand Hall
Funds & LPsPanelIntermediate
What the region actually funded this year
Deal counts, cheque sizes and sectors, read off the year rather than off a press release. Where the money went, and where it stopped going.
3 Speakers
09:30–10:15
Capital Stage · Hall B, Level 1
ProductTalkIntermediate
Shipping with a team of nine
How a small team decides what not to build, and the three meetings that replaced everything else once the roadmap stopped fitting in a quarter.
David Mercer
Orbit Cloud
09:30–10:10
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2

11:00Saturday 26 December5 sessions

Founders & LeadershipFiresideFoundational
Thirteen years of building here
A conversation with founders who started before there was an ecosystem to start in, on what compounded and what they would not do again.
2 Speakers
11:00–11:45
Main Stage · Grand Hall
FundraisingTalkFoundational
Reading a term sheet properly
Liquidation preference, participation, anti-dilution and the board seat, in the order they will actually matter to you. Bring a real term sheet.
Lena Adler
Northbound Ventures
11:00–11:40
Capital Stage · Hall B, Level 1
AI in ProductionTalkAdvanced
AI in production, not in the deck
Evaluation, cost per request and the failure modes that only appear under real traffic — from a team running models in front of paying customers.
Karim Fahmy
Meridian Bank
11:00–11:40
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2
Regional ExpansionPanelIntermediate
Your first market is not your best market
Founders who moved, and founders who should have. How to tell a market that is small from a market you have not worked out how to sell to yet.
3 Speakers
11:00–11:45
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2
Policy & RegulationPanelAdvanced
Who writes the rules for MENA fintech
Regulators, central banks and the people drafting the frameworks, in a room with the companies being drafted at. Held to specifics rather than principles.
3 Speakers
11:00–11:50
Policy Stage · Hall E, Level 3

14:30Saturday 26 December5 sessions

Founders & LeadershipPanelIntermediate
The companies that outlasted the cycle
What the survivors of the last downturn cut, what they refused to cut, and how long it took before either decision looked correct.
3 Speakers
14:30–15:15
Main Stage · Grand Hall
FundraisingTalkAdvanced
Bridge rounds without the bridge
Raising between rounds when the metrics are not there yet: instruments, signalling, and how to keep the next round raiseable.
Lena Adler
Northbound Ventures
14:30–15:10
Capital Stage · Hall B, Level 1
EngineeringTalkAdvanced
The database decision you cannot undo
Schema choices that look free in year one and cost a migration in year three, and the three that are genuinely reversible.
Karim Fahmy
Meridian Bank
14:30–15:10
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2
Pricing & RetentionTalkIntermediate
Pricing for a currency that moves
Setting and holding a price when the exchange rate does not hold still, without repricing every customer every quarter.
David Mercer
Orbit Cloud
14:30–15:10
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2
Policy & RegulationTalkIntermediate
Licensing, end to end
The application, the timeline and what the regulator is actually reading, walked through from first filing to approval.
Tomas Vogel
MENA Digital Council
14:30–15:10
Policy Stage · Hall E, Level 3

16:00Saturday 26 December2 sessions

Design & ResearchTalkIntermediate
Designing for a hundred and fifty nationalities
Interfaces that hold up across scripts, name orders, address formats and calendars — and the assumptions that break first.
Omar Hassan
Marfa Logistics
16:00–16:40
Main Stage · Grand Hall
Go-to-MarketTalkIntermediate
Distribution in a market with no channel
What to do when there are no resellers, no established buying process and no category page to rank on. Six routes that have worked here.
Lena Adler
Northbound Ventures
16:00–16:40
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2

09:30Sunday 27 December4 sessions

Funds & LPsKeynoteFoundational
The next hundred companies
Where the region’s next cohort is being started, who is backing it at the earliest stage, and what is structurally different this time.
Karim Fahmy
Meridian Bank
09:30–10:15
Main Stage · Grand Hall
Funds & LPsTalkAdvanced
What LPs are asking regional funds
The diligence questions that decide a fund’s second close, from the people asking them. Useful to founders reading their investors.
David Mercer
Orbit Cloud
09:30–10:10
Capital Stage · Hall B, Level 1
AI in ProductionTalkAdvanced
Evaluating models without a research team
Building an evaluation set from your own traffic, catching regressions before customers do, and knowing when a smaller model is the right answer.
Tomas Vogel
MENA Digital Council
09:30–10:10
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2
Go-to-MarketTalkFoundational
The first ten thousand customers
Where they came from, what they cost, and which of the channels that got you there stops working immediately afterwards.
Omar Hassan
Marfa Logistics
09:30–10:10
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2

11:00Sunday 27 December5 sessions

Fintech & PaymentsPanelIntermediate
Fintech after the licence
The eighteen months nobody warns you about: compliance headcount, reporting, and the product decisions a licence quietly takes away from you.
3 Speakers
11:00–11:45
Main Stage · Grand Hall
FundraisingTalkAdvanced
Secondaries, and who actually buys them
Founder and employee liquidity before an exit: how these deals get priced, who clears them, and what they signal to your next round.
Karim Fahmy
Meridian Bank
11:00–11:40
Capital Stage · Hall B, Level 1
Design & ResearchTalkFoundational
Design systems for a team with no designer
The smallest set of decisions that keeps a product coherent while engineers ship the interface, and what to leave undecided on purpose.
David Mercer
Orbit Cloud
11:00–11:40
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2
Talent & CultureTalkIntermediate
Hiring engineers you cannot outbid for
Competing with remote salaries you will never match: scope, ownership and the parts of the offer that are not the number.
Tomas Vogel
MENA Digital Council
11:00–11:40
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2
Fintech & PaymentsPanelAdvanced
Cross-border payments, and the rules that stop them
Why regional money still moves slowly, which corridors are opening, and what the settlement layer looks like three years out.
3 Speakers
11:00–11:50
Policy Stage · Hall E, Level 3

14:30Sunday 27 December5 sessions

Climate & EnergyFiresideIntermediate
Building an energy company in a subsidised market
Unit economics when the price of the thing you are replacing is set by policy rather than by cost, and how those businesses get financed anyway.
2 Speakers
14:30–15:15
Main Stage · Grand Hall
FundraisingPanelFoundational
The cheque before the cheque
Angels, accelerators and the first two hundred thousand: who writes it here, what they want, and how to not spend a year finding out.
3 Speakers
14:30–15:15
Capital Stage · Hall B, Level 1
EngineeringTalkAdvanced
Latency, and the users you lose to it
Measuring what your users actually experience on the networks they are actually on, and the four fixes that moved the number most.
Tomas Vogel
MENA Digital Council
14:30–15:10
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2
Pricing & RetentionTalkIntermediate
Retention is the only growth number
Reading a cohort chart honestly, separating churn you caused from churn you inherited, and what to fix in which order.
David Mercer
Orbit Cloud
14:30–15:10
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2
Policy & RegulationTalkAdvanced
Data residency for founders
Where your data is allowed to live, what changes when you sell to a bank or a ministry, and the architecture decisions that follow from both.
Lena Adler
Northbound Ventures
14:30–15:10
Policy Stage · Hall E, Level 3

16:00Sunday 27 December2 sessions

Impact & InclusionPanelIntermediate
Who the region’s health startups are actually serving
Access, reimbursement and the gap between the patients a product reaches and the patients it was built for.
3 Speakers
16:00–16:45
Main Stage · Grand Hall
Regional ExpansionTalkIntermediate
Expanding into the Gulf without moving
Entity, banking, hiring and the first customer, sequenced by founders who did it from Cairo and by founders who relocated and wish they had not.
David Mercer
Orbit Cloud
16:00–16:40
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2

09:30Monday 28 December4 sessions

Talent & CultureKeynoteFoundational
What we get wrong about talent here
The region trains more engineers than it retains. A hard look at why, and at the companies that have stopped losing them.
David Mercer
Orbit Cloud
09:30–10:15
Main Stage · Grand Hall
Funds & LPsTalkIntermediate
Writing your first cheque as an operator
Angel investing from inside a job: deal flow, cheque size, conflicts, and how to be useful to a founder without becoming a second job.
Tomas Vogel
MENA Digital Council
09:30–10:10
Capital Stage · Hall B, Level 1
ProductPanelIntermediate
What we would build differently
Four teams open their architecture and their roadmap from three years ago and mark it honestly, in public.
3 Speakers
09:30–10:15
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2
Go-to-MarketTalkAdvanced
Category creation on a Cairo budget
Naming and owning a category without a category-creation budget: the two channels that compound and the four that only look like they do.
Lena Adler
Northbound Ventures
09:30–10:10
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2

11:00Monday 28 December5 sessions

Climate & EnergyPanelIntermediate
Climate money is arriving. Who is ready?
Concessional capital, carbon markets and industrial decarbonisation in the region, and the very short list of companies able to absorb any of it.
3 Speakers
11:00–11:45
Main Stage · Grand Hall
FundraisingTalkAdvanced
Down rounds, cleanly
Recapitalising without destroying the team: the mechanics, the conversations, and the sequence that keeps everyone still holding something.
David Mercer
Orbit Cloud
11:00–11:40
Capital Stage · Hall B, Level 1
AI in ProductionTalkIntermediate
Shipping AI features people keep using
The difference between a demo that lands and a feature that survives month two, told through three that did and two that did not.
Tomas Vogel
MENA Digital Council
11:00–11:40
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2
Pricing & RetentionTalkFoundational
Packaging, and the pricing page
Turning a price into tiers a buyer can choose between in ninety seconds, and testing it without repricing your existing base.
Omar Hassan
Marfa Logistics
11:00–11:40
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2
Policy & RegulationPanelAdvanced
Regulating what has not been built yet
How regional regulators are approaching AI, autonomous systems and digital assets before the companies exist, and what founders can influence.
3 Speakers
11:00–11:50
Policy Stage · Hall E, Level 3

14:30Monday 28 December4 sessions

FundraisingPitchFoundational
The pitch final
Ten companies, five minutes each, one panel, decided in the room. The shortlist is announced on day two.
2 Speakers
14:30–15:45
Main Stage · Grand Hall
Design & ResearchTalkIntermediate
Research when nobody will take your call
Getting real signal from twelve users instead of a survey of six hundred, and how to run it while shipping weekly.
Tomas Vogel
MENA Digital Council
14:30–15:10
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2
Founders & LeadershipTalkIntermediate
Going from founder-led to team-led
The handovers that have to happen between twenty and a hundred people, in the order that hurts least, from people who got it wrong first.
Omar Hassan
Marfa Logistics
14:30–15:10
Growth Stage · Hall D, Level 2
Climate & EnergyTalkAdvanced
Solar, grids and the permit queue
Why generation is the easy part: interconnection, offtake and the permitting timelines that decide whether a project is financeable.
Lena Adler
Northbound Ventures
14:30–15:10
Policy Stage · Hall E, Level 3

16:00Monday 28 December2 sessions

EngineeringTalkIntermediate
Accessibility in Arabic-first products
Bidirectional layout, screen readers that handle Arabic badly, and the fixes that take an afternoon rather than a rewrite.
Karim Fahmy
Meridian Bank
16:00–16:40
Build Stage · Hall C, Level 2
Impact & InclusionCeremonyFoundational
Closing session and the ’27 announcement
What the three days produced, what the region committed to on stage, and where the fourteenth edition lands.
2 Speakers
16:00–16:45
Main Stage · Grand Hall

Masterclasses Agenda

Ninety minutes, thirty seats.

Working sessions in small rooms, capped and booked in advance. You leave with the thing you came to build rather than with notes about it.

FundraisingFoundational

Build your data room in an afternoon

The documents a fund asks for, in the order they ask for them, and the three that kill a round when they are missing.

Lena Adler
Northbound Ventures

Sat 26 · 14:30

90 min · 30 seats

AI in ProductionAdvanced

Putting a model into production

Evaluation, cost, and the failure modes that only show up under real traffic. Bring a laptop and a problem.

Karim Fahmy
Meridian Bank

Sat 26 · 16:00

120 min · 24 seats

Pricing & RetentionIntermediate

Pricing, priced properly

Working through your own numbers rather than a case study. Come with your current pricing and last quarter’s cohort data.

David Mercer
Orbit Cloud

Sun 27 · 09:30

90 min · 30 seats

Policy & RegulationIntermediate

Licensing a fintech in Egypt

The application, the timeline, and what the regulator is actually reading. Walked through end to end.

Tomas Vogel
MENA Digital Council

Sun 27 · 14:30

120 min · 20 seats

Talent & CultureFoundational

The first ten hires

Sequencing roles, writing a scorecard, and running an interview loop that a nine-person company can actually staff.

Omar Hassan
Marfa Logistics

Sun 27 · 16:00

90 min · 30 seats

FundraisingIntermediate

Telling the story in five minutes

Rebuilding your pitch in the room, out loud, in front of people who will tell you where it loses them. Held the day before the pitch final on purpose.

Lena Adler
Northbound Ventures

Mon 28 · 09:30

90 min · 24 seats

Content Tracks

Fifteen tracks, one route through.

Every session on every stage carries one track. Pick two or three and three days has a spine; ignore them and it is seventy-two hours of good talks in no order.

26–28 December 2026 · Cairo

The Turning Point

Three days in Cairo with twenty thousand people who are building the same thing you are.

Buy Your Tickets

Seventy-two hours, five stages.

Explore every session.

Filters

Content track

Session format

Stage

Session level

09:30Saturday 26 December3 sessions

Opening keynote: The Turning Point

What the region actually funded this year

Shipping with a team of nine

11:00Saturday 26 December5 sessions

Thirteen years of building here

Reading a term sheet properly

AI in production, not in the deck

Your first market is not your best market

Who writes the rules for MENA fintech

14:30Saturday 26 December5 sessions

The companies that outlasted the cycle

Bridge rounds without the bridge

The database decision you cannot undo

Pricing for a currency that moves

Licensing, end to end

16:00Saturday 26 December2 sessions

Designing for a hundred and fifty nationalities

Distribution in a market with no channel

09:30Sunday 27 December4 sessions

The next hundred companies

What LPs are asking regional funds

Evaluating models without a research team

The first ten thousand customers

11:00Sunday 27 December5 sessions

Fintech after the licence

Secondaries, and who actually buys them

Design systems for a team with no designer

Hiring engineers you cannot outbid for

Cross-border payments, and the rules that stop them

14:30Sunday 27 December5 sessions

Building an energy company in a subsidised market

The cheque before the cheque

Latency, and the users you lose to it

Retention is the only growth number

Data residency for founders

16:00Sunday 27 December2 sessions

Who the region’s health startups are actually serving

Expanding into the Gulf without moving

09:30Monday 28 December4 sessions

What we get wrong about talent here

Writing your first cheque as an operator

What we would build differently

Category creation on a Cairo budget

11:00Monday 28 December5 sessions

Climate money is arriving. Who is ready?

Down rounds, cleanly

Shipping AI features people keep using

Packaging, and the pricing page

Regulating what has not been built yet

14:30Monday 28 December4 sessions

The pitch final

Research when nobody will take your call

Going from founder-led to team-led

Solar, grids and the permit queue

16:00Monday 28 December2 sessions

Accessibility in Arabic-first products

Closing session and the ’27 announcement

Ninety minutes, thirty seats.

Build your data room in an afternoon

Putting a model into production

Pricing, priced properly

Licensing a fintech in Egypt

The first ten hires

Telling the story in five minutes

Fifteen tracks, one route through.

Fundraising

Funds & LPs

Product

Engineering

AI in Production

Design & Research

Go-to-Market