UnliMITed MIT Arab Alumni Association

This Episode is our first episode in Arabic!
Born and raised in Cairo, Dr. Tarek Rakha did his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Cairo University. He started his PhD at Harvard Graduate School of Design and then transferred to MIT. After graduation, he worked in top-notch institutions like Rhode Island School of Design, Syracuse University, and Georgia Tech. Currently, he is the director of the Georgia Tech High-Performance Building Lab. During his time at MIT, he was pretty active in the Egyptian community, and he was the president of the Egyptian Student Association.

Dr. Ayman Ismail has more degrees than I can keep track of. He did a bachelor’s in Construction Engineering at the American University in Cairo (AUC) graduating 1995. In the same year, he started an MBA also in AUC and graduated in 1997. Then he did a master’s in MIT in City Planning. graduating 1999. For the following six years, he worked as a consultant in McKinsey, and then the world bank. He then went back to MIT, but this time, for a PhD in International Economic Development. 
Few years later he decided to go back to his hometown, Cairo. Today, he is the Abdul Latif Jameel Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship and the founding director of AUC Venture Lab, and he is a co-founder, angel investor, or board member, of several fast-growing startups in fintech, microfinance, and logistics. 
In 2012, he was selected as a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In this Episode, Daniella Maamari talks about her journey living in different countries, working in two jobs simultaneously and maintaining deep connections with home regardless the distance.
Daniella spent her childhood between Lebanon, Canada and Saudi Arabia. After finishing her Bachelor’s degree in the Lebanese American University, she joined MIT in 2017 to pursue her Master’s and graduated right before the quarantine. Our guest likes to do many things at the same time. During her time at MIT, she visited five countries in relation to her work. 
Since her graduation, she worked as a researcher at MIT, and now she is the lead researcher in the MIT Future Hertiage Lab. Simultaneously, she is also working Full-time at Urban Designer in Canada. As a proud Lebanese, she was active in the Lebanese community in Boston. Even a few months after her graduation, she helped to organize the MIT Lebanon challenge. And when the devastating explosion took place in August 2020, she wrote a letter to the MIT community to spread awareness and help raise money for Beirut.

Our guest today did his bachelor’s of Engineering in Algeria. Then he went to Sorbonne University in Paris to pursue his master’s and PhD. He then joined MIT as a post-doc in Computer Science where he worked in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. He studied compilers for high-performance computing. Now he serves as an Assistant Professor at New York University Abu Dhabi. Meaning he lived in four countries on four continents! He is enthusiastic about giving back to the Algerian community by sharing his experience of studying abroad. In this episode, he will share invaluable career advice, in addition to some insight into his travel adventures.

Ahla w sahla, We're back! UnliMITed is returning with another season, this time featuring an episode in Arabic! Tune in on Tuesday, November 9th, to catch the first of these amazing interviews on your favorite podcasting app. Hosted by our very own Omar Obeya!

The Pi series is back with another incredible student, Zaina Moussa SB'21, who shows us just how many resources exist on campus. From the equalizing Pass/No Record system in place during freshman year and the student-run hands-on culture on campus to the amazing research opportunities and travel experiences available for students, there is so much to do when you're a student at MIT. Tune in to learn more about Zaina's experience and what life is like on campus!