Step Podcast Step

Technology has the potential to transform travel in the Middle East, focusing on personalization, sustainability, and cultural experiences. Mia Jafari, Mamoun Hmedan, and Nadim Nagui discuss how FinTech, AI, and business intelligence enhance travel, build digital trust, and drive the shift towards remote work and aspirational travel.
 
_____________________
 
HIGHLIGHTS
 
(0:20) Improving Travel in Dubai with Technology
(5:27) Personalization in Travel(8:57) Sustainable Travel Practices
(13:58) Cultural Tourism in the Middle East
(20:26) Building Trust in the Travel Industry
 
_____________________
 
QUOTES
 
"This is where we fit in with our ownership model for people who like to visit specific destinations frequently throughout the year." 
"We enable users globally to shop for flights and hotels deals through different partnerships we develop with airlines, online travel agencies, and accommodation providers." 
"Property ownership, by definition, is something that is very complex, and we're trying to simplify this, looking at it from two angles: the investment and the element of property management." 
"We make this journey extremely seamless from beginning to end." 
"We're trying to store data within our data management platforms and create categories for solo travellers versus families, business trips versus leisure, domestic versus International." 
"Personalization for us is about personalizing the booking system experience for our customers based on their behaviour and based on the input that we get from them." 
"We started now introducing digital frames, where you can upload a library of your own photos that are going to enhance the experience and make it feel more homey." 
"The key success of the alternative accommodation at some point was catering to the behaviour of the consumers during that time." 
"We try to put sustainable behaviours within the workspace and are looking to find the right partners by each market to provide sustainable travel options." 
"Trust has been for us a priority since inception, not just because we are a new company but mainly because we are offering a new concept."
 
_____________________
 

If you’re enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to Step Podcast and leave us a review!
Spotify → https://spoti.fi/3LIG8wj
Apple Podcasts → https://apple.co/3PxIXU5
Anghami → https://bit.ly/3lDKxG4

Digital transformation is playing a crucial role in enhancing accessibility and inclusion across various sectors globally. Anna Tutova, Deepak Gupta, Maria Paula Oliveira, and Sarah Toukan discussed the rise of digital payments and mobile wallets in fostering financial inclusion in developing countries, highlighting ease of account access, instant access needs, security, reliability, and successful initiatives, as well as the potential of facial recognition payment technology.
 
Sign up for Step events https://stepconference.com/
Subscribe now to the Step Feed newsletter for a daily roundup of the top tech business news https://subscribe.stepfeed.com/
 
_____________________
 
HIGHLIGHTS
 
 
(4:23) Mobile Wallets Driving Financial Inclusion
(12:24) Adoption Boost: Easy Signup, Security, and No Minimum Balance
(17:15) Expanding Digital Wallets: Government, Telecom, and Payment Provider Partnerships
(18:50) Emerging Markets Leading in Digital Wallet Innovation
(21:43) Real-Time Payments and Cross-Border Transactions Driving Adoption
 
_____________________
 
QUOTES
 
"For any retailers, ecommerce players who want to provide the very best user experience and payment experience, they have to be offering digital payments via digital wallets and of course via payments gateway."
"When you live in a society where you don't have that kind of reality, you're excluded from the modern world."
"It is really, it goes beyond just buying things, it's really a means of including people in modernity."
"I think it's a very beautiful innovation which enables the user in order to do the transaction in the easiest of the manner."
"Security is of the utmost importance."
"So people have grown accustomed to getting instant access. And this is just as important in the FinTech space."
"Necessity is the mother of all invention."
“It's interesting. It's really bringing access to financial services in order to enable people to improve their standard of living start to save for their families.”
"When we say that digital inclusion in terms of number of transaction, the India journey is very delightful if you see within the Asia pack."
 
_____________________
 
If you’re enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to Step Podcast and leave us a review!
Spotify → https://spoti.fi/3LIG8wj
Apple Podcasts → https://apple.co/3PxIXU5
Anghami → https://bit.ly/3lDKxG4

Effective content strategy and repurposing are essential for engaging diverse brands and audiences. Mamta Varerkar, Anastasiya Golovatenko, Riham Essam, and Jen Blandos emphasized understanding the client's audience, collaborating in content creation, tailoring content, utilizing AI tools, leveraging influencer marketing, and repurposing long-form content.
 
Sign up for Step events https://stepconference.com/
Subscribe now to the Step Feed newsletter for a daily roundup of the top tech business news https://subscribe.stepfeed.com/
 
_____________________
 
HIGHLIGHTS
 
(0:20) Content Strategy and Repurposing (3:44) Performance and Experimentation (10:44) AI and Data in Content Creation (17:26) Collaborations in Content Creation (21:49) Influencer Marketing and Repurposing Tools
 
_____________________
 
QUOTES
 
"When it comes to content production, you need to understand the business, and what I always say is you need to start from the planning stage."
“We depend on what we call in our industry evergreen content – content that can be published and circulated anytime, any day whenever you need it to be.”
“One thing that's really important when you are looking at your content is that you need to talk to the people who are going to buy from you, who you want to know, like, and trust you.”
"Data tells you if your content is working, if it's not working, if it's relevant, or irrelevant to your audiences."
"We use a lot of AI tools to be able to repurpose content because people forget what they saw from you yesterday, let alone a month or two months ago."
“One piece of advice: Google your business and Google yourself. This is where your journey for content creation should start.”
"Influencer marketing is an area where brands need to invest in, explore, and learn, but it starts with planning and finding the right influencers for your campaigns."
“We use a lot of tools, but I think it's also important to be organized. If you have a system behind everything, it makes it so much easier to repurpose content.”
“If you are managing a lot of content, it's important to be organized because if you have a system behind everything, it makes it so much easier to be able to repurpose things.”
 
_____________________
 
If you’re enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to Step Podcast and leave us a review! Spotify → https://spoti.fi/3LIG8wj
Apple Podcasts → https://apple.co/3PxIXU5
Anghami → https://bit.ly/3lDKxG4

Mario Nawfal discusses his transition from cryptocurrency to geopolitics, detailing how his content strategy supports his business ventures. He also highlights the potential of web3 gaming and the metaverse, defends his approach to controversial figures, and expresses aspirations for facilitating global dialogues.
 
Sign up for Step events https://stepconference.com/
Subscribe now to the Step Feed newsletter for a daily roundup of the top tech business news https://subscribe.stepfeed.com/
 
_____________________
 
HIGHLIGHTS
 
(0:20) Social Media Reach and Crypto Incubation(4:08) Citizen Journalism and Finance Sources(8:00) Elon Musk's Support and Controversial Interviews(12:49) Crypto Show's Diverse Audience(17:17) Media Impact and Addressing Controversy(21:40) Crypto, Gaming, and Web3 Opportunities
 
_____________________
 
QUOTES
 
“The numbers speak for themselves. The reach, whenever there's breaking news, people are starting to come to X.”
"We're unfiltered. We're leveraging what Elon has built by being able to post anything and not worrying about repercussions."
"Whenever we invest in a project, they want us to post about them, do a space about them. We get great allocations in projects we invest in on a regular basis."
"My end goal is to be able to have people like Putin and Zelensky on stage together. I'm getting close to it.""I don't think anyone in the audience, unless you have reached, really understands how aggressive cancel culture has become."
"I've kind of gone beyond the stage of money. So I'm pretty grateful that the incubator is doing really well. And we've done well, even before the show."
"Having an impact on the world. This is kind of more of a personal goal that I have."
"When you own your assets, when you add the concept of ownership in those games, you it just opens up a world of opportunities."
 
_____________________
 
If you’re enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to Step Podcast and leave us a review!
Spotify → https://spoti.fi/3LIG8wj
Apple Podcasts → https://apple.co/3PxIXU5
Anghami → https://bit.ly/3lDKxG4
 

In a discussion on the ethical implications of AI algorithms, Alnura Belyalova, Karim Tout, Sandra Helou, Maryam Al Ansari, and Andrea Ronchi deliberate on the potential biases inherent in automated decision-making systems and strategies to mitigate them.

Sign up for Step events https://stepconference.com/
Subscribe now to the Step Feed newsletter for a daily roundup of the top tech business news https://subscribe.stepfeed.com/

_____________________

HIGHLIGHTS

(0:20) Privacy Concerns in AI Ethics
(4:39) Ethical Considerations of AI Bias
(8:35) Bias in Data Collection for AI
(17:39) Tech Industry: AI Ethics and Bias
(23:55) Impact of AI Bias on Businesses
(29:34) AI Purpose and Bias

_____________________


QUOTES

"So realizing that, first of all, it's not as safe as you think it is. You don't have a say in this, you can't really say no, you can't use why information to make the process better, or use it to make the processes better."
"What we need to have is awareness and spread this awareness amongst each other who don't know much about the fact that startups or other companies can access your information."
"Bias is not always bad depends on the application itself and the objective."
"It's impossible to not have any bias, it's impossible to be fully objective, there's always subjectivity, and we cannot be random."
"If I use predictive models to make a prescription that are making the real discriminations between potential usual users, that's where you don't allow the freewill of the user to enter into places."
"It actually depends because there's two different types of bias, right? There's bias, which is very kind of totally right."
"But there are different levels of bias and how it actually gets applied, and what happens to it."
"The whole model AI model design and dataset design and feature engineering should fit well with the objective that I'm trying to achieve."
"You need to safeguard the other people that are around there, you know, when you're building an online world, a virtual world that's accessible by multiple people."
"So focus on the dataset, make sure the dataset is good quality, not biased, and you'll get a good AI system."

_____________________

If you’re enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to Step Podcast and leave us a review!
Spotify → https://spoti.fi/3LIG8wj
Apple Podcasts → https://apple.co/3PxIXU5
Anghami → https://bit.ly/3lDKxG4

Discussing budget allocation, Juliette Nicholls, Bassem Saber, and Abeer Raza share insights on smart spending and engaging customers, providing practical advice for maximizing marketing impact.
Sign up for Step events https://stepconference.com/
Subscribe now to the Step Feed newsletter for a daily roundup of the top tech & business news https://subscribe.stepfeed.com/
_____________________
HIGHLIGHTS
(0:20) Smart Budget Allocation and Data Analytics
(5:09) Effective Budget Strategies for Small Businesses
(12:09) Harnessing Data Analytics for Growth
(17:41) Maximizing Marketing Budgets for Small Businesses
(22:59) Digital Marketing Tactics for Small Businesses
_____________________
QUOTES
"Budget allocation is a critical factor in scalability. I've kind of went through all the cycles where you have little or no budget to allocate, and it's not something that you think about to where you have millions of dollars that you have to allocate in a span of one year."
"People that are super focused on data, they're way more successful. They allocate their budgets way better."
"Define your first look at your competitors, right, like you look at what your competitors are spending on. And understand, you know, what the metrics look like."
"Big brands, you know, they have approval processes, they have committees, they have a lot of hassle when they have to implement changes. Smaller businesses, they can A/B test in a matter of minutes."
"Data is super important. But in order for you to measure data, you need to set the right KPIs, the right metrics in place to measure it, and then act on it based on assumptions that you've created through hypotheses or trend analysis."
"We've all been there where we've exhausted hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad spend and got nothing out of it. You have to set the hypothesis right upfront."
"It's things like these tactics that allow small businesses to scale drastically in markets that are overlooked by big businesses. And that is what makes entrepreneurs brilliant."
"Understanding user behavior through data analytics and AB testing helps in making informed decisions for budget allocation."
"I think it's critical when you define your metrics well, when you define your ROI well, to realize how you scale and what your acquisition cost is."
"One of the biggest mistakes that most small businesses make when they're scaling is looking at setting the right metrics in place."
_____________________
If you’re enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to Step Podcast and leave us a review!
Spotify → https://spoti.fi/3LIG8wj
Apple Podcasts → https://apple.co/3PxIXU5
Anghami → https://bit.ly/3lDKxG4