Hand Over

I am a civil engineer with more than ten years working experience. I have worked in several fields such as construction, green buildings, environmental consultancy, energy efficiency, energy management and CSR. During my career path, I worked with several international organizations such as the World Bank, UNIDO and UNDP.

In 2015, I launched my startup “Hand Over”, a design and build firm specialized in delivering building solutions that are cost-effective, human-centric and environment-friendly using Earth construction techniques. I am a certified earth builder from the Earth institute in Auroville, India. I was featured on the list of “The 100 most influential Young Arabs under 40 in 2015 & 2016”, created by the Arabian Business magazine. I was awarded the wining prize for the “Women for Resilient Cities” Competition, organized by the World Bank and was granted three fellowships from organizations supporting social entrepreneurship; “Echoing Green”, “Ashoka” and “the DO School” 

Our solutions include offering design and build services that are low cost and environment-friendly. We are committed to reducing the impact of buildings on the environment, creating spaces and buildings that will help unprivileged communities become more developed and empower the local residents and create a real community development approach, we are committed to making buildings more humane and comfortable for the inhabitants.

I believe our work can elevate humanity by making the places they spend most of their days in more humane, healthy and comfortable, by giving them the needed skills and training to know how to build their own places themselves, by making them more aware and educate about the negative impact our buildings do to the environment and how it affects everyone's lives.

The main problems that we are working on are:
- The rapid increase in the prices of the main raw materials for construction such as cement and steel. The cement prices in Egypt has increased exponentially over the last 10 years. 
- The negative contribution of the construction industry on the environment, whether through the carbon emissions or through the energy consumed. The construction and building sector consumes almost 36% of the total energy consumption and contributes to more than 40% of the global carbon emissions. 
- The lack of human centered design approach and the humane designs in the buildings we use and the lack of thermal comfort. 

The factors contributing to these issues are the lack of laws and regulations that would enforce builders, contractors and developers to use local materials or to calculate their emissions and study the life cycle of the buildings and reduce their impact on the environment. 

Anyone who lives in a building or works in a building is affected by this issue. we are mainly focusing on residential, public spaces and commercial spaces. 

We design and build residential, commercial and public spaces using environment-frienldy materials that are cost-effective. We have been adapting the Earth construction techniques since we started. We basically build with Earth materials like sand, mud and gravel. It is an ancient building technique that we are reviving and and enhancing its properties through R&D activities. We use these materials as the main raw materials and we shape them in different forms, whether walls that are called rammed earth walls or bricks that are called Compressed Earth blocks. Beside using natural and local materials in the buildings, we also adapt the passive design techniques to make sure that the building is operating in an environmental way and is using all the natural resources available such as daylight and natural ventilation. 

Our work is addressed to two main sectors; the development sector and the commercial or private sector. For the development we work with NGOs and donor agencies to build buildings that will create development in unprivileged areas. For the commercial track, we work with landowners, farm owners, real-estate developers and developers working in the eco-tourism sector.

Our work is serving two main sectors; the development sector and the commercial sector. For the development sector, our clients are usually the NGOs, local initiative and donor agencies. Our beneficiaries are the local residents and local community members who will benefit from the buildings. we do needs assessment along with the local organizations that we partner with. We adapt the Human centered design approach so the whole process of the design and execution is very participatory, we talk to the community members and leaders, identify the issue and understand their community and their culture and try to finds solutions and always get feedback from them on all our suggestions. During the construction, we hire labors from the community, we teach them our building techniques, and they get paid for the work they are doing. We grantee that they know how to maintain their building and also they gain a new skill that will allow them to have another source of income. As for the commercial sector, we serve niche clients whether residents in new development projects or individual developers. we adapt the same participatory approach in the design process to understand their needs. 

The initial idea came to me when I was studying at the university. I was volunteering in informal settlements with a student activity, I was mainly working with kids and elders, I was helping them study for their school or help elders who can't read or write. It was satisfying and rewarding but with the first visit I went to their homes, I felt I was doing something wrong. I was studying construction and their houses we unsafe and inhumane and can't even be called houses. I felt responsible being a construction engineer and privileged enough to have a roof and a safe house, to do something to them. I was furious I wanted to just go and rebuild the whole area, but back them I was just a student and I couldn't do a lot about it so they idea just kept in the back of my head until I found the convenient opportunity to study it and transform it to a plan and a real project. That's why when I thought of doing my pilot project, I immediately decided that it has to be in the same informal settlement that the idea first came to me. 

I am very passionate about my work because as I said earlier, I feel responsible being an engineer, with privileges and with an education to understand about sustainability and environmental issues. 
I always think of my life as a message a mission and I need to fulfill the objective of it and I have always set the bar high for me. I have to create an impact, I have to leave a legacy. working with informal communities and neglected areas around the country made me even more connected and more responsible that I need to be part of the solution. Knowing all these information about how much the construction sector contributes to the environment made also responsible that I won't be part of the issue but rather part of the solution. 

I studied civil engineering, majored in construction. During my university years, I  volunteered and worked with several student activities and development organizations. When I graduated in the constructions sector for more than two years and then I shifted to environmental consulting to get more knowledge about environmental practices and then worked for International development organizations. 
I believe what makes me well-poisitoned for this position the practical experience I went through before starting the company, the training and capacity building I received from the several fellowships I received (The DO School, Ashoka, Echoing Green) and the incubators and accelerators I admitted (IE business school accelerator, BOOST program, MINT accelerator) The main output I received from these program is the training I received related to leadership and management, also the mentorship I received from mentors from different backgrounds whether technical, management or business. Additionally, I consider myself a fighter, I don't settle until I fulfill and meet my goals, this has been a personal trait since I was young. I am a problem solver by nature and by practice, I believe it is one of the main things I learnt in Engineering school besides being analytical and rational. Other traits like leadership, management, financial management are things that I have learnt by doing and by learning. Another main and important thing is my passion, from the discovery journey that I did in my early career path, made me realize the things I am passionate about and I combined them in one place

In 2015, while we were working on our prototype, we faced a critical challenge that was threatening the continuity of the project. The idea of the prototype was to rebuild a housing unit for a family living in one of the biggest informal settlements in Egypt. We worked on the design for a couple of months with the family members and once the design was finalized, we reached out to the municipality so we can get the official building permits and we realized that we can't issue them for building in an informal settlement, the project was threatened to stop, after designing the unit and after promising the family that they will get a new home. We had to reach out for several officials and talk with the residents until the residents themselves came up with a solution that was accepted by the officials.  Although it wasn't the easiest option, but we had to take the risk. The whole building process in an informal settlement wasn't very smooth, but we knew we will create an impact so we did everything we can to make it happen, included everyone in the process, involved the community and the project was realized

Leadership is one of the main things I have been trying to improve in and lately I have been very aware of its important and I participated in a leadership development program with She Entrepreneur - Sweden. The last period was the a critical period on so many levels, financially and emotionally. I had to be very aware that the team stay motivated and with high spirit, although I myself couldn't be that way all the time. I committed to making weekly meetings with them were we discuss work and non-work related topics. I had one on one meetings with them so they can discuss openly whatever they feeling and if they have any ideas or suggestions. I thought it was a good time to work on their skills and capacity buildings so we organized sessions from experts in our team and experts incur network. We participated in architectural competitions, so they can make good use of the extra time they have and improves their skills and feel challenged. I claim that these efforts had helped a bit in making them better and motivated during this period and now things are almost back to normal

Our work is unique because we are addressing a very rigid sector, the construction sector. We are reviving ancient building techniques and utilizing them for our modern needs. We are creating unique designs and beneficial spaces. The vision for us is to transform and disrupt the construction industry in Egypt, the MENA region and Africa by introducing this sustainable alternative. Also, our business model is unique; we are a registered LLC but we are operating as a social enterprise, where we measure our success by our social and environmental impact.  We reach our Environmental goals by adapting environmental and locally sourced materials in our buildings and by adapting the passive design techniques in our designs. we reduce the carbon footprint of the buildings and the operational energy of the biding during its life cycle. We create our social impact by implementing projects that has a social impact and a development approach in unprivileged communities. We also hire labors from the communities we work in, so we can teach them our building techniques and create an additional source of income and so that they feel the sense of ownership and know how to maintain their buildings. 

The impact that we want to achieve both in our social and commercial track:
- Enhance the quality of life for our different customer segment (low-income communities, developers)
The outcomes are:
- Creating a real community development approach 
The outputs are:
The activities are:
- Designing and building cost-effective and environment-firneldy houses/public spaces/commercial buildings
- Conducting research and development activities to enhance our building techniques 

 

Our current number of direct beneficiaries that we impacted since we started our work: 10,000
The expected number of beneficiaries in one year: 20,000
The expected number of beneficiaries in five years: 100,000

The main barriers that can limit us are:

• Cultural barriers; misconception about our building techniques 
• marketing and publicity; unawareness of the services that we offer 
• Legal and official barriers; not creating laws and regulations to enforce developers and builders to reduce their impact on the environment and use sustainable building options. 

One of the key partners that we work with are our local supporters or NGOs or initiatives that we collaborate with in our development projects. We are currently in partnership with two local organizations and we are also partnering with CSR departments in private sector companies to fund our development projects 

Our main revenue generating stream is our design and build services, we offer them to our clients with 15-20 % profit margin. 

Our main customers are:

• land owners and farm owner
• real estate developers
• developers working in the eco-tourism sector
• NGOs and donor agencies
• CSR arms in private sector companies 

Our secondary revenue stream is delivering training and workshops to young professionals, students. we set a profit margin of 20% on this service

Our main revenue stream comes from our design and build services, the secondary revenue stream is delivering sessions and workshops. We are currently studying adding two new services to our portfolio; consultancy services for builders and developers to consult them on how to make their buildings more energy efficient through simulation and software and the other service is suppling eco-bricks or "Compressed earth blocks" for contractors.  

The revenues we received from our projects are 343K USD and the funds raised through grants, fellowships and awards are 156K USD 

We are currently raising investment funds, equity, for the amount 200-300K USD. We are targeting the third quarter of this year. 

For 2020, our estimated revenues are 99K and our estimated expenses are 98K USD These estimates are made in the case that we weren't able to raise any investment. 

We are applying of this opportunity because earlier this year we have revisited our strategic plan and we identified all the needed efforts to be able to reach to these goals. We are in our growth stage as a company, we want to make use of the achievements we have done in the last years and build on them and double our impact. Referring to the barriers I mentioned earlier, having this financial support will allow us to eliminate some of them. Our plans to utilize the money in these aspects:

• purchasing assists, tools and equipment so we are capable of doing more projects with bigger scale and acquire more market share
• Investing in our team and their capacities so we can also execute more projects 
• Invest in our marketing and PR activities so we can create more awareness and education to young professionals and to decision makers
• invest in our R&D activities to enhance our solutions