Community Letter 06.2022

Dear Friends and family,

How were you, June? For me, June is always about family. We have a little tradition in our family that every year on the 3rd week of June, we celebrate my birthday abroad, usually in turkey. This way, I get the best birthday gift: many opportunities to spend time with my wife and our two-year-old.

This month, I also visited Oman for the first time. Accompanying innovation expert Kaveh Yazdifard and more than ten innovation activists, we had 1500+ minutes of meetings, 4500+ minutes of context observations, and 15+ sessions to find ways to develop our businesses in the country. We discovered that Iranian companies might enjoy Oman's very young startup & innovation ecosystem, Iran-Oman agreements, easy access to the GCC market, and tax-free activities in free zones.

While I was abroad, the fantastic team of TEDxTehran organized our first TEDxTehranSalon event in 2022: Distinct Standpoints in partnership with Digikala. A few years ago, It was just another dream that the team organized a TEDx event without having me on the day of the event. But now, they have such organizational maturity and volunteer inspiration that they do everything without me! Thanks to our team of directors and volunteers, we have unlocked the true for-community by community level!

I also had a good conversation with Peivast about possible investment opportunities. I think nowadays that everything seems a bit shaky in the country from the investor's point of view; having good advice from advisors who have been there from day one and have a good understanding of Iran's dynamics is essential.

Besides the above updates, I tried to continue doing what I do in ERNYKA, Post Bank and MAX Holding.

I'm interested to hear about your journey. What have you done lately? What was interesting for you? What do you think is the next opportunity for you and the people around you?

Looking forward to hearing from you,

My best,

Reza