Reflections on Mentor/Mentee Lifetime Relationship - Jamal Al-Dabal - February 14, 2020

Globalize Accelerator is a one-week condensed program that makes you live in & learn almost everything about Silicon Valley. It’s organized by a very impressive founder, called Valeriy Galitdkiy. The program brings around 18 global founders, CEOs, consultants & investors & brings the most well-known founders, angel investors, authors & leaders of technology companies to exchange ideas with them about how to grow startups. The team would then visit a large company each afternoon & discuss with its leaders the inner working of how they grew from a startup to a conglomerate; then in each evening visit an accelerator, attend actual founder pitches to investors & in one evening become a panelist with angel investors. Some evenings include participating with panelists of CXOs talking about an important issue in the startup life.

The above is to setup the scene of this post. I attended this program back in November 2019 & one of my mentees, Ahmed Nuaimi attended the following cohort in February 2020. Valeriy knew from Ahmed about the time I worked with him when he was still in high school. I hope you find many interesting ideas & have your own reflections about it.

Valeriy started by a WhatsApp message that got me excited & made me remember my story with Ahmed:

“@Jamal Al-Dabal you are doing an amazing job training entrepreneurs in Saudi - in our current cohort we have extremely capable CEO - Ahmed, who you taught more 1.5 decade ago”

I replied:

“Thanks a lot @Valeriy Galitdkiy for sharing. Ahmed is impressive person who built himself throughout the years. Sooo happy to be his life mentor. The picture was in 2007 in the most respected international competition for high school science & engineering research. It’s an annual competition that started in 1950 in the US. Saudi first participation was in 2007 & that year Ahmed Nuaimi won 2 awards. He was honored by the whole country when he returned with the 2 prizes. Sweeet memories ????”

Valeriy:

“He created the smart shoe for his blind grandfather”

I said:

“Very true. He wanted to be mixed within society & to have the sensors tell him about all the obstacles.”

A whole discussion pursued in our cohort WhatsApp group which made me reflect on this relationship & some lessons about it even further. Here it is:

Thank you all very much for your kindness. Valeriy & your nice comments foreced me to reflect back about Ahmed Nuaimi. I hope you don’t mind this looong piece.

Ahmed is a person I could never stop talking about. He’s quite hardworking, dedicated & persistent. He’s already on his second startup while still less than 30. He worked as a chemical engineer in one of the largest chemical companies. But left after less than 3 years to pursue his passion for innovation. Worked in evaluating patents at a much less salary & at the same time had a startup. Then left after less than 2 years to a well known accelerator then now at a company focusing on product development while building his second startup. He stops to ask me about his next move every time he switches jobs. I’m so confident Ahmed will strike it good one day & I strongly hope attending Globalize would give him this boost. Just before attending Globalize, he asked me a 100 Qs why he would benefit, even though his trip was sponsored by Small & Medium Enterprise Authority in Saudi.

Although his innovation about the smart shoe could be considered normal in innovation, technology & invention circles at the time, he gave it all he got at the age of 16. He started building electronic kits when he was 12. I remember when we started preparing for ISEF (International Science & Engineering Fair), he developed the sensors around the shoe but had no single word written about it. The international competition required written proposals for all their scientific research. We had limited time before going to the international competition. He was in the fourth place in the national competition & many of the team managing the Saudi team had written him off to be a winner. I used to meet with him on a weekly basis & give him assignments to complete his hands on & written research. His English was poor, his understanding of research was poor; yet in less than 2 months, he was able to be ready & was the only Saudi who won the first 2 international prizes I mentioned earlier.

Even before knowing Ahmed, I’ve been friends with his unbelievably supporting father, grandfather & his whole family.

I like to talk about Ahmed as a model of our youth because he never stops learning & always seeks very challenging work over almost guaranteed futures. That is really hard to come by & this is what will make our youth succeed. Best of luck, Ahmed.