Stripe is excited to lead
@TeamManara
's seed round. To learn more, see Daliaโs story below. (More women than men study CS in many Middle Eastern countries.)
We're very long technologies and organizations that are enabling global economic opportunity. ๐๐
It's hard enough being a
#startup
founder, let alone having to do so when ur family & engineers are in a war zone. We lost all com with Mohamed Alotol, one of our eng in
#Gaza
, for weeks. Turned out Mohamed was killed by Israel along with his wife Rawand and their 3 children.
โMore! No mercy! IDF donโt stop!โ
Tal Broda is Head of Research Platform at
@OpenAI
which develops ChatGPT. To express concern, politely contact:
๐ง VP of People
diane
@openai
.com
๐ง VP of Global Affairs
amakanju
@openai
.com
๐ Also bring awareness to:
@sama
@satyanadella
Meeting
@paulg
&
@jesslivingston
this morning is a dream coming true. Their articles/books ignited the entrepreneur in me since I was 19 yo & inspired the launch of my first startup in
#Gaza
7 years ago. Thrilled to have shared our progress &vision at
@TeamManara
w/ them today!
An exceptional software developer, Mohammed was passionate about his work and was always striving to become a world-class engineer. Despite the challenges of living and working in a war zone, he continued to learn, and practice his craft.
@paulg
Just like Dalia, I went to school in
#Gaza
& became a senior SWE in the Valley. I like to joke that the hardest part wasnโt escaping Gaza in the middle of a war, but rather, my first interviews... which I totally bombed!๐ This is why
@ilianamontauk
& I launched
@TeamManara
.
Screenshot from engineer in our community in Gaza, Wesam. While studying under relentless bombing in the North (& pregnant!), she found an error in "Data Structures & Algorithms in Dart," and ensured to notify the authors & contribute to its next version.
@FlutterDev
@Suragch1
I havenโt been able to get in touch with my family for more than 24 hours now. Your tax money is funding this massacre. If youโre not speaking up against Israelโs state terror, what the fuck are you doing?! We will never forgive.
7 years ago, I brought myself to this country as a student. It wasnโt a smooth ride since then. I had to leave the US 40 days ago not knowing if Iโll manage to come back. Today, I land in the US a permanent resident on an โadvanced degree & exceptional abilitiesโ basis! :)
#proud
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Other bread-baking attempts shared by the
@TeamManara
community in
#Gaza
. Families, like mine, had access to no fuel for days now and access to bread is extremely limited.
10 years ago, I managed to get a team from
#Microsoft
#Redmond
to
#Gaza
, a city under siege, to conduct an event at my university. There were literally a couple of Israeli air strikes on
#Gaza
few days prior and we still pulled it off.
Meet the stars of our June 2022 digital cover:
@teammanara
co-founders
@ilianamontauk
and
@laila_abudahi
! Their SiliconValley-based startup aims to diversify the global tech sector, while also elevating the economies of the MENA region:
My aunt was killed in
#Gaza
this week. I havenโt seen her in 9 years and will never do. Her medications ran out and she couldnโt get the heart surgery she needed months ago thanks to the state terror of
#Israel
. Spare me your prayers and go do something to
#CeaseFireInGaza
NOW!
muslim and arab (especially palestinian) colleagues in the tech community i've spoken with feel uncomfortable speaking about their recent experiences, often out of fear of retaliation and damaged career prospects.
our industry should be united in our support of these colleagues;
Taking a tiny moment to catch breath and celebrate. We're so thrilled and humbled by this ride. It really took a village to get where we are now and this is just the beginning! โค๏ธ๐๐ฝ
#Gaza
#Palestine
On Friday, I plan on leaving the US for the first time in almost 6 years in an attempt to see family. Family who literally just survived a massacre & whom I havenโt seen since I left Gaza 7 years ago.
News of a ceasefire .. Iโm a huge mess right now. Mixed feelings of relief, rage, guilt for being so useless, guilt for leaving family behind, fear for my family, fear of my rage, sick of the news, angry with people not watching enough news .. So exhausted.
#Ramadan
kareem to those observing. Thinking of
@TeamManara
โs engineers who will be graduating/interviewing while fasting 15-hours days every day for the next month - talk about resilience! ๐ช๐ฝ
@Trevornoah
Hi Trevor, I don't usually do this -contacting celebrities- but I've recently read ur book & was deeply touched. It's fascinating how much a mixed kid growing up under apartheid in South Africa & a Palestinian girl growing up in a refugee camp in Gaza have in common.
We are delighted to participate in
@TeamManara
's $3M pre-seed round!
Huge congratulations,
@ilianamontauk
,
@laila_abudahi
, and the team, for your incredible work connecting top Middle East talent to global tech jobs!
Read on ๐๐ฝ
She co-signed my lease when I first moved to the US because nobody would let me rent a room with my nonexistent credit history. Today she accepts a job with Manara. ๐ฅน
Meeting point is a 3rd-party country since I canโt go to
#Gaza
anymore. I donโt have a visa to this country. Iโm not allowed to apply for one. Plan is to show up & hope for the best. Describing this as an emotional rollercoaster is an understatement. Itโs a hurricane of emotions.
Just received this
#endOfYear
recap created by the team
@TeamManara
- TWO MILLIONS in salaries created for engineers in the
#MiddleEast
(remote/relocation)!! The scale & magnitude of Manaraโs impact keeps surprising me every day. This is a year to be proud of! ๐ฅณ
#NewYear2022
@paulg
@ilianamontauk
@TeamManara
@TeamManara
identifies overlooked computer scientists in the Arab/MENA region and teaches them how to interview at global tech companies. We are NOT a zero-to-hero bootcamp. Our referral-to-hire rate
@Google
is 67%. To hire our talent:
So excited for the first ever
@TeamManara
swag! Canโt wait for our volunteers & alumni to receive theirs too in the next few weeks ๐๐ฅณ๐ต๐ธ Special thanks to
@aliglenesk
for getting us this cozy just in time for the holidays! ๐
If you know me well enough, youโd know how much I hate NGOs especially the ones operating in Palestine. They did more harm than good in Gaza and they help nobody but their staff. PCRF is the one exception to that rule. If you want to donate, donate to the PCRF.
๐ฏ -
@garrytan
and YCโs response to the well-documented ongoing genocide in
#Gaza
is a disgrace to say the least. Never felt more alienated as a Palestinian founder in SV as much as I do today!
Donating to
@UNRWA
isnโt optional anymore. Itโs a must.
UNRWA isnโt just another nonprofit that helps Palestinians. Itโs THE defacto ministry of health, ministry of education and food bank for millions of Palestinians around the world but especially those in Gaza. (1)
A stranger agreed to refer me to Google 7 y ago when I 1st moved to the US w/ no network. That was a pivotal moment in my career& made me believe I can make it here. I later joined Nvidia & started Manara to pay it forward. Philippe is a new Manara mentor now. Itโs a full circle!
@Trevornoah
I moved to the US on a
@FulbrightPrgrm
. Now I'm a SW engineer in Silicon Valley. This refugee-camp girl, despite her bold sense of fashion since 1990๐, had no chance in hell of making it this far w/out the fishing rod & resources that Fulbright made available for her
If you can build a startup in
#Gaza
and survive for a year, building in SF is a walk on the beach. An awfully long one but still! ๐๐ปโโ๏ธ
#SelfPepTalk
Last week, I participated in a panel organized by
@unrwausa
on the future of digital economy in Gaza. As a
#Palestinian
refugee born in a refugee camp in
#Gaza
, this was so speaci and hit close to my heart! Hereโs why:๐งต๐
Did you know that more
#women
study
#CS
in the
#Arab
world than men? Today, a very special day for us
@TeamManara
, we launched our 1st ever entirely-women cohort! Weโre happy to welcome aboard 30 AMAZING Arab female software engineers - so excited!
Gotta love the tech/startup community here in
#MENA
- we found a venue for our Meetup in
#dubai
thanks to
@aahamdz
โค๏ธ๐ Come say hi if youโre in town
Facebook is reminding me of this memory 6 yrs ago in
#Gaza
. Sad this will always be โmy craziest
#birthday
memoryโ but so lucky to have survived it. I managed to move to the
#US
on a
@FulbrightPrgrm
scholarship a few weeks later & my life was never the same since then!
#Grateful
After 3 weeks of carpet bombing a caged population of millions while cutting off water, electricity, food & medicine, Israel has severed all telecommunications. Now they can commit genocide without the annoyance of their victims telling the world about it
Find yourself a cofounder who gets you the best birthday gifts ever and drives all the way from Berkeley to deliver them in person ๐ Love you
@ilianamontauk
ppl say that starting a company is lonely but I've been fortunate enough to do it with
@ilianamontauk
. Never a dull moment with this woman & her contagious energy! She's been out sick for a week now & all I can think abt is: how the hell do solo founders survive this shit alone?
1) Status quo: occupation/apartheid is violence against Palestinians
2) Then Israel escalates through evictions/beatings/shootings
3) Then some Palestinians respond w/violence
4) Then Israel "responds" w/massacres
If u start reporting at
#3
, you're misleading your audience.
I want to write a book about millennial Gazans in the diaspora; basically following my Gaza childhood & high-school friends (who got themselves out of Gaza in the last 10 years) & tell their stories. How does book publishing work? Any particular publishers I should reach out to?
In February, Dalia Awad shared her amazing story on Medium. And last week she arrived in Bonn, Germany to start her internship at Google! ๐งก ๐ฉ๐ช ๐ต๐ธ
No shortage of stories like Dana's at
@TeamManara
. This one is special though. Dana didn't want to have to relocate for work. She was able to land a remote job at
@codecov
, SF-based startup, and make 300% the salary she was offered locally! :)
#Palestine
#womenInTech
Every time I talked to my mom in the last 10 days, she was always strong with a confusingly great spirit. She kept cheering me up by making up the most random shit to talk abt to reassure me everything is ok even though I could literally hear the airstrikes in the background.
Thank you
@amasad
for the nomination.
@laila_abudahi
's story from Gaza to founding a
@ycombinator
-backed company as an immigrant shows sheer grit and resilience. Today, we're celebrating her work. Read her story:
#iamimmigrant
Did you know there are more women graduating from Computer Science in
#Palestine
than men? 52% to 48%. Compare that to the US, where 18% of CS bachelor's degrees are earned by women.
@IShenfeld
@paulg
@BubbaCasella
@ilianamontauk
Oh wow - sometimes I forget how powerful the Israeli propaganda is and how brainwashing works even on smart people. There is no safe corridors by the Israeli army, Inbal. They told 1.1 million ppl to move south then bombed them on the way when they tried to do so.
I woke up today remembering the 2014 war; specifically my neighborโs 3-story house that was wiped out by an airstrike in a split second. My heart is heavy with
#Gaza
these days..
Super excited about this! We are now accepting applications from female software engineers in any country in the Arab world; prioritizing Palestine & Lebanon. If you know a GREAT software engineer in the region, please encourage her to apply!
#Palestine
#Lebanon
#software
#tech
[ All levels of experience are welcomed ]
APPLY NOW for Manara's "Passing the coding interview" remote program; Women's Edition. Join our great community of women in Tech and let us help you unleash your true potential -->
Remembering my first job interview in the US today. The interviewer asked me the typical behavioural interview question: โTell me about a time when youโve overcome a hard challengeโ. (1/4)
In awe to see one of our
#Gaza
participants attend our training on
@zoom
AND turn in his homework on time! He's determined to be ready for internship interviews
@Facebook
@Google
@amazon
@stripe
in August before headcount expires. INCREDIBLE resilience ๐ช๐ฝ ๐จ๐ฝโ๐ป๐ฆธ๐ฝโโ๏ธ
How does the US continue to support this apartheid state???!! How are we letting this to continue to happen on our watch?! Call your representative PLEASE!!!
How canโt you fall in love with Hend?
Hend is a Manara alumni and a TA for the current Manara S21 cohort. Hend is in Gaza right now being bombed by
#Israel
. Save this amazing human and call your representative today!
โWhat Manara brought to Palestine is to make people believe that they can actually get jobs at Meta and Google. Before 3 years, no one in Palestine would believe that anyone can ever get jobs in big tech companies.โ
@TeamManara