Startups Without Borders Podcast

Mar 18 2024 10
Startups Without Borders Podcast artwork

The Startups Without Borders Podcast is a business interview show that uncovers the unspoken lessons of some of the world’s most audacious risk-takers: migrant entrepreneurs.

Each week, we will dig into the different aspects and mindset behind building a startup, as told by industry leaders, brave change makers and bold disruptors with one thing in common: they are refugees and migrants.

From the Middle East, to Europe and beyond, the show will focus on concrete, tangible strategies and tactics for entrepreneurs, from productivity tips, to business hacks, to industry insights, as told through the inspiring journey of entrepreneurs on the move.

The show is hosted by Valentina Primo, an Argentine journalist and the founder of Startups Without Borders, who spent 6 years in Egypt interviewing startup founders across the Middle East, and fell in love with the relentless, unstoppable spirit of its entrepreneurs. Valentina previously launched Startup Scene Middle East, Egypt’s largest English-language publication on the entrepreneurial landscape, and has covered stories for international outlets, including BBC Business.

Photo Credit: Ahmed Najeeb.
Music: Funky Music ( Vlog Music ) by Dj Quads https://soundcloud.com/aka-dj-quads
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/7y1mi7ggtt0

RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


42. How I Became a Startup Founder, Refugee, and Norwegian Woman of the Year, all at Once

Mar 18 2024 33 mins  
Maria Amelie is the co-founder of Factiverse, an AI-startup that automates fact-checking and research with AI and NLP, which recently raised 1 million euro in private and soft funding.Maria, who had to leave her home country of Russia in 2002, became the center of a political controversy when she was arrested after a speaking engagement and denied asylum, only a year after she was

41. I was fired and started my own business: This is how I took the leap of faith, with Bibi de Vetter

Feb 19 2024 28 mins  
Born and raised in Cameroon, Bibi de Vetter has been based in The Netherlands for over 17 years. As the founder of Startup Investments, she hosts private events to help early-stage startups raise capital and to find the resources they need to achieve their full potential.Bibi's life took a turn when she was let go of her corporate job. But instead of letting that event become an ob

40. From the US Senate to IBM, here's how I made change happen - with Rana Novack

Jan 08 2024 33 mins  
Rana is a Syrian American advocate for refugees and civilians in conflict, and the solution owner of IBM’s Refugee & Migration Predictive Analytics Solution -- a first-of-a-kind solution, leveraging machine learning and cognitive computing to enable Government agencies and humanitarian aid organizations to better manage refugee and migration crises.She’s been published in t

38. Navigating the Startup VISA across 5 countries - How I started a business in Europe with 5 Euros

Sep 25 2023 35 mins  
Born in Peru, Luis Daniel Maldonado comes from multicultural family origins, in fact, there is Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Nordic and Slavic blood running through his veins!Driven by the need to find his own place and culture while at the same time valuing his ancestors, he moved to the Netherlands in 2016. He engaged in Multidisciplinary archeology expeditions and began researching

36. From a refugee camp, to breaking financials borders, from Afghanistan to Ukraine

Apr 03 2023 44 mins  
Today, I wanted to share one of the top panels from our last Startups Without Borders Summit, which took place in Cairo Business Park last February. In this fascinating conversation, Tey Alrjula, Founder of Fluus Finance, shares how blockchain inspired him to change the ID system through this revolutionary technology. After raising 1.5 million and exiting, he is now on a mission to

35. How I Created an AI Community in the Midst of War, with Hassan Dayoub

Mar 20 2023 28 mins  
Today, we speak to Hasan Dayoub, an award winning entrepreneur, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning engineer who is obsessed with changing the world.Having reached over 20,000 people with his AI Club in Syria, Hassan went on to build FutureLaby, a startup that uses Augmented Reality to help dentistry students. In this episode, Hassan shares the story of how he stepped up t

34. My journey to Finding Purpose, from Nigeria to Spain

Apr 26 2022 38 mins  
Today, we speak to Jane Oma, the protagonist of an inspiring tale. The President of Upside Africa and a Leadership Coach, Jane arrived in Spain with nothing but a strong desire to search for purpose.Today, Jane is an advisor at the Geneva Business School and the founder of The Mother Eagle Mentoring Academy, a platform that provides mentoring for African women and youth.In this int

33. Behind the Scenes of Building an Impactful Business for Dubai's Migrants

Apr 11 2022 39 mins  
Spandana Palaypu was only 20 years old when she started her social startup, ZoEasy. Having moved from India to Dubai at 6 years old, she experienced the richness of cultural diversity first-hand. However, she soon realized it was not the same for everyone. Inspired by the heart-wrenching stories of blue-collar workers she met in the UAE, she decided to build a business that support

32. 5 Tips to Navigate SIlicon Valley When you Feel You Don’t Fit In

Mar 28 2022 28 mins  
​In episode 32, we meet Min Chen, an entrepreneur who has lived the entrepreneur's life since she was 4, when her parents moved to migrate from China to Panama with only $800 in their pocket. Min knows what it means to start over and then lose everything all over again, as it happened when the US invaded to Panama in 1989. But her unstoppable hard work earned her a Fulbright scho

31. 5 Things you need to know about the US Startup Visa

Mar 14 2022 34 mins  
Becoming an immigration attorney wasn’t in Tahmina’s plan. But ten years after moving to the USA, she was at the epicentre of the fight for the Startup Visa bill, to support entrepreneurs who were not allowed back into the US. When the Muslim Ban was signed, she became a warrior for change, advocating for the Startup Visa Bill and later writing “Legal Heroes in the Trump era,