Viaka Newsletter: An entrepreneur passionate about decentralization and MENA!
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Hi everyone! This week, we’re showcasing another member of Viaka’s Network: Juana Attieh. Juana has awesome experiences and is a great member of the Network!
Linkedin: Juana Attieh
What do you currently do?
I’m the co-founder and CPO at FLUUS.
FLUUS offers an aggregation of global crypto ramping, swapping, decentralized trading services and FLUUS Pay, a cash & mobile money ramping service. All under an easy to use SDK, widget and APIs.
I also co founded the cardano MENA community, the MENA Town Hall as well as LALKUL, a mission-driven Cardano Stake pool. I am passionate about decentralized governance and work with a couple DAOs.
What prompted you to go down this career path and how did you get into this field?
I have a degree in Management Engineering from the University of Waterloo and worked as a product manager at a SaaS company that had a crypto payment gateway for 2 years. After learning about the technology and discovering all of its use cases and disruptive possibilities, I got hooked.
What originally got you interested in connecting with the MENA startup ecosystem and other like-minded folks here in North America?
Web3 is all about community and as I am building solutions for the MENA region, I want to connect with more like-minded individuals interested in what this technology could mean for our region and beyond.
What types of connections are you looking to make through Viaka? This can be from the MENA side, as well as with other MENA-connected folks in the Viaka Network
I hope to connect with more individuals building in the space or are interested in venturing into the space. We are currently raising for our private sale at FLUUS and are looking for strategic partners to join our ecosystem, either as investors or businesses. I also hope to expand my network and grow our MENA community in order to collectively contribute to this new world of decentralization.
Where will that take you?
All that I have done in the space started as a passion project and remains to be fully out of curiosity and interest. With FLUUS, we hope to bring about inclusion, onboard the next billion users into web3, and make crypto services accessible for everyone.
With everything else, I hope to continuously build meaningful relationships, grow our community, provide opportunities and contribute greatly towards reimagining the broken societies and bad governance that currently exist.
Bonus: favorite dish from the MENA world?
MANSAF
Promising Opportunities from Our Partners
New opportunities added in January 2023:
Vbout is looking for expert advice on refining its B2B growth strategy and selling add-ons to its existing user base
YallaPlay is looking for expert advice on setting up a scalable employee incentive program and exploring the possibility of a rebrand to better address global markets.
Click on the button below to see all current opportunities & get involved:
Exciting Announcements From Our Network
Below is a list of updates, wins, and asks emanating from members of the Viaka Network in the “West.”
The Al-Kindi Club (founded by Network members Nafez Dakkak and Layth Al-Qattan) will be hosting its next event on 17 January in London. The event features medical expert and serial entrepreneur Dr. Adam Bataineh! Check out more here.
Capifly is looking for someone to join them as a CTO! They seek a person who is passionate about the future of alternative finance in MENA. See more about the job here.
Viaka is organizing more coffee chats for members this month. We'll introduce you to another Viaka Network member for a 30-minute meeting. You must be a member to attend, so sign up below!
More Viaka events are already planned for 2023! Join the Network to get involved with our monthly coffee chats, demo days, and upcoming in-person meetups.
If you’re a member of our Network and would like to share your own update next week, email info.viaka@gmail.com or submit an update via this form.
Read of the Week
Viaka has launched a Network Reading List, where Network members are encouraged to submit media suggestions of their own.
Our suggested read this week is this piece from Timothy Motte’s “The Realistic Optimist” on the complex difficulties facing Lebanon’s startup ecosystem.
That’s it for this week. Thank you!
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