Wind of Change

This year, the MEDICA Exhibition and conference that was held in Dusseldorf, Germany from 14 – 17 November, was even bigger than ever !!! There were new companies in different medical applications.

I had a quite successful time there this year. All the proactively planned appointments were met, most of it yielded a very positive outcome. I need here to comment on a couple of issues:

First would be GENICON. This company is amazing, I always wondered why but when I met with the senior management team, I can tell it’s now very clear to me. Starting from my friend Dr. Refaat, the optimistic man, passing by Aurthur, the right man for customer relationship, Carolyn, the connector and Darrel, the engineering man behind all the innovation. Of particular focus to me is the man behind all that, Gary, the founder and president of the company. As we all went to the extraordinary reception at the house of the American counsellor in Dusseldorf and besides all the welcoming and excellent food, a 15 minutes talk from Gary was really the climax of that event. I can clearly show a clear vision, determinant leadership and customer focused behaviour for both internal and external customers. No wonder if you did not hear about GENICON tell now, you will surely hear a lot about it in the near future.

 The other thing that I want to mention is how happy I was to meet my MBA classmate Florian, even if for a short of time, as well as our friend Jose Luis from Solex. I was really astonished by the Latin American advancement in technology. When they introduced me to an imaging Brazilian company, I told the responsible lady, her name is Iara, that all what we know in the Middle East about Brazil is the Soccer team and the Samba carnival !!! She replies by showing me a wonderful range of imaging products that matching the top international standards…..

Lastly after four hectic days, we had to find a way to compensate. After a nice Harira soup, Dr. Refaat and I followed our instincts through Flogher street and we found a SHISHA place where we finally were able to breath our all the tiredness of that trip.

Until next year, thanks Mr. Flogher.

I haven’t been to Cairo much last couple of year but this month I went for a couple of days.

The first thing you notice there is the extreme traffic jams like an endless chain to the extent that most of the people I met or spoke to told me that they avoid going to down town of any of the different districts in Cairo unless it’s an emergency. I also noticed that, as a consequence, people never show up at the pre-settled appointment time which also led to people starting their social activities much later, around 11PM onwards.

 Well, that’s a huge shift in the culture that I was raised in. I remember that I was not allowed to come back home after 11PM, that was only 15 years back and surprisingly , I was not the only one. Most of my friends and colleagues have the same…it was a generation’s common behavior.

 Economical situation is really pressuring people much there. The middle layer of the society, which is the core of any community, is vanishing. This will have a serious impact on the socio-economic demographics of the country in the future. You can still feel the warmth and kindness of the people even though but this time I felt it mixed with tiredness and sometimes misery.

Now as everything is changing over there, the only thing that will always be the same is my passion and deep love to this piece of land with all the drawbacks, the negatives and the problems, it’s was, still and always will be my home land.