Hasoub
From a basement in Ar'ara to a social movement engaging 30,000+ people — Hasoub is the grassroots NGO I founded to pave the way for the next generation of Arab tech entrepreneurs.
The Basement
I have always been fascinated by inventions and inspired by creators. Growing up in Ar’ara, a marginalized village in the northern triangle, my dream was to have a lab at our school where we could invent, experiment, and create things. But that dream seemed too ambitious for where I was. So I found my outlet in front of our family computer in the basement.
Despite my ADHD, I spent hours upon hours creating web pages and graphic designs. The ability and sensation of creating something new of my own was magical. My mom thought I was spending too much time in front of the screen, but she would still bring me tea and za’atar to the basement every day.
In high school, I continued to learn online and create computer programs. I was thrilled when my school decided to buy and use one of them. After high school, I went to the computer science department at the Technion — but ended up dropping out and paving my own alternative way into the tech industry. Hundreds of hours of online courses, tens of meetups and conferences, especially in Tel Aviv. At one of those events, an entrepreneur offered me a job, and I moved to the city.
”Do I Belong?”
Moving to Tel Aviv was transformative. Being among the very first employees of a startup taught me about business and entrepreneurship. But eventually, I started to realize something inside this tech scene: besides being the only Arab at my company, I was almost the only Arab in the room at every event I attended. I was the only one fasting in Ramadan and the one looking for a room to pray in, while others enjoyed their lunch.
On weekends, I would go back to my village, and there — nothing related to tech or entrepreneurship was happening. The gap was staggering. In Tel Aviv, hundreds of startups and tech entities on every street corner. In Wadi Ara where I come from — silence. Arabs constituted 21% of the population but less than 2% of the tech workforce.
The question inside me started to shift. From “Do I belong?” to “Do we belong?”
Why don’t we have more Arab tech entrepreneurs? Why do we lack the daring of creating and bringing something new to the world — especially when, as Arabs and Muslims, we have a proven record of life-changing inventions from the golden ages?
The Real Startup Was Born
Triggered by this, my friend Omar and I decided to do something. We were both working in Tel Aviv and started meeting on weekends, back in the basement, to create our own app. After dozens of meetings and months of hard work, we failed and gave up on the app.
But what came out of this was bigger than the two of us. The real startup was born.
We posted a photo on Facebook. A friend from the village asked if he could sit beside us and learn app development. The next week, he came. The week after, two more friends joined. And in two more weeks, my dad had to take some walls off so we could all fit in — and my mom was now making za’atar in mass production. They were really our true angel investors.
A couple of weeks later, a group of passionate women wanted to join, but they were uncomfortable coming on Fridays and staying overnight. It was important for us to create a space that was welcoming for all, so we moved our meetings to Saturdays.
And now, in the same basement I used to sit in and create alone, there were many of us. This transition between the “I and Me” to the “Us and We” gave us all a sense of belonging, and a community started to form. Sitting there, learning, coding, and creating together, and discussing technology and entrepreneurship in Arabic, felt like we had finally created a space that combined our passions and our identity.
We called that space Hasoub — which in Arabic means “a computer.”
Dozens of people joined every week, some traveling hours to get to the meetings. Friendships, job opportunities, and even families were born out of those gatherings — including my wife Sujud and I.
From the Basement to the Streets
The more we met, the more we realized it was not enough to develop ourselves as a closed group — we should be taking this from the basement up to the streets of our society.
In January 2015, we organized our first public event in Umm al-Fahm. Full house. People from our community, eager to hear about tech and innovation, in Arabic. From Umm al-Fahm, we continued to Nazareth, Baqa al-Gharbiyye, Shefa-‘Amr, and many others. We went to Arab towns and villages, from Arraba in the north to Rahat in the south. We organized events for Arab students on the campuses, including 20 hack nights at the Technion. We even did events in Tel Aviv, the heart of the “startup nation” — and now at those events, I was not the only Arab in the room.
We did not have a plan. But we all shared the same pain of exclusion and the same hope of prosperity. We all believed in our role as the young generation to lead change from within — to impact our own economy, and to bring more people from our society to the tech industry as students, engineers, and most importantly, as entrepreneurs.
We were all volunteers. A true grassroots movement. And thanks to those volunteers, thousands of people in our society got the opportunity to engage with tech and innovation.
Sleeping Behind a Fridge
With Hasoub growing and demanding more time than I could afford, it started to consume me. I was still working at a startup and had just gone back to complete a degree at IDC Herzliya. The small space of passions and identity I had created had turned into a burden. And I collapsed.
I found myself at the junction of hard choices: my personal career path and the job I loved, or Hasoub, that I had created, believed in, and felt responsible for.
I left my job. A week later, I lost my excellence scholarship — and had no way to come up with IDC’s 40,000 shekels tuition. At 23 years old: jobless, financially broken, about to drop out of university again.
Unable to afford an apartment, I moved to my friends’ place in Tel Aviv. Four friends sharing a small apartment near Tel Aviv University. They were generous enough to give me a room. Not exactly a room — we made some space between their fridge and the wall of the kitchen. That space became my room, for the next two years.
What made it even more challenging was the dissonance. From the outside, people saw me attending and organizing big conferences, meeting important people, receiving awards. The photo of me receiving the “Forbes Under 30” award was all over social media. The photo of me having dinner in my room two hours later stayed on my desktop. The dissonance was so big, a Jordanian entrepreneur once emailed asking if I would invest in his company.
But despite everything, with every activity we did at Hasoub, I felt a stronger sense of meaning and fulfillment. And deep inside, I believed that with good intentions and hard work, the world would work out.
And it did. Three days before school started, I gave it one more shot and sent an email to the dean of my communications school. He was aware of our work at Hasoub, and he lent me a hand — I ended up receiving a full scholarship, even better than the one I originally had. And when a 4,000 shekels credit card debt kept me up at night, I stumbled into a VR hackathon, participated, won first prize — a brand new phone with a VR headset — and sold them back in the village that same weekend. For how much? The same 4,000 shekels.
I was lucky. But in most cases, I had to make an effort to meet my luck, and in others, I had to create my own opportunity. I could not find a job flexible enough to balance with Hasoub and my studies, so I created my own social business in 2016 to pay my bills. And at Hasoub, more volunteers took charge — especially one diligent volunteer, Rabea Zioud, who is now our CEO.
What Hasoub Has Become
What started in a basement with two people has grown into a leading social movement and organization that continues to shape the Arab tech ecosystem. Over a decade of building, Hasoub has evolved into a multi-layered institution with three strategic pillars:
Filling the pipeline with potential Arab tech entrepreneurs by building communities around tech-entrepreneurship, and empowering university students and early-stage entrepreneurs with the knowledge, skills, network, and resources they need.
Building the physical and digital spaces needed for innovation inside Arab towns — including the Hasoub Garage, our innovation center and coworking space in Wadi Ara, the first of its kind in the Arab community.
Attracting and training Arab business leaders to invest in the coming generation of tech entrepreneurs — creating a sustainable cycle of investment and mentorship from within the community.
Hasoub Garage — A Childhood Dream Realized
One of our projects at Hasoub took me back to a childhood dream. When I was a kid in Ar’ara, I dreamed of having a lab at my school — a beautiful old building where we could invent, experiment, and create. That building was later abandoned. We converted it into the first tech and innovation center in our area — paving the way for our technologists and entrepreneurs and giving the kids in our village the opportunity we did not have. The grand opening in September 2022 welcomed over 1,200 people from our community and partners. With this, we put ourselves on the map.
Hasoub on Campus
Volunteer-led chapters at the Technion, Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University, Ben-Gurion University, and University of Haifa. Our flagship Campus Startup Cup is a year-long pre-acceleration program — winners have traveled to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress and the 4YFN conference. The Pairs Mentorship Program connects Arab CS students with experienced tech professionals. Multiple cohorts graduated, with mentees landing positions at leading tech companies.
HasoubLabs
Our innovation hub for early-stage entrepreneurs — pre-acceleration programs, upskilling courses (AWS, SAP, Backend Development), a PhD forum for Arab researchers, and AI-focused community programs. Won a prestigious tender from the Israel Innovation Authority.
HasoubAngels
The Arab Angels Club — training Arab business leaders to become angel investors through an academic program with IDC Herzliya, ecosystem field trips, meetings with VCs, and investment simulations. Also won a tender from the Israel Innovation Authority. Members have actively invested in Arab-founded startups.
The Hasoub Conference
Starting in 2018, our annual conference brings all segments of the community together — students, engineers, entrepreneurs, investors — alongside leaders from the broader tech ecosystem. The first edition in Umm al-Fahm attracted 400+ participants. Speakers have included former Microsoft Israel GM Yoram Yaacovi, USB flash drive inventor Dov Moran, and young Arab startup founders.
The People Behind the Numbers
Numbers are just numbers. What really matters is the people behind them.
- Amru — A graduate of our pre-acceleration program, went on to raise over $1.5M for his startup Stagira
- Reda — Joined us when he was in high school. Today, on the dean’s list of the Technion and working at IBM Research
- Rami — A 20-year-old engineer at IBM Research
- Lina — One of our first volunteers, now doing her master’s in computer engineering — a role model for young women in the community
- Shadi — Joined us in the basement as a kid in middle school. Today works as a full-stack web developer
- Aziz Kaddan — Co-founded MindLift, an Arab startup with offices in Tel Aviv and the US
And many, many others.
The Journey, in Milestones
| Year | |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Founded in a basement in Ar’ara — two friends, one dream |
| 2015 | First public event in Umm al-Fahm. The movement goes public |
| 2017 | Registered as an official non-profit |
| 2018 | First Hasoub Conference — 400+ participants |
| 2019 | Campus Startup Cup launches. TEDx Technion talk |
| 2020 | Hasoub Garage established in Ar’ara |
| 2021 | Arab Angels Club launched |
| 2022 | Hasoub Garage grand opening — 1,200+ attendees. Won two IIA tenders |
| 2023 | HasoubLabs and HasoubAngels launched. German Roadshow with HELMHOLTZ |
Recognition
| Forbes 30 Under 30 | Recognized among the most influential young leaders |
| TEDx Technion | ”Why I Slept Behind a Fridge for Two Years” |
| TheMarker 40 Under 40 | Youngest selected among 40 promising leaders |
| Israel Innovation Authority | Two prestigious tenders won for HasoubLabs and HasoubAngels |
| Ecosystem Report | Co-authored the 2022 Arab Tech Ecosystem Report with the IIA and SNPI |
| DLD Tel Aviv | Represented Arab tech-entrepreneurship at Israel’s premier tech conference |
| Mobile World Congress | Campus Startup Cup winners showcased at MWC Barcelona |
Would I Sleep Behind a Fridge for This?
It is something I use now whenever I am faced with a new adventure, journey, or entrepreneurial initiative. I ask myself: would I sleep behind a fridge for this? Is it worth pursuing?
Because the pursuit is the reward. And our world is full of missing pieces, waiting for all of us to create and fill them up.
Hasoub emerged from a blend of deep-seated pain and resilient hope, with a vision to forge a place where our community could innovate without sacrificing their identity. A place where we all belong. A space where we do not have to sacrifice who we are in order to do what we love.
مجتمع عربي مبادر
An Arab society of entrepreneurs.