Why I slept behind a fridge for two years | Hasan Abo-Shally | TEDxTechnion

Hasan Abo-Shally talks about pursuing a meaningful journey, finding belonging, leaving the default path, creating opportunity, building communities and leading social change from within. He also talks about how you just might need to sleep behind a refrigerator to reach your goal. Hasan is an impact-driven, multidisciplinary social entrepreneur, a designer of experiences, and a technologist. He taught himself software development at a young age, sold his first application while in high school, and has worked for several tech startups.

In 2014, Hasan founded “Hasoub," a grassroots NGO, fostering tech entrepreneurship as an economic lever for the local Arab society. In 2016, he founded “Ibtekar,” a socio-educational venture promoting technological innovation among kids and youth from underprivileged backgrounds.

Hasan Abo-Shally is a Forbes Under 30 honoree (2017), a Stanford AMENDS fellow, a OneYoungWorld ambassador, and the youngest among TheMarker’s 2018 list of “40 Under 40” promising youth in Israel. Hasan has a degree in interactive media from IDC-Herzliya (with full scholarship) and served on the research team of its Media Innovation Lab (miLAB). Currently, he is leading strategy and innovation at Hasoub and pursuing an MBA in Technion’s Startup MBA program.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

I've been always fascinated by inventions

and inspired by creators.

Back in school,

my dream was to have
a lab at our school

where we could invent, experiment,

and create things.

But growing up in Ar'ara,

a marginalized village
in the northern triangle,

and having this beautiful
old building as my school,

my dream seemed a bit too ambitious.

Back then, I found my outlet
in front of our family computer

in the basement.

It was back then when I first was exposed
to coding and graphic design,

and despite my ADHD, I was spending
hours upon hours in the basement

creating web pages and graphic designs.

The ability and sensation of creating
something new of my own was magical.

My mom, she thought I was spending
too much time in front of the screen,

but she would still bring me tea
and za'atar everyday to the basement.

In high school, I continued to learn
online and create computer programs.

I was so happy and proud of my creations,

especially when my school
decided to buy and use one of them.

And again,

I was thrilled that I could create
something that brings value to people.

After high school, I continued here,

to the computer science
department at the Technion.

But I ended up dropping out,

and paving my own alternative way
into the high-tech industry.

I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours
taking online and offline courses.

I was attending tens and tens
of meetups, conferences, and tech events,

especially in Tel Aviv.

And at one of those events,
I met an entrepreneur

who had just raised money for his startup,

and after some chatting,
he offered me a job,

and I moved to Tel Aviv.

Moving to Tel Aviv was a truly
transformative experience for me.

Besides developing my technical skills,

being among the very
first employees of a startup

taught me a lot about business
and entrepreneurship.

In addition, I was spending
almost every evening

attending nearby technological
and innovation events,

widening my horizons,
and expanding my network.

But eventually,
I started to realize something

inside this tech scene of Tel Aviv:

that besides being the only Arab
at the company I was in,

I was almost the only Arab in the room
at every event I was attending.

I was also the only one fasting in Ramadan

and the one looking for a room to pray in,
while others enjoyed their lunch.

And with this realization,

a question inside me started to form:

"Do I belong?"

On the weekends,
I was going back to my village,

and there, nothing related to tech
or entrepreneurship was happening.

And just to give you
a sense of how big the gap is,

here is a snapshot of the ecosystem
in Tel Aviv back in 2013.

So each blue circle here indicates
the number of startups or tech entities

on that same street or corner.

Hundreds of them.

And here, how it looked in Wadi-Ara

where I come from,
and where my village is.

You hear this?

It's nothing.

And that's exactly what we had.

And now, the question
inside me started to be:

"Do we belong?"

Why don't we have
more Arab tech entrepreneurs?

And why do we lack
the daring and chutzpah

of creating and bringing
something new to the world.

Especially that as Arabs and Muslims,

we have a proven record
of bringing life-changing inventions,

back in the golden ages.

Triggered by this, my friend Omar and I
decided to actually do something.

We were both working in Tel Aviv back then

and decided to start
meeting on the weekends,

back in the basement,

and to create our own app.

After dozens of meetings,
and months of hard work,

we eventually failed

and gave up on our app.

But what came out of this
was bigger than the two of us,

and the real startup was born.

What happened is that we posted
this photo on Facebook.

A friend from the village who saw it
asked if he could sit beside us

and learn app development.

So the next week, he came.

And the week after,
two more friends joined.

And in two more weeks, we got this.

So my dad,

he had to take some walls off
so we could all fit in

and my mom,

she was now making za'atar
in mass production.

(Laughter)

So they were really
our true angel investors.

(Applause)

(Cheers)

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 very important for us to create
a space that's 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 are now many of us.

And 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'd 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 were joining every week,

some even had to travel a couple of hours
to get to the weekly meetings.

Friendships, job opportunities, and even
families were born out of these meetings,

including my wife Sujud and I
from two months ago.

(Applause)

But the more we met,
the more we started to realize

that it's not enough for us to meet
and develop ourselves as a closed group,

but we should rather 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,

and we had a full house
of people from our society,

eager to hear more
about tech and innovation, in Arabic.

And from Umm al-Fahm,

we continued to Nazareth,

Baqa al-Gharbiyye,

Shefa-'Amr,

and many others.

We have been to Arab towns and villages,

from Arraba in the north
to Rahat in the south.

We were also organizing events
for Arab students on the campuses,

including 20 hack nights
here at the Technion.

We even did events in Tel Aviv,
the heart of the "startup nation,"

and now at those events,
I wasn't the only Arab in the room.

Back then, we didn't really have a plan,

but we all shared
the same pain of exclusion

and the same hope of prosperity.

And 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 and to new industries

as students, engineers,

and most importantly, as entrepreneurs.

We were all volunteers,

a true grassroots movement.

And thanks to all of these volunteers,

thousands of people in our society

got the opportunity
to engage with tech and innovation.

To me, this all was a true blessing.

But with Hasoub growing

and having to lead bigger
and bigger activities and events,

it started to consume
much more time than I could afford.

I was still working at a startup,

and I was just back to complete
a degree at IDC in Herzliya.

And it felt like this small space
of passions and identity that I'd created

had turned into a burden.

And I collapsed.

I found myself at the junction
of hard choices,

having to make a choice between my
personal career path and the job I love,

and Hasoub, that I had created,
believe in, and feel responsible for.

And I left my job.

And a week later, as I'm still trying
to figure out how to pay my rent,

I received a notice from school
that I've lost my excellence scholarship,

and I had no way to come up
with IDC's 40,000 shekels tuition.

So here I was, 23 years old,
jobless, financially broken,

and about to drop out of university,

again.

Not being able to afford
an apartment back then,

I moved to live at my
friends' place in Tel Aviv.

They were four friends sharing a small
apartment near Tel Aviv University,

and they were generous enough
to give me a room.

I mean, not exactly a room,

but we made some space between
their fridge and the wall of the kitchen,

and that space became my room,
for the next two years.

And what made it even more challenging
is that from the outside,

all people were seeing is me
attending and organizing big conferences,

meeting important people,
and receiving awards and recognitions.

So for instance, this photo of me
receiving the "Forbes Under 30" award

was all over my social network,

but the one of me having dinner in my room
two hours later stayed on my desktop.

(Laughter)

The dissonance was so big, I once received
an email from a Jordanian entrepreneur

asking if I would invest in his company.

(Laughter)

I was about to invite him over for dinner.

(Laughter)

But back then, and despite everything,

and 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 the school started,

I gave it one more shot
and sent an email to Prof. Noam,

the dean of my communications
school at IDC.

He was aware of our work at Hasoub,
and he lent me a hand.

And I ended up
receiving a full scholarship,

even much better
than the one I originally had.

And one day, I remember being at Herzliya,

and all I could think of
was a 4000 shekels debt on my credit card.

And all of a sudden, I see a sign
for a virtual reality hackathon.

So I went in, participated,
and won the first prize.

And yes, that's how I looked
after hackathons.

(Laughter)

The prize was a brand new phone
with a VR headset,

and back in the village that weekend,
someone who tried them

bought them on the spot.

For how much?

The same 4000 shekels I was looking for.

So yes, I was lucky.

But in most of the cases,

I had to make an effort
and to work to meet my luck,

and in other cases,
I had to create my own opportunity.

For example, I couldn't find
a job flexible enough

to balance with Hasoub and my studies.

So I ended up creating
my own social business in 2016,

which helped me pay my bills.

And at Hasoub, more and more
volunteers were taking charge now,

helping with operations and logistics.

Especially one diligent
volunteer, Rabea Zioud,

who's now our CEO at Hasoub.

Today, five years into Hasoub's journey,

we have organized
over 300 events and activities,

engaging 12,000 participants.

But numbers are just numbers, and what
really matters is the people behind them.

So among the Hasoubers,

we had Reda, who joined us
back when he was in high school,

and he is, today, on the
dean's list of the Technion.

We had Amru,

a graduate of our
pre-acceleration program,

who has just raised
over a million dollars,

a seed round for his startup.

Lina, who's now doing
her master's in computer engineering.

Rami, who is today a 20-year-old
engineer at IBM research.

And Shadi, who joined us back in
the basement as a kid in the middle school

and today works
as a full-stack web developer.

And many others.

And today, one of our projects
at Hasoub is taking me way back

to a childhood dream of mine,

and exactly to this beautiful
old building of my school.

Today, the building is abandoned,

and we're converting this building

into the first tech
and innovation center in our area,

paving the way for our
technologists and entrepreneurs

and empowering them
with whatever they need to thrive.

And also, giving the kids in our village
the opportunity we didn't have.

And with this,

we will be the ones
putting ourselves on the map.

(Applause)

(Cheers)

And I will leave you with one final thing.

It's something I use now whenever
I'm 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.

So,

what would you create?

Thank you.

(Applause)

(Cheers)