The Jury
| Cherif Morsi (Product Designer) Is an Egyptian designer who takes great pride in being one of the few designers in the Middle East to have consistently collaborated with some of the biggest names of international design. He has been active in the product design field ever since being one of 11 finalists in the design competition organized by famous Italian household name Alessi in 2000/2001. He is currently focusing on getting the best out of the local design industry as a whole through various collaborations through which he hopes locally designed and manufactured products will be able to compete globally. |
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George Michael (General Manager of 3Brothers) Being distinctively innovative and agile doesn’t happen by chance, but it comes from constant commitment and eagerness to improvement, George’s journey started with getting graduated from Faculty of Engineering, Mechanical department passing through his wander tour every year visiting the top international lighting manufacturers putting all together in his mind with inspiring designs and latest technology chasing his dream and it`s all reflected on him through his passion in lighting planning, product design and the wellness to be the Best Egyptian lighting Manufacturer with global standards, in the same glorious track of his ancestors with their vision to deepen the awareness of lighting and its practical application through signature of minds and hands, to having Executive Management Program in 2010. He works till he drops to guarantee his clients’ satisfaction in all possible ways. |
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Hani Attia (landscape design director at EMAAR) Hani Attia has graduated from the Architecture Dept, Urban Design and Planning Section of Ain Shams University in 1995. He worked for six years as an architect, landscape designer and urban planner in several Cairo offices before leaving to study Landscape Architecture at the University of Oregon in 2001. He graduated with a second Bachelor in 2004 and a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture in 2006. His master’s thesis title was “Expressing Local & Regional Identity in Urban Parks “. Hani worked as a teaching assistant at the University of Oregon. After his graduation, Hani was frequently requested by the Landscape Architecture Dept professors to review/comment on current students projects. He also worked for several landscape design offices in the state of Oregon, USA, since 2006 and until the end of 2008, just before he flies back to Cairo. Upon his return to Egypt, he worked for one year for a landscape contractor as Head of Design Dept. He currently works for a real estate developer, Emaar, as Landscape Design Director. Hani has received several landscape design scholarships and awards such as:
As community service, Hani continues to give regular volunteer plant identification tours and lectures since 2014. |
Eng.Karim Samir kozman Co-Founder of SEDA is the third generation to his family business, which started as a small wholesale fabric trading in 1948 downtown El Azhar. Now the family owns a group of textile manufacturing mills in 10th of Ramdan City since 1996; and it is considered one of the top home textiles groups in the field under the name of Kozman Textile group.Since Kozman graduated from the faculty of engineering his passion was to launch their own retail fabric brand which then took place in 2010 under SEDA Fabrics &Curtains. The aim was to develop a fabric retail chain dedicated to offer the most high quality fabrics to help clients to make their homes’ look elegant, yet with affordable prices since it is locally produced. Not only was his vision limited to launching a retail chain, but also to nurture and develop the fabric design process. As a member of the Textile Export Council (TEC) kozman was able to be exposed to the international arena and closely monitor the fabric design processes from different perspectives and cultures. Since then he started to encourage and collaborate with designers from different areas to develop and launch their own collections under the Egyptian brand textile brand SEDA. Helping them in choosing materials, developing mood boards and finally production became the normal process he is repeating every season following European trends and fashion lines. |
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| Labib Hanna (Founder and Board Member of Duravit Egypt) Labib Hanna is one of the founders of Duravit Egypt Company (founded in 1997) and anactive member of the board of directors.He is graduated from Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, 1980.He received a diploma in “Demand Flow Manufacturing” from The Institute of Technology,Denver – Colorado, 1992.Labib Hanna started his career as a civil engineer in different contracting companies, bothlocal and foreign. He has long experience in industrial companies and he participated inestablishing several companies during his career life. He is a non executive board member in several companies working in manufacturing andcontracting fields and a member of professional associations. |
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Mahmoud AbdelRaouf (lighting designer at Bartenbach) A professional lighting designer with distinct academic qualifications, a comprehensive interior design experience and architectural knowledge, my experiences bring together art, design and science: which helps to fuse boundaries of creativity, innovation and practicality for a successful lighting solutions of the highest quality |
| Mohamed Said (CEO of Ebony & Ivory) He surely is one of the strong believers in the concept of ‘less is more’, being the son of an architect he always fancied watching his father creating blue prints with a T-square and a right-angled triangle, which resulted in developing an early passion for design and architecture. In 1997 he founded Ebony & Ivory, and that was the beginning of a long ride that kept changing and evolving over the years until today, at the moment he is the CEO as well as the design director of the company. Through out his design career Mohamed kept changing from one phase to another, but if there’s a constant through out the process it’ll be the decision to embrace evolution and experimentation. Another very important element in all Mohamed’s work is the reduction of ‘visual clutter’. Mohamed believes that design and architecture is not about over decoration and ornamentation, it actually is about having enough light and air to make the space alive and attractive even when it is empty, furniture and accessories should add to the space by making it breathe more, and not the other way round. That concept is reflected in all the work performed by Ebony and Ivory, whether it be a building, an interior or a product. |
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Nehal Leheta (Co-Founder of Design Point) Nehal Leheta is an interior designer based in Cairo, Egypt. She is a co-founder of Design Point Egypt with her partner Karim El-Hayawan. Design Point Egypt is an interior and architecture design studio and consulting firm. |
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Stefano (lighting designer at SPLD and Stefano Dall’Osso) Stefano Dall'Osso, over the years, gives birth to an amazing and exciting career, sweeping from consultancies to teaching, from industrial projects to artistic solutions, walking the difficult path of communicative development based on light and its uses, always experimenting and innovating. A career with a strong emotional mark that declares his personal international success, by leading the public and experts to think about him as a professional deeply in love with the raw material he works with. This is how Copper Man's fame has risen. |
Ihab Derias (Co-Founder of La Roche) Ihab Derias is the second generation to his family business, which started as a small local furniture production in 1984. Since he joined in 1995, he led La Roche to what we know today as one of the most reputable Egyptian furniture manufacturing companies; specialized not only in contemporary home furniture, but also in furnishing Egypt’s most recognizable hotels and hotel chains worldwide. Derias’ strong determination to offer his company a place in today’s world of contemporary furniture platform prompted him to introduce modern technologies to the growing production facility. He always believed in forming a strong link between design and manufacture. He put his knowledge and interest in design forth to launch La Roche’s new retail concept brand in 2012; giving its product lines a new twist creating contemporary timeless styles that remain original to its manufacturer yet fresh and lively. This marriage between design and manufacture created quality and valuable furniture that secured his company a prominent position on the local and international fronts; and assisted to present the made in Egypt label into a seal of quality. In 2012, he was elected chairman of the Egyptian Furniture Export Council. He helped initiate a sector-wide strategy to develop the perception of the Egyptian manufacturers towards design reflecting it on the young generations to be the future of the sector. Therefore The Design Industry competition was launched in 2012 introducing the young designers as a necessary partner to the industry development and linking them with their bright ideas and modern day designs to the manufacturers. The Design Industry competition proved to be a success and became a yearly waited event since then. |
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 | Hany Saad 15 years ago Hany Saad combined his two passions Architecture and Interior Design to ingeniously establish his life longing dream of an ultimate design destination, now fundamentally known as Hany Saad Innovations (HSI). Hany Saad Innovations is headquartered in Cairo – Egypt, the design entity is known for its quality oriented, elegant and luxurious style in interior designing. As an architect, Hany Saad comprehends the ideal combination of architecture and interior design; he provides everything from the initial design concept, constructions and interior design to furnishing supervision and creating an atmosphere where he embodies his visions. By achieving vast successful eclectic projects for prominent aristocrats; along with overcoming great challenges he leads a team of talented designers and architects that take risks, and break boundaries to ensure they imaginatively and effectively utilize spaces rather than simply abiding by strict conventional space divisions. HSI aspires to become one of the region’s biggest architecture and emblematic design companies, with a portfolio spread multi-nationally leaving an “innovative mark in the world of interiors and beyond”. |
