Freeziana Wins 1st place at Cairo ICT’s Innovation Arena

Freeziana, a platform specialized in selling handmade products, just won the first prize in the innovation arena at the 23rd edition of the Cairo International Communication and Technology Conference (Cairo ICT). The event took place from December 1st-4th, 2019 at the Egyptian International Exhibition Center and was inaugurated by President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. The startup competed with more than 36 startups and received a prize of 50,000 EGP from Vive and Academy of Scientific Research and Technology. 

Freeziana was founded by Amgad Mostafa and Hadeer Shalaby in 2016. It is more than a website that sells handmade items, it also mentors and guides the artists and handcrafters, who are mostly women, to produce the best quality of their work. They give these women financial independence. According to Shalaby, co-founder of Freeziana, “the startup is also an ecosystem for handcrafts that combines eight Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the wing of women empowerment, to help them generate their own income independently from their families by selling their locally handmade products”.

The startup was incubated at the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC) for one year. Since its launch, it has acquired more than 1450 female artists on the website selling to more than 21,000 customers. The website has over 18,000 items ranging from clothes, accessories, shoes and stationary.