Hello! I am Sherif. Born in Paris, grew up in Cairo and lived in London since 2003. I am a lapsed civil engineer, an entrepreneur, startup advisor, and policy, tech and science nerd. This is my personal space, some of the ideas here are mature, some are at best half baked and others are random thoughts that may or may not have any value. I indicate where I think every piece of writing falls.
I always like to hear about new ideas that challenge and change the status quo for the better. Doing what we’ve always done doesn’t tend to move the world forward.
Writing
Do we need a second web?
Is the World Wide Web too broken to be fixed? What if instead of patching it, we built a second web - one where you can tell a human from a bot, you control your data and you have choice? A place where rules actually mean something, and consent is the foundation.
We need a serious public conversation about AI and the future of the UK
AI is reshaping work, education and the economic fundamentals we rely on. We can have the future imposed on us, or decide collectively and deliberately what kind of AI future we want to build in the UK.
Current work
Eurosky: Eurosky is a public-interest infrastructure project building shared European infrastructure that works across social media, search, news and e-commerce. Built on the Authenticated Transfer Protocol (ATProto). It enables a decentralized social web in which individuals own their data and identity, businesses control their presence and brand safety, and algorithms are chosen by users.
Future of Technology Institute: FOTI is a think-and-do tank advocating for an open, competitive technology ecosystem in Europe.
Other Projects
Industrial Decarbonization AI Coalition: Bringing together industrials, startups and research centers acrross the UK and across sectors to collaborate on AI solutions for decarbonization.
VLink: A strategic platform enabling high-potential startups from the UK and Europe to scale into the GCC and Egypt.
Nexus Climate: A climate tech advisory firm supporting corporates, startups and governments in creating and scaling effective climate solutions. Operating in Dubai and London.
Past work
Carbon Re: Industrial AI company decarbonizing cement and other foundational materials. (Co-founder and former CEO)
Element AI: Canadian enterprise product and research scale-up acquired by ServiceNow. (AI & climate solutions director)
Amnesty Tech: The technology and human rights center for the world’s largest human rights organization, working across research, campaigning, technical support and solutions development. (Co-Founder and for
Current Interests
AI and machine learning: ways to make the economics of AI fairer, AI/ML for industrial applications, materials science, and decarbonization.
Human-machine interaction: how people use AI chatbots, how we will integrate humanoid robots in society in the near future, and how we can make our everyday interactions with computers better.
A better internet: a quieter, high quality internet built for the people who use it. Curated search and discovery; users control the ads they see; publishers, artists and creators decide how their content is used. People not bots.
Better cities: ways to make cities more enjoyable, greener and liveable. How we can seamlessly integrate nature into urban design.
And most importantly, our understanding of life and our place in the universe.
Collaborations, speaking and consulting
I am interested in exploring collaborations, particularly in these areas of interest - at the very least it could be a mutually enriching discussion. Generally open to speaking engagements.
I have limited consulting capacity at the moment, but it’s not inexistent, so don’t be shy.