Work
A quick map of the different things I do and have done. They look eclectic on paper, but in practice they all orbit the same centre: helping people communicate, learn, and grow, usually with technology involved somewhere.
Software & Product Development
I'm the founder of Fluency Learning Apps LLC, a Cairo-based software company. Our current flagship is FlashBrief, an AI-powered personalized news podcast service. You tell it what topics matter to you, and it generates a daily audio briefing covering exactly those topics. No algorithmic guessing, no infinite scrolling, no ads. Just your news, every morning.
My development work is built on JavaScript (ES6), Node.js, AWS serverless architecture, and Google Apps Script. Over the years I've also built educational multimedia courses (published by the AUC Press), a business simulation game for Egyptian youth, database systems, and various web applications and integrations.
Custom AI & Software Solutions
Alongside my own products, I work directly with businesses to build tailored software that solves real problems. The focus right now is on integrating AI agents, automation, and custom tooling into existing workflows — not as a buzzword exercise, but as practical infrastructure that makes teams more effective.
Every project is different. Some clients need an AI agent that handles a specific part of their pipeline. Others need a custom internal tool, an integration between systems that don't talk to each other, or help rethinking a process from scratch. I work closely with each client to understand what they actually need, then build it. The combination of software development experience and years of working with diverse organizations means I can speak both languages — the technical and the human.
University Teaching: Rhetoric & Composition at AUC
From 2014 to 2021, I was a faculty member in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo. My teaching spanned the full range of the department's offerings: freshman courses in academic writing, research methods, and critical thinking; upper-level courses in Business Communication and Digital Rhetoric; and a seminar I co-coordinated on Global Migration and Refugees.
The breadth mattered to me. Business Communication let me work with students preparing to enter professional environments across the MENA region, where cross-cultural communication is not an abstraction but a daily reality. Digital Rhetoric gave me a space to explore how arguments are constructed and consumed in online environments, a question that only becomes more pressing as AI reshapes information flows. And the migration seminar brought students face to face with one of the defining human challenges of our time, right here in a country that hosts millions of displaced people.
Beyond the classroom, I chaired the departmental program assessment committee and served on a campus-wide digital literacies committee. I'd been teaching blended (online + in-person) courses since 2015, which meant I was well-positioned to help colleagues transition when COVID-19 forced the entire university online overnight. That experience cemented my belief that good teaching is less about the platform and more about the teacher's ability to be genuinely present with students, whatever the medium.
Training & International Development
Before AUC, and alongside it, I spent many years conducting training workshops and consulting for international development organizations. The range has been eclectic: videoconferencing for public school teachers, presentation skills for tax authorities, software development for curriculum designers, legal communication for judges, cross-cultural adaptation for expatriate employees, and more.
Partners and clients have included USAID, CIDA (now Global Affairs Canada), UNICEF, AmidEast, MEDA, MRDS Canada, and others. Most of this work was in Egypt, though it has taken me to various countries across the Middle East and North Africa.
Arabic Language Education
I teach Arabic to beginners through The Arabic Learner, drawing on my own 30+ year journey of learning the language. I've published online courses in Egyptian Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic (on Udemy), a book on the 15 Essential Skills of an Arabic Learner, and a blog about the messy, humbling, rewarding process of learning to communicate in another language. I also curate egyptianarabic.com.