Karim Tarraf

CEO and Co-Founder - Hawa Dawa Startup Mentor, Cairo University Cairo, Egypt

Biography

Karim is the CEO and co-founder of Hawa Dawa. In just the first year of its founding, the tech company was recognized among others by the German Federal Ministry of Energy and Commerce, the Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, and the MIT Technology Review as one of the Top 10 Innovations in Germany and Top 35 in Europe. In Switzerland, it was named winner in the Smart Cities Vertical of the Kickstart Programme; the flagship project of the digitalswitzerland initiative.

Before founding Hawa Dawa, Karim worked for several years at the Frankfurt-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance. There he worked on new microfinance products to support end-user access to clean energy technologies in Southeast Asia, as well as on sustainable energy finance facilities in Turkey and Eastern Europe.

Next to his work on Hawa Dawa, Karim is also a startup mentor at the FEPS Incubation Center of Cairo University, as well as a frequent participant of expert meetings on issues like climate change, short-lived climate pollutants and smart cities. Karim is pursuing a Master’s of Science in technology-oriented management from the Technical University Munich.