Ivan Grlic is a serial entrepreneur and problem solver. Ivan started his first business, CMT Group Balkan, in 2005, built and then sold it in 2009. He then became a partner and regional director of Naton HR for several years before starting his second business, Primus Group, in 2014. It is now one of the fastest-growing HR agencies in Eastern Europe. While he still owns it, it is under professional management.

Sun Data World was his third business in only his third decade. The goal of the company is to tap into Ethiopia’s vast renewable resources and build Data Center infrastructure and deploy the latest cloud services that will allow the country to become one of the digital hubs in Africa and the world in the years to come. He is an active seeker of opportunities in emerging and frontier markets, especially in energy and technology.

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Sameer Chishty is Founder and Chief Executive of Streeton Partners, a Hong Kong based investment firm co-investing and raising capital for venture capital and private equity opportunities in Greater China, Pakistan, and Africa. Streeton has successfully raised and deployed USD 1.3 billion in technology and energy ventures from early to late stage with investors from around the world. Sameer is also a Partner at SparkLabs FinTech, and coheads this effort with William Chu.

Sameer also serves as Executive Chairman of AsiaPak Investments, a Hong Kong based private investment firm focused on Pakistan. AsiaPak have invested over USD 3 billion in Pakistan logistics/transport, energy/power, and industrial / manufacturing sectors with Chinese and Korean investors. Sameer was previously Partner at Bain & Company China and McKinsey & Company New York where he advised the world’s most successful financial services companies.

While a senior executive at Merrill Lynch in New York and Standard Chartered in Asia he developed and led new businesses in financial services across consumer and small business.

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William Chu is a Partner for SparkLabs FinTech in Hong Kong. He is a Director of Lawman Group International, an apparel company with business in Greater China and the US. In 2014, William joined Zheng He Capital, a Hong Kong based private equity firm with a focus on fintech and healthcare, where he served as Executive Director.

During this time, he spearheaded the firm’s lead investor role in the US$500MM A Round financing of Ping An Good Doctor, a Ping An Insurance subsidiary tasked with building an online health ecosystem in China.

Prior to Zheng He, William was President of Lawman Group where he ran the US and China Operations.

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Bodin Scepanovic specializes in portfolio management and private equity across a range of industries. In 2021 he was appointed as youngest executive of Taj Holding Group in Saudi Arabia to lead its investment arm. He managed a USD 1.4bn portfolio across six verticals - retail, aviation, healthcare, manufacturing, IT and services. Under his leadership the portfolio tripled in size within 3 years.

In 2021 he was appointed as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Montenegro Works, a state-owned holding with USD 3.1 billion in assets under management. During his tenure the company initiated strong reforms to improve the quality of business culture within the portfolio.

Earlier in his career, he was an Associate at Dare Associates in Milan, Italy where he worked on business transformation in real estate, water sports and sheet metal manufacturing. During 2014 Bodin worked in the business intelligence unit of UniCredit bank.

Bodin earned a Masters of Science in Finance from Bocconi University in Italy. He also attended Dartmouth College, where he studied economics.

In 2022 Bodin started his first entrepreneurial journey by investing and developing a 5 star boutique hotel on the Montenegrin coast.

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Eugene Kim is currently a Partner of SparkLabs Group and manages the day–to-day operations of the SparkLabs Korea accelerator program. Eugene previously served as a Director of Global Business Development at Tencent Korea. He was responsible for the sourcing of Korean game titles to China and Tencent’s global publishing network, headed the global sales of Tencent game titles, and he managed relationships with Tencent’s global publishing partners.

Prior to Tencent, Eugene was Director of Business Development and Marketing at Podotree, an online educational app developer in Korea. Previously, he was with Vertigo Games as the Group Manager of the Overseas Business Group.

Eugene led all overseas sales and service support, and all business development and game engine licensing activities. Eugene was a Manager and Group Head of the Quality Assurance and Localization Group for NHN USA.

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Chris Yeh is the co-author, along with Reid Hoffman, of Blitzscaling, the book that explains how to build worldchanging companies like Amazon, Alibaba, and Airbnb in record time.

A writer, investor, and entrepreneur, Chris has had a ringside seat in the world of startups and scaleups since 1995. His books help founders, venture capitalists, corporate leaders, policymakers, and everyday people better understand how the internet has changed the way we work together to build amazing organizations.

Hundreds of companies, from garage-dwelling startups to Fortune 50 titans have tapped his knowledge and insights to accelerate and transform their businesses.

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Kai Huang was co-founder and CEO of Blue Goji, an interactive fitness company that brings motivation and fun to health and fitness. Prior to Blue Goji, he co-founded video game publisher RedOctane and was President and CEO from 1999 to 2009.

RedOctane was the publisher of Guitar Hero, which went on to become a multi-billion dollar global video game franchise and was acquired by Activision in 2006. Prior to RedOctane, Mr. Huang was co-founder and CEO of Adux Software, which was sold in 1999. Mr. Huang started his career as a consultant with Accenture in the San Francisco office.

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Amr Awadallah is Co-founder and CEO at Vectara. The company is a semantic search software company that enables customers to understand exactly what their users are asking - no matter how they ask - to provide extraordinarily relevant results. Previously, Amr was Global CTO and Cofounder of Cloudera, which is helped grow until it’s IPO where it was valued at almost $2 billion.

Before co-founding Cloudera in 2008, Amr was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Accel Partners. Prior to joining Accel, he served as Vice President of Product Intelligence Engineering at Yahoo! and ran one of the very first organizations to use Hadoop for data analysis and business intelligence. Amr joined Yahoo! after they acquired his first startup, VivaSmart, in July 2000.

Amr holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering from Cairo University, Egypt, and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

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Tamim Bassam Jabr is a seasoned executive with more than 20 years of investment banking experience. He is currently Executive Director for International Investments at Kingdom Holding Company.

Prior to joining KHC, he spent 16 years at Deutsche Bank in Riyadh and London most recently as Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Securities Saudi Arabia where he led the development of Deutsche Bank’s investment banking and wealth management business in Saudi Arabia. Tamim has also worked as a Corporate Finance Executive at Capital Trust LTD a leading private equity boutique in the UK. Tamim is a board member in Deezer as well as Five Capital.

He has held several board memberships including Deutsche Securities and Deutsche Gulf Finance. Tamim has a BA in communication from Emerson College and MA in multinational commerce from Boston University.

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Jun Yong Hyun is an Executive Vice President at LG Uplus, a leading broadband and wireless provider in South Korea with 20 million subscribers.

Jun Yong leads many of the company’s innovation initiatives and is currently Head of EV Charging Business. Prior to this recently launched company, he was Head of AI & IoT Business Development. Jun Yong serves as an Operating Advisor, Telecoms, Media and Technology and Member of Management Advisory Panel at Point Hope Pte Ltd.

He holds MBA from Columbia University and earned his BA in Russian Studies from Seoul National University.

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Hashmi brings to the table some 15 years of experience in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Prior to joining APCO, Hashmi worked for Diriyah Gate Development Authority (DGDA) where she led the Innovation Unit and worked on the strategy for Diriyah’s key cultural assets. With a passion for Entrepreneurship, and keen to serve the local community, she joined the Foundation department and led the Entrepreneurship stream focused on social and cultural development for the Diriyah community.

Earlier, she launched two startups that focused on customer feedback and enhancing customers’ experiences. She was the CEO and Managing Director of ‘Customer Arabia’, a platform geared to improve customer experiences. She also started a business image consultancy, Eclat, that trained multiple successful firms. She also worked as Consultant to train several startups in Silicon Valley to launch their products and marketing campaigns.

She returned to Saudi Arabia and was part of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology’s (KAUST) prestigious entrepreneurial initiative, ‘Venture Accelerator Program’ - placing among the top 6 winners of the program.

Huda Hashmi established an image consultancy at the start of her career to upskill women in the workplace and improve their communication skills and impact. She is a keen advocate of women empowerment, inclusion in the private and not-for-profit sectors, as well as of entrepreneurs and innovators in the region.

She is also chapter chair of WPO Saudi Arabia – the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO), a non-profit membership organization for successful women entrepreneurs headquartered in New York City with over 141 chapters around the world. WPO Saudi Arabia is the first WPO chapter in the Middle East. She is also a board member of Johara Global, a social enterprise membership organization based in the UK that connects women from the GCC region and worldwide to provide female leaders with a trusted support network and platform to share knowledge, experiences, and tools to succeed in all aspects of life.

Hashmi also serves as an advisory board member of Saphira Group Advisory Limited based out of the UK, where her role is to proactively assist Saphira with opportunities that are relevant for the KSA market and work to find potential investors and Joint Venture partners in the Middle East.

Huda Hashmi studied Entrepreneurship at Stanford University in the US and is a certified Business Analyst from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Welcome to the SparkLabs Saudi (“SparkLabs”) website www.sparklabssaudi.com (the “Website”). The use of the Website, including the content, materials and information available on or through the Website (“Materials”), are governed by these Terms of Use (“Terms”). By using this Website, you acknowledge that you have read these Terms and that you accept and will be bound by these Terms.

Disclaimers.

Materials. ALL MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED “AS-IS” AND “AS-AVAILABLE,” AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, ARE DISCLAIMED. The Materials may contain errors or other problems. Your use of the Website and use or reliance upon any of the Materials on the Website is solely at your own risk. Nothing contained on this Website constitutes or should be construed to constitute investment, legal, tax or other advice. In no event will SparkLabs, our affiliates, agents, licensors or suppliers be liable to you or anyone else for any decision made or action taken by you in reliance on such Materials or the Website. No representations, warranties or guarantees whatsoever are made as to the accuracy, adequacy, reliability, correctness, completeness, suitability or applicability of any information or other Materials to a particular situation.

Third Party Sites. These Terms do not apply to any other sites that you may visit via hyperlink. SparkLabs encourages you to review the privacy policies and terms of use applicable to those sites. Links to those sites do not imply any endorsement of those sites or the information or materials available at those sites.

No Offer to Sell. No Material on this Website should be considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by SparkLabs.

Information You Submit. Do not submit any information or other materials that you consider to be confidential or proprietary. Because of the large number of business plans and related materials that SparkLabs reviews, and the similarity of many such plans and materials, SparkLabs cannot accept responsibility for protecting against misuse or disclosure of any confidential or proprietary information or other materials in the absence of SparkLabs’ express written agreement to do so. In no event will SparkLabs be limited in, or restricted from, pursuing opportunities with others.

General Partners. Although certain individuals are identified on this Website as “Partners” or “General Partners,” such titles reflect business usage that is customary within the venture capital and private equity industry and are not intended to indicate that any such individual is actually a general partner of any partnership as those terms are used for legal purposes.

Restrictions on Use. You are permitted to download and print individual pages of the Website for personal and non-commercial purposes only. Your use of the Website must not alter the original content of the Website.

Ownership. All trademarks, service marks, trade names, logos, graphics, articles and other Materials, are protected by United States and foreign copyright, trademark and other applicable laws. All trademarks, service marks, trade names, and logos displayed on the Website are proprietary to SparkLabs or our affiliates or the respective third party owner.

No License. Except for the limited rights expressly granted above, nothing herein or contained on the Website should be construed as granting, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right to use any Materials without the written permission of SparkLabs or such other third party that may own the trademark displayed on the Website.

Limitations of Liability. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO NEGLIGENCE, SHALL SPARKLABS OR OUR AFFILIATES, AGENTS, LICENSORS OR SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES THAT RESULT FROM YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE OR THE MATERIALS, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Indemnification; Hold Harmless. You agree to indemnify and hold SparkLabs, and affiliates, agents, licensors and suppliers, harmless from any claims, losses, costs, damages, liabilities and expenses, including attorney’s fees, arising out of your use or misuse of the Website or violation of these Terms.

Modification of the Terms. SparkLabs reserves the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of these Terms at any time. When we do, we will also revise the “Effective Date” on the Terms. Please check these Terms periodically for changes. Your continued use of the Website after the posting of changes constitutes your binding acceptance of such changes.

International Use. The Website is operated and controlled by the SparkLabs in the United States. If it is illegal or prohibited in your country of origin to access or use the Website, then you should not do so. Those who choose to access this Website outside the United States access it on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with all local laws and regulations.

Governing Law. These Terms, and any disputes relating to these Terms or your use of the Website or Materials, shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflicts of laws principles. Any disputes relating to the above shall be resolved solely in the state or federal courts located in the Northern District of California.

Assignment. These Terms, and any rights and licenses granted hereunder, may not be transferred or assigned by you without consent, but may be assigned by SparkLabs to an affiliate or successor without restriction. These Terms are binding on your successors and permitted assigns.

Contact Information. Any questions, concerns or complaints regarding these Terms should be sent to info@sparklabssaudi.com.

Effective Date: September 15, 2023

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Last Updated: September 15, 2023

This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) describes the manner in which SparkLabs Saudi (“SparkLabs”, “we,” or “us”) and our website at www.sparklabssaudi.com (the “Site”), as well as all related websites, networks, applications, and other services provided by us and on which a link to this Policy is displayed (collectively, together with the Site, our “Service”) use and collect data from individuals. This Policy, which is incorporated into and is subject to the SparkLabs Terms of Use, describes the information that we gather from you on the Service, how we use and disclose such information, and the steps we take to protect such information.


Information We Collect on the Service:

• User-provided Information. When you use the Service, we may collect information about you, including your name, email address, mailing address, mobile phone number, credit card or other billing information, your date of birth, geographic area, or preferences and we may link this information with other information about you. You may provide us with information in various ways on the Service. For example, you provide us with information when you register for an account, use the Service, make a purchase on the Service, or send us customer service-related requests.


• Cookies and Automatically Collected Information. When you use the Service, we may send one or more cookies – small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters – to your device. We may use both session cookies and persistent cookies. A session cookie disappears after you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be used by your browser on subsequent visits to the Service. Please review your web browser “Help" file to learn the proper way to modify your cookie settings. Please note that if you delete, or choose not to accept, cookies from the Service, you may not be able to utilize the features of the Service to their fullest potential.
  
  We may also automatically record certain information from your device by using various types of technology, including “clear gifs" or “web beacons.” This automatically collected information may include your IP address or other device address or ID, web browser and/or device type, the web pages or sites that you visit just before or just after you use the Service, the pages or other content you view or otherwise interact with on the Service, and the dates and times that you visit, access, or use the Service. We also may use these technologies to collect information regarding your interaction with email messages, such as whether you opened, clicked on, or forwarded a message. This information is gathered from all users, and may be connected with other information about you.


• Location Information. We may obtain information about your physical location, such as by use of GPS and other geolocation features in your device, or by inference from other information we collect (for example, your IP address indicates the general geographic region from which you are connecting to the Internet).


• Third Party Web Beacons and Third Party Buttons. We may display third-party content on the Service, including third-party advertising. Third-party content may use cookies, web beacons, or other mechanisms for obtaining data in connection with your viewing of the third party content on the Service. Additionally, we may implement third party buttons (such as Facebook “like” or “share” buttons) that may function as web beacons even when you do not interact with the button. Information collected through third-party web beacons and buttons is collected directly by these third parties, not by SparkLabs. Information collected by a third party in this manner is subject to that third party’s own data collection, use, and disclosure policies.


• Information from Other Sources. We may obtain information from third parties and sources other than the Service, such as our partners and advertisers.

How We Use the Information We Collect. We use information we collect on the Service in a variety of ways in providing the Service and operating our business, including the following:

• We use the information that we collect on the Service to operate, maintain, enhance and provide all features of the Service, to provide services and information that you request, to respond to comments and questions and otherwise to provide support to users, and to process and deliver entries and rewards in connection with promotions that may be offered from time to time on the Service.


• We use the information that we collect on the Service to understand and analyze the usage trends and preferences of our users, to improve the Service, and to develop new products, services, features, and functionality.


• We may use your email address or other information we collect to contact you for administrative purposes such as customer service or to send communications, including updates on promotions and events, relating to products and services offered by us and by third parties.


• We may use cookies and automatically collected information to: (i) personalize our Service, such as remembering information about you so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the Service; (ii) provide customized advertisements, content, and information; (iii) monitor and analyze the effectiveness of the Service and third-party marketing activities; (iv) monitor aggregate site usage metrics such as total number of visitors and pages viewed; and (v) track your entries, submissions, and status in any promotions or other activities on the Service.
  
  

When We Disclose Information. Except as described in this Policy, we will not disclose information about you that we collect on the Service to third parties without your consent. We may disclose information to third parties if you consent to us doing so, as well as in the following circumstances:

• Any information that you voluntarily choose to include in a publicly accessible area of the Service will be available to anyone who has access to that content, including other users.


• We work with third party service providers to provide website, application development, hosting, maintenance, and other services for us. These third parties may have access to or process information about you as part of providing those services for us. Generally, we limit the information provided to these service providers to that which is reasonably necessary for them to perform their functions, and we require them to agree to maintain the confidentiality of such information.


• We may disclose information about you if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with state and federal laws, in response to a court order, judicial or other government subpoena or warrant, or to otherwise cooperate with law enforcement or other governmental agencies.

• We also reserve the right to disclose information about you that we believe, in good faith, is appropriate or necessary to: (i) take precautions against liability; (ii) protect ourselves or others from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses or activity; (iii) investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations; (iv) protect the security or integrity of the Service and any facilities or equipment used to make the Service available; or (v) protect our property or other legal rights (including, but not limited to, enforcement of our agreements), or the rights, property, or safety of others.


• Information about our users may be disclosed and otherwise transferred to an acquirer, successor, or assignee as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of assets, or similar transaction, or in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which information is transferred to one or more third parties as one of our business assets.


• We may make certain aggregated, automatically-collected, or otherwise non-personal information available to third parties for various purposes, including: (i) compliance with various reporting obligations; (ii) for business or marketing purposes; or (iii) to assist such parties in understanding our users’ interests, habits, and usage patterns for certain programs, content, services, advertisements, promotions, and/or functionality available through the Service.

Your Choices

You may, of course, decline to share certain information with us, in which case we may not be able to provide to you some of the features and functionality of the Service. You may update, correct, or delete your account information and preferences at any time by accessing your account preferences page on the Service. If you wish to access or amend any other personal information we hold about you, you may contact us at info@sparklabs.co.kr. Please note that while any changes you make will be reflected in active user databases within a reasonable period of time, we may retain all information you submit for backups, archiving, prevention of fraud and abuse, analytics, satisfaction of legal obligations, or where we otherwise reasonably believe that we have a legitimate reason to do so.

If you receive commercial email from us, you may unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions contained within the email. You may also opt out from receiving commercial email from us by sending your request to us by email at info@sparklabs.co.kr or by writing to us at the address given at the end of this policy. We may allow you to view and modify settings relating to the nature and frequency of promotional communications that you receive from us in user account functionality on the Service.

Please be aware that if you opt out of receiving commercial email from us or otherwise modify the nature or frequency of promotional communications you receive from us, it may take up to ten business days for us to process your request, and you may continue receiving promotional communications from us during that period. Additionally, even after you opt out from receiving commercial messages from us, you will continue to receive administrative messages from us regarding the Service.

Third-Party Services

The Service may contain features or links to websites and services provided by third parties. Any information you provide on third-party sites or services is provided directly to the operators of such services and is subject to those operators’ policies, if any, governing privacy and security, even if accessed through the Service. We are not responsible for the content or privacy and security practices and policies of third-party sites or services to which links or access are provided through the Service. We encourage you to learn about third parties’ privacy and security policies before providing them with information.

Children’s Privacy

Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important. Our Site is a general audience site not directed to children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13 without obtaining parental consent.

Data Security

We use certain physical, managerial, and technical safeguards that are designed to improve the integrity and security of information that we collect and maintain. Please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot and do not guarantee that information about you will not be accessed, viewed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.

International Visitors

The Service is hosted in the United States and is intended for visitors located within the United States. If you choose to use the Service from the European Union or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, then please note that you are transferring your personal information outside of those regions to the United States for storage and processing. Also, we may transfer your data from the U.S. to other countries or regions in connection with storage and processing of data, fulfilling your requests, and operating the Service. By providing any information, including personal information, on or to the Service, you consent to such transfer, storage, and processing.

Changes and Updates to this Policy

Please revisit this page periodically to stay aware of any changes to this Policy, which we may update from time to time. If we modify this Policy, we will make it available through the Service, and indicate the date of the latest revision. In the event that the modifications materially alter your rights or obligations hereunder, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you of the change. For example, we may send a message to your email address, if we have one on file, or generate a pop-up or similar notification when you access the Service for the first time after such material changes are made. Your continued use of the Service after the revised Policy has become effective indicates that you have read, understood and agreed to the current version of this Policy.

Your California Privacy Rights

Residents of California have the right to request a disclosure describing what types of personal information we have shared with third parties for their direct marketing purposes, and with whom we have shared it, during the preceding calendar year. You may request a copy of that disclosure by contacting us at info@sparklabssaudi.com

How to Contact Us

Please contact us with any questions or comments about this Policy, information we have collected or otherwise obtained about you, our use and disclosure practices, or your consent choices by email at info@sparklabssaudi.com

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