Alumni Spotlight

Yasmine El Mehairy
(Westminster 2003/4 ) 

Yasmine returned to Cairo after she finished her degree and joined ITWorx, one of the largest IT service providers in the region where she was keen on introducing many of the concepts she learned during her experience in the UK. After a while, she wanted to utilize her skills in a growing company, so Yasmine joined OpenCraft, a small IT services company that believes in and promotes the open-source and free software movement.

In 2009, she moved to ‘Al Masry Al Youm’, Egypt’s largest independent newspaper as the web portal project manager where she and her team launched the new interactive portal. With that project over, she is currently working as a freelancer.  

Meanwhile, Yasmine has been active starting a small home business making handmade greeting cards that was launched in October 2008.  The project has now became profitable and Yasmine hopes that one day her greeting card business will grow big enough to become a full time job. The cards, currently available to order on Facebook as well as in three locations in Cairo, include occasion-specific cards for birthdays, Christmas, new babies, etc. and Egyptian and Arabic cards as well as generic cards. Further information on her cards is available on her website http://zewwcards.blogspot.com/. 

Yasmine says: ‘I have been trying to enjoy as much as I can of the wonderful things life has to offer. I enjoy reading, photography and cooking from various cuisines. I still have a passion for learning and I am currently enrolled in a distance learning degree in Islamic Studies: my next step is to learn more about Arabic calligraphy.”