We speak to Hanan Abdel Maguid and Karime Shafei, the co-founders of a new co-working space in an old part of Downtown Cairo, discovering that Consoleya is much more than brick and mortar.

Startup Scene

Jun 28, 2021

Inside Consoleya - Downtown Cairo’s New Plug-and-Play Co-working Space

For the better part of a decade, Hanan Abdel Maguid has been an ardent supporter of entrepreneurship and innovation. Motivated by her own experiences as an entrepreneur, she founded angel startup studio, Kamelizer, in 2014, to provide services and guidance to seed-stage startups, and sits on the board of The Cairo Angels, placing her in a unique position as an impactful stakeholder in an increasingly diverse ecosystem.

Undertaken in collaboration with Al Ismaelia for Real Estate Development and its CEO and Chairman, Karim Shafei, Consoleya, feeds further into these goals, providing a unique, modern and fully-equipped co-working space in the heart of Downtown Cairo, that occupies a stunning building which once acted as the French Consulate - just the latest in a long line of quite spectacular renovation projects from Al Ismaelia, which continues to lead the charge in reviving Downtown to its former glory.

On the part of Al Ismaelia, the company has pumped some EGP 69 million into the renovation, with plans to channel even more funds into the project. For Abdel Magui and Shafei, though, this is more than just bricks-and-mortar, chairs and desks. They’re shared vision reaches further, positioning Consoleya as a platform to give Egypt’s brightest a path to fulfilling their potential.