Mohannad Hesham
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About

About Mohannad Hesham

He founded Life From Water in 2011, at nineteen, after Ahmad Al Shugairi's programme Khawater sent his student team to a village in Fayoum to bring water to five homes; they connected fifty families. Building the software the organisation needed and nobody would build for it is how the AI work began.

Mohannad Hesham

His story

Mohannad Hesham with Ahmad Al Shugairi in 2014
With Ahmad Al Shugairi in 2014, three years into Life From Water

Life From Water now works across Egypt and East Africa on clean water access, agriculture and climate resilience, and has reached more than a million people. Its work is evaluated rather than asserted: it has run the field side of randomised trials with J-PAL, Brown University and Stanford, and its pilot of Water is Life for the Sawiris Foundation led to a second phase signed with Schneider Electric.

Attendance and payroll, a finance desk, then operations software for the water plants themselves. Today most of his week goes on teaching and advising organisations on putting AI to work, and the rest is still water.

He holds an MBA from Edinburgh Business School and lives in Cairo.

Roles

  • Since 2011Life From WaterFounder & CEOClean water, agriculture and climate resilience. Registered in Egypt in 2014, and as independent organisations in Germany and Canada. Twenty staff, five trustees.lifefromwater.net
  • Since 2020Specialised Egyptian Federation for Water & WastewaterCo-Founder & Board MemberCo-founded with 28 other Egyptian water organisations, to put joint research and national policy work on water in one place. A member of UN-Habitat's Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance since January 2025.
  • 2018 – 24WaterWillCo-Founder & CEOModular water-treatment units manufactured in Egypt and exported to Kenya. A company he built and led.
  • 2016 – 18Construction sector, CairoStrategy & Operations ConsultantBefore the water work took his whole week.
  • Since 2025Meska AI, Taalam AI and Tick & TalkAI TrainerExecutive and professional AI programmes, delivered through all three.
  • CurrentMohandes AICo-FounderApplied AI for technical industries: water treatment, supply chain, manufacturing. Founded with two colleagues.mohandes-ai.com
  • CurrentImpact AnchorFounderWhere the Anchor Method is published in full.impact-anchor-ai.com

Recognition

First place in the Misr El Kheir Award, Cairo, 2025
First place in the Misr El Kheir Award, Cairo, 2025

Fellowships

  • Ashoka Fellow, elected 2024AshokaAshoka has elected social entrepreneurs to a lifelong fellowship since 1980, choosing people whose idea changes how a whole system works rather than people running a good project.
  • Perplexity Business FellowPerplexityA cohort Perplexity ran for people putting AI to work inside their own organisations. The programme closed in August 2025.

Awards

  • Global winner 2020, Ideas for Action, for “Buy me filter”World Bank & the Zicklin Center at the Wharton School, University of PennsylvaniaAn annual competition for ideas on financing development. Seven winners were chosen from four thousand entries; his was a reusable ceramic water filter. The World Bank's own announcement names him.
  • Global first place, resilience trackClimateLaunchpadA green-business competition run across more than fifty countries, with a global final.
  • First place in 2025, won by Life From Water among more than 115 organisationsMisr El Kheir Award for Sustainable Development Charitable Work

Communities he is part of

  • Founding memberThe AI FellowshipA global community for AI literacy, started by Zohaib Khan out of a group of Perplexity fellows. It lists more than three thousand members across over eighty countries, and more than forty local chapters.
  • Trainer, and part of the communityMeska AIAn AI training and consulting company working across the region, which runs a professional community alongside the client work. He teaches executive programmes through them.

Programmes

  • AI for Changemakers graduate, 2025. The programme matches non-profits with technology companies; through it Life From Water took its own AI work from experiments to something the team runs, with working credits from ElevenLabs and Make.com.Tech to the Rescue
  • AI Impact Scaling Program, 2026Tech to the Rescue
  • Participant in the AI Consultants Program, with Meska AIMicrosoft EgyptA programme Microsoft Egypt ran for AI consultants working in the market.

Speaking

What people ask him to talk about, in English or Arabic

  • Getting a whole organisation using AI, not just a few enthusiasts
  • Keeping human judgment in the loop
  • Using AI responsibly in practice rather than on paper
  • Building your own AI tools in-house
  • AI in development and public-interest work
  • AI, water and climate
AI: From Fear to ImpactWatch the talk

AI: From Fear to Impact

TEDxYouth@Bedayia School · Nine minutes

On why the fear around AI is the wrong starting point, and what changes when a room treats it as something to learn rather than something to survive.

  • On stage, J-PAL MENA at the American University in Cairo
    On stage, J-PAL MENA at the American University in Cairo
  • On the panel at the United Nations, Arab Forum for Sustainable Development
    On the panel at the United Nations, Arab Forum for Sustainable Development
  • At the Global Forum on the Ethics of AI, Riyadh
    At the Global Forum on the Ethics of AI, Riyadh
  • On the water360 panel, Egypt Infrastructure & Water Expo
    On the water360 panel, Egypt Infrastructure & Water Expo
  • Presenting a case at the AI for Development working session, J-PAL MENA and the American University in Cairo
    Presenting a case at the AI for Development working session, J-PAL MENA and the American University in Cairo
  • The 88th Cairo Climate Talks, Institut français d’Égypte and the German embassy
    The 88th Cairo Climate Talks, Institut français d’Égypte and the German embassy
  • Taking a question at a session on water evidence, Cairo
    Taking a question at a session on water evidence, Cairo
  • The water a village was drinking, and the water it drinks now
    The water a village was drinking, and the water it drinks now
Watrex Expo, the region's largest water and environment exhibitionA workshop on AI for the water sector, on the expo stage. He used the session to talk about a chatbot his own team built that worked and that nobody used.26 seconds, no sound.
Every speaking engagement (15)TEDx · J-PAL MENA · UN ESCWA · Big 5 Egypt · Ashoka …
  • TEDxSpeaker, “AI: From Fear to Impact”TEDxYouth@Bedayia School, 2026
  • J-PAL MENASpeaker, five-year celebration, in a session that also included Abhijit BanerjeeAUC New Cairo, July 2025. He spoke on projects that look strong on paper and change nothing. Banerjee co-founded J-PAL and shared the Nobel in economics in 2019.
  • UN ESCWASpeaker, Arab Forum for Sustainable Developmentthe UN’s regional commission for Western Asia, 2023
  • Big 5 EgyptPanellist, water360 sessions — “AI-driven maintenance for water infrastructure: overcoming adoption challenges”Egypt Infrastructure & Water Expo, 17 June 2025. On where AI differs from the automation already in the plants, and what actually stops a team adopting it.
  • AshokaPanellist, “Scaling Impact with Government”, Ashoka Fellows SummitKenya School of Monetary Studies, Nairobi, 10 – 12 September 2025. On the panel with a Kenyan county chief officer and the head of Kenya’s national examinations council.
  • PDCAPanellist, the Water Quality and Management plenary, Partnership Development for Climate Adaptation in Arab StatesInterContinental Cairo Semiramis, 26 September 2023. Hosted by the Arab Water Council and J-PAL MENA with Egypt’s Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, supported by the Climate Emergency Collaboration Group and Community Jameel.
  • AI4DSpeaker, AI for Development conference2025
  • Sahara ExpoSpeaker, “AI-Enhanced Maintenance for Water Treatment Plants”One of Africa’s largest agriculture and water events, 2023 – 2025
  • Watrex ExpoWorkshop, AI for the water sectorThe region’s largest water and environment exhibition. He used the session to talk about a chatbot his own team built that worked and that nobody used, and what that changed about how they put AI in front of people.
  • AUCRoundtable, “Pathways Toward Justice in Irrigation Water”With Alternative Policy Solutions and the International Water Management Institute, 2025
  • AI for PalestineMentor and session lead, AI for Palestine diplomaFebruary – June 2025. Participants in Gaza building AI projects in education, health and livelihoods under displacement.
  • USAID – AUCSpeaker
  • Institut françaisPanel, the 88th Cairo Climate TalksWith the German embassy in Cairo
  • UNESCOAttended the 4th Global Forum on the Ethics of AIRiyadh, 15 – 17 September 2026. Convened by UNESCO with SDAIA and ICAIRE.
  • COP28AttendedDubai, 2023

Education

  • 2022Master's degree — MBAEdinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University
  • 2016BSc, Strategic Management & Innovation TechnologyGerman University in Cairo
  • 2022 – 24Diploma in counselling and psychotherapyReach Out Academy, Cairo. Not used clinically; it changed how he teaches.

Credentials

  • 2024AI Copilot DiplomaMeska AI, with Microsoft
  • 2025AI FundamentalsUniversity of Pennsylvania
  • 2026NetHope Global Summit, delegateNetHope
  • 2025Introductory Effective Altruism ProgramEffective Altruism
  • Evaluating Social ProgramsJ-PAL, at the American University in Cairo
  • 2015Business Strategy and ConsultingImperial College London
  • Certified Professional TrainerOxford Training Institute and Heliopolis Consulting Group
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