About the programme
Built so her talent decides, not her circumstances
Every year, Women in Sports finds ten young Egyptian athletes and puts a bank, a panel of Olympians and a community behind their careers.
Every year, Women in Sports finds ten young Egyptian athletes and puts a bank, a panel of Olympians and a community behind their careers.
Across Egypt, young athletes stall for reasons that have nothing to do with talent. Equipment and travel cost money. Professional coaching is hard to find. Competing with nobody behind you is its own weight.
Women in Sports answers that directly. Each year, a panel of experts carefully selects 10 female athletes aged 14–20 who exhibit outstanding talent and promise. The selected athletes receive financial support and join tailored programmes focused on mental coaching and emotional wellbeing.
Money for the equipment an athlete needs and the competitions abroad she would otherwise miss, so a season can be planned a year ahead.
Coaching that builds resilience, focus and self-confidence an athlete can use in her sport and outside it.
Professionals who stay with each athlete through the season, so her mental wellbeing gets the same attention as her game.
Fill in the form, show what you can do in a short video, and add your guardian's consent if you are under 18.
The panel reads every application, watches every video, and follows up where they need to know more.
Ten athletes are selected and begin a journey of development: funding, mental coaching and a community that stays behind them all year.
Olympians, sports leaders and banking executives. This is the panel that selects and mentors each year's athletes.
A former Egyptian modern pentathlete, Aya competed in three consecutive Olympic Games, the first at fifteen. She won the 2011 World Cup in Budapest and qualified for London 2012. Outside sport she works on peacebuilding, with roles in the International Olympic Committee, the Egyptian Parliament and the Egyptian Olympic Committee.
Sherif is a board member of the Egyptian Olympic Committee, President of Egypt's Modern Pentathlon Federation and head of the sports sector at the American University in Cairo. His influence extends globally as Vice President of the international Modern Pentathlon federation. A champion in pentathlon, fencing and shooting, he competed at the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games.
Tamer has spent more than a decade in the sports industry and holds a Master's in Sports Management from IE Business School in Madrid. He founded TimeOut Sports and Entertainment, one of the leading sports marketing and management agencies in the MENA region. He previously served as CEO of Media Pro Egypt and oversees the sports marketing and sponsorship unit of the FIFA/CIES/CU programme.
Mariam has spent over 25 years in international banking, leading strategic transformations, technology overhauls and customer-centred systems across the markets she has worked in. She held senior roles at Bank Audi and Dunia Finance, was honoured with the Women Achievement Award at the Global Women Leaders Conference in India, and holds two MBAs, from the University of Chicago and the American University in Cairo.
FABMISR, a subsidiary of the First Abu Dhabi Bank Group (FAB), is one of the largest foreign banks operating in Egypt, serving all customer segments through 74 branches. FAB is one of the world's largest and safest financial institutions, rated Aa3 / AA− / AA− by Moody's, S&P and Fitch, and a regional leader in sustainability and social impact. Women in Sports is part of that work.
Learn more about FABMISR →Applications are open to Egyptian nationals aged 14–20, active in an official sport or club.
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