Mo Gawdat

With a 27-year impressive career, Mo started at IBM, Egypt as a Systems Engineer before moving to a sales role in the government sector. Venturing into the UAE, he joined NCR Abu Dhabi to cover the non-finance sector. He then became acquainted with the consumer goods industry as Regional Manager of BAT. At Microsoft, he assumed various roles over a span of seven and a half years. In his last role, he headed up Microsoft’s Communications Sector across emerging markets worldwide.

In parallel with his role at Microsoft in Dubai, Mo became acquainted with the processes and models of financial investment in the NASDAQ and other financial markets. He rapidly became a successful “night trader”. Investing in stock markets and other financial vehicles around the world, he earned significant profits from his after-work financial activity. And in a few months, he was developing his own algorithms to improve and automate his financial management performances.

In 2007, Mo joined Google to kick-start its business in emerging markets. Fascinated by technology’s role in empowering people in emerging communities, Mo Gawdat dedicated years of his career towards that passion. After 6 years, he had started almost half of Google’s operations worldwide.

In 2013, Mo moved to Google’s infamous innovation arm, Google[X] where he led the business strategy, planning, sales, business development and partnerships. Mo was intrigued and encouraged by how [X] developed new technologies that reinvent the way things are and deliver a radical, tenfold—10X—improvement.

This lead to incredibly innovative SciFi ideas such as Project Loon, which uses high-altitude balloons to provide affordable internet access to the 5 billion people on every square inch of our planet, Project Makani, to revolutionize wind energy using carbon fiber kites as well as self-driving cars, Google Life Sciences, and many more.

Under Mo’s leadership, the business team has designed innovative business models comparable to the disruptive technologies [X] creates and has created deep partnerships and global deals that enabled [X] to thrive and build products fit for the real world.

‘I deliver business models and methods to build projects that change the world’.

Alongside his career, Mo remained a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded more than 20 businesses such as health and fitness, food and beverage and real estate. He served as a board member in several technology, health and fitness and consumer goods companies as well as several government technologies and innovation boards in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He mentors tens of start-ups at any point in time.

Finally, Mo is the author of “Solve for Happy: Engineering Your Path to Joy” (2017). Through his 12-year research on the topic of happiness, he created an algorithm and a well-engineered model to reach happiness regardless of the circumstances of life. Mo’s happiness model proved highly effective. And, in 2014, was put to the ultimate test when he lost his son Ali. ‘Solve For Happy’ and delivering his happiness message has become Mo’s personal moonshot. A mission to deliver his happiness message to 1 billion people around the world.

In February 2018, MO resigned from Google[x] to create a global non-profit named after his mission: #onebillionhappy. Today, Mo spends most of his time and resources to achieve this mission, reaching and helping one billion people over 5 years to live a happier life.