Ahmed Al Kiremli: Hi everyone this is Ahmed Al Kiremli and welcome to Be Efficient Tv. The mission of this web TV show is to boost the efficiency of your business and lifestyle through tips and tricks from leading experts and today I have with me Dany El Eid, he is a digital evangelist and he is the founder of Pixel Bark and he is an expert in augmented reality, welcome to the show Dany.

Dany El Eid: Thank you Ahmed, thank you for having me and considering me for this interview.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: It’s my pleasure to have you on the show. What’s the definition of augmented reality?

Dany El Eid: Augmented reality is in fact overlaying digital information on to a physical environment through the use of and the camera enabled device so essentially what we do is teach our software how to recognize either 2-D images or 3-D objects and once the camera understands what it is seeing it will then trigger related digital content onto the physical environment. So as you would as an example if you point your camera enabled device whether it’s a smart phone or tablet onto an image this could be a brochure, an ad, or even a 3-D object like a box. Then digital content will come to life out of this image or objects.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So it’s mainly what they use with the Wii or like this when they move, they use it in gaming, and which industries to the user mainly?

Dany El Eid: Yes, gaming uses augmented reality technology but what we do, we also use it for gaming but we also have adapted it to multiple industries and we have worked, we’ve used augmented reality for industries like FM CG, pharmaceutical, banking, even banking, pharmaceutical, FM CG mostly.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: But in gaming like now you are saying whatever I put the camera on something and then that objects will be showing in the reality through the camera but it cannot be done in the other way around that the environment will come out of let’s say the TV or the camera and I am playing in that environment in certain ways?

Dany El Eid: It can and we have actually started experimenting with this, this would be called more like virtual reality techniques so you have on one spectrum you have virtual reality on one side and augmented reality, virtual reality is when you take the digital world and you go into that world and augmented reality is when you bring the digital world into the physical environment, it’s on the same spectrum and we experiment with both.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: But you need a space like in case you bring the digital world, that’s a digital walls you bring it to the real world and somebody is walking that means you need space for that.

Dany El Eid: Not necessarily because for those types of executions we might use headmounted displays so if you’ve heard of the oculus, the oculus exactly what it does is through and fully immersive experience it takes you as a human being into a digital world and we are amongst the first who received the oculus DK two in the region and we are already experimenting with it as well as we speak.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Is it like a company like but by Facebook?

Dany El Eid: Exactly yes it was but my Facebook for a $1 million last year and so a lot of it we believe will have to do with being able together friends or people in general into hyperrealistic environments without having the need to travel anywhere so the way I see it or I can foresee happening is that when the oculus becomes commercialized and on the market you will be able to plug into environments, connect with your friends through Facebook and then be sitting in the same room and if you try the oculus it so immersive that you literally feel like you teleported somewhere else and the reason for that and this is just if I may share my insight about that it’s because social media has been receiving a lot of backlash lately about it not being social at all that in fact it alienates you from people and from society and you end up with the illusion of being social that all you are really interacting with is a screen so there is a lot of studies, many studies and even songs that are coming out of this saying that social media is not social at all so this could be a way for Facebook to sort of address this issue by really being able through a third-party tool to be able to bring people together and have the feeling that they are literally sitting in the same living room.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So that’s the point that Facebook bought it not mainly to focus on gaming, they want to put you that say select a certain specific room and then you sit with your friend there and talk to them while you see them through this device and how did you get that device if it is still not yet commercial?

Dany El Eid: We often times have partnerships and affiliations with tech companies so they send us their devices ahead of time in order to test them and give them feedback we do the same with Intel as well so with Intel they send us sort of secret let’s say products that they are coming out with a head of time and they send them to us so that we can experiment with them, study them, start developing tools for them for instance we were in London last month for the Intel innovation day and thanks to this partnership we know ahead of time what Intel will be doing because more and more companies such as Intel and Facebook we got the unique motion also very early almost 2 years ago, we’re getting the armbands as well now, very innovative technologies we get them ahead of time because these companies know that the developer community is a crucial part of their success so we get access to these ahead of time to be able to give them feedback so that they can in turn improve their hardware and their technology.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How did you start in the digital world and what is your background and why did you choose specifically the augmented reality sector?

Dany El Eid: Very early probably when I was a kid I was always, I come from a tech enabled generation obviously like many from our generation and very early I started hacking using hacking tools, I started with my entry in curiosity for the digital realm through a curiosity to learn how to hack and to use tools in order to hack into my friends computers so in high school I used to in chat rooms develop and use tools to hack into a friends computer and they would think that their computer was possessed and it was actually me on the other end playing around with their computer, just for fun.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: You were a successful hacker?

Dany El Eid: Not so successful thankfully, nothing illegal I think for a hacker to be successful he has to be doing illegal things…

Ahmed Al Kiremli: With your friends I mean.

Dany El Eid: Yes well a lot of times they did not understand what was going on so it was fun just a fun way to pull pranks and then I continued my affiliation with technology throughout my progression and eventually was always geared toward a more scientific-based study and then worked in terms of career path I started my first job with puma, a shoe brand where I was handling all of their digital marketing initiatives so that’s when you can say I started using digital as a career path and I use very early on Facebook as a marketing and PR tool so back in 2006 and 2007 when Facebook wasn’t even regarded as a viable marketing tool and an anecdote I always like to mention is that I was on Facebook for much of my working hours just pushing messages, making people aware of events and telling people what’s happening with, but doing it on Facebook because I knew that this is where our target audience was and often times back then Facebook and social media wasn’t even regarded as a viable marketing medium, my boss would come to me and say why are you spending so much time on Facebook at Facebook and I would be telling him really I am working I’m doing things for the brand so little by little now today Facebook and social media now even has its own job description, that’s how you could say I started really delving into the digital arena and their you know one thing leading to another knowing how to optimize digital tools, how to approach digital problems and marketing problems, that thread led to me using proximity-based marketing tools, using Bluetooth technology and using tools to be able to notify people using SMS marketing tools, Bluetooth marketing tools and then from there it led to augmented reality.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Why did you quit your job?

Dany El Eid: I never had, I wouldn’t put it that way, I would say why did I quit entrepreneurship before taking a real job because I come from an entrepreneurial family and to be have a very strong entrepreneurial background so even going out of University I chose to go with the start up so my first instinct was to finish my internship to graduate I chose to go with the start up whereas the Dean of the University having seen the creativity potential that I had was strongly pushing me to go to Leo Burnett and I declined, he had arranged a spot for me there so one of the best creative agencies and advertising agencies in the world but I turned it down because I knew that entrepreneurship and startups is what I wanted to do.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: You studied in Dubai?

Dany El Eid: I started my university degree in France and then I completed my degree in Dubai so I transferred and came to Dubai.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: American University of Dubai. And through that you learned about startups because in this part of the world it’s like still we don’t know what startups are in 2006 and 2007.

Dany El Eid: Yes as I was saying startups and entrepreneurship was in my family from before that, my father had ventured into several entrepreneurship endeavors, my sister is the founder of several businesses and so when my uncle who is a very prominent entrepreneur in Lebanon so I’ve always been close to that environment and I knew that this is what I wanted to do but after joining my first start up as an internship I realized, from strong persistence by my family they were always telling me you know this is what you want to do but it’s good to have some sort of working in corporate experience before going full-fledged into this so this was the advice you could say I got from my mentors at the time and my mentors being considered like my sister for example telling me that even if this is what you want to do and it’s good that you want to do this it is always good to have experience with the multinational to know how processes work, finances work etc. so to go back to your question there was more like I was quitting entrepreneurship then quitting a job so I joined Puma as my first multinational experience and then back and forth was jumping between joining various other startups and businesses. So after that I went and supported several entrepreneurs, businessmen with early stages with their startups basically.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Then how did you start pixel bug?

Dany El Eid: Pixel bug started that of an idea that consumers and visitors to trade centers and trade shows, visitors to those stands needed more engagement from their offerings so at the time I was working with the company that was handling trade shows and stands and I joined and again I was an SME you could say, I joined the company to increase footfall to their stands because they needed creative ways to compete in a very competitive market so I was brought in as the head of digital to create tools, innovative tools that would attract and engage consumers in those environments at those stands, so that’s when really I started tinkering with augmented reality and creative ways to use this technology as a marketing technology you could say, as a marketing digital marketing tool so…

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Your three founders how did you find each other and where did you meet?

Dany El Eid: Exactly so at that point I was already getting the itch to start my own company so when I was working for my previous employer so I set up pixel bug and then when PNG, I managed to secure PNG is my first client and when they agreed and confirm that they would go with me if I left my company, my previous company…

Ahmed Al Kiremli: They were aware that you are an employee and in case they approved the project you are going to quit your job and start your company or what is the story?

Dany El Eid: Exactly, I went to PNG I was already working with them or had a relationship with them and I told them look this is my plan, this is what I’m planning to do and assured them that by doing this I would be able to take care of them better because what they wanted was specifically those digital tools that I was offering and I was creating essentially, they did not really care about the standard building part or the conference is part so my thinking was since I’m doing this work anyway I should be doing it for myself, I should have the courage to just do it so I asked PNG, this is what I want to do do you want to come with me and they said yes we will come with you and be your client so when I had their confirmation that was it I said this is now or never, pixel bug was already licensed and registered and I started creating augmented reality executions for them. After that, six months down the road Eli was the first partner and I joined forces with, Eli and I have also a long-standing relationship we used to be flatmates in Dubai, we used to live together and I’ve have sort of separated and then at that time it was just fortunate and we joined forces about 6 to 8 months later and then Dennis joined one year after that so we were also the way we found Dennis is that we were doing a project for his company for his previous employer and we saw that he was board in his job, that he needed more excitement and a new challenge and that he had a lot of potential that was not exploited so we pushed and basically.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Why did you choose pixel bug is a name for the company, is bug coming from the thinking background?

Dany El Eid: Yes, secretly you could say that, you know what a bug is, it comes from that background and then pixel, when I was creating the name we were trying to find that special name, it always needed to be short and quirky and sort of bring the nostalgia back into modern and very high-tech world, if you look at our logo it’s like an eight bit pixelated figure, it comes from the hacker background and then a pixel which is in every screen and part of our everyday life, and it’s three syllables, pixel bug short and straight to the point and sticks in the mind, that was very important for the name.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What are the services that you provide in pixel bug in detail?

Dany El Eid: What we do is, it revolves around for main pillars, augmented reality as a core business and then we do gesture-based technologies and game development in mobile and web services, these for, but we do those are the four building blocks if you want and we combine them to create a new and unique solution, so what we do is solve and enhance business objectives using those tools and we create products for specific clients that want to solve specific problems using technology.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Is the main column of your income coming through augmented reality because it’s a few projects with big clients or do you focus more on web development and other things like app development?

Dany El Eid: Our main revenue stream if you want is augmented reality, it’s our main business driver but it’s never augmented reality by itself, we combine this with other technologies, the reason I’m saying this is because augmented reality as a separate entity always risks the label of being gimmicky, what we realized very early is that augmented reality cannot sell itself just because it’s a novelty it needs to be part of a bigger holistic solution so what we do is combine augmented reality with game development or with mobile application development, it needs to be part of a bigger picture for it to serve a purpose, so augmented reality as a novel technology is something that we’ve been using for over three years but we use it as a component of a bigger picture.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What is gesture-based tech?

Dany El Eid: Gesture-based technology is using your hands or your body to interact with computers in new ways so if you want the Kinect, that is a form of gesture-based technology, a lot of the gesture based tech solutions that we have done were based on Kinect hacks so taking it and hacking it to create and build software on top of it so besides that we’ve now also been experimenting with Intel’s new real sense camera, this is going to really change the face of computing because it’s a tiny, the size of an HD camera but with more powerful capabilities then the Kinect even which is quite a big device. This real sense camera Intel will be embedding them in over 60 million devices next year, so in laptops and tablets, mobile phones etc. so this is really going to change the way we interact so basically you will be able to simply by looking at the device or by waving at it etc. to interact with content on your computer and literally, slowly phasing out with the mouse because the mouse has been in use for almost 30 years now so it’s time to move on, this is the next step, this and delete motion as well.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Who are the main clients a pixel bug and how much is the average cost of your projects?

Dany El Eid: Well I can’t really answer this second question so I’ll just keep it to the first one, our main clients are mostly multinationals like Nestlé, PNG, HSBC, so we mostly work with multinational kinds.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How do you market for your services because it’s very targeted like PNG and high-level high-end multinational companies so how do you market, do you do cold calling, do you just set meetings up and go for meetings to try to close a customer how do you market for your clients for your services?

Dany El Eid: Well we use online marketing avenues on one hand and off-line on the other so for the online part we use Google ad words, Facebook marketing, we do also newsletters etc., raising awareness online about what we do, 2 we participate in a lot of networking events and participate in conferences so that’s another way of increasing credibility and becoming a source of what we do, authority figures if you want and off-line as well so we also spread those videos on YouTube etc. of the conferences and presentations in talks that we do and off-line it’s a lot of references, network marketing, word-of-mouth, we did do some cold calling initially but today we were fortunate enough to have a strong reputation and credibility in the market so a lot of the clients and leads come directly to us.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you think that small companies or startups will have a share of your services or just like targeted to the multinationals and people who can afford these technologies, do you still provide small projects, do you execute small projects like normal apps or web development projects?

Dany El Eid: It cut again…

Ahmed Al Kiremli: You didn’t hear the question? I will repeat it for you, do you think that when the startups or small companies going to afford your services and have a share from the technology that you are providing or do you just like if they will come to you do do small projects with web development and app development?

Dany El Eid: No, we actually do not provide those types of services as standalones, we don’t do just web development or mobile app development as a standalone, what we’re doing now specifically in order to lower the entry barrier of adoption for augmented reality is we are creating standalone products, standalone products that will allow brands if they want to come in at a lower entry level to be able to sponsor or white label if you want our technology but without having a tailor-made solution. Creating independent standalone augmented reality products to allow people with smaller budgets to use the technology as a service if you want.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And do small configurations on it. Do you face any challenges in Dubai to educate the market?

Dany El Eid: There is always challenges to educate any market especially when you are dealing with new technology and we were able to with patience and perseverance, you just need to give it time because more often than not people are very reluctant to adopt new technology just because it’s a human defense mechanism to oppose change, the first reaction is to be defensive to technology especially with the speed of its evolution today, but with patience and perseverance and a lot of handholding today we see a lot of companies wanting to adopt technology like augmented reality not only in Dubai in the Middle East but globally we are fortunate enough to go to and present inside AR in Germany, the biggest augmented reality conference in the world, we went to Australia and presented our technology and we realized that even on a global level our technology was on par if not superior to it was being offered by tech companies in the US and Europe and etc. so what we realized from those learnings, today there is no difference between being in Dubai or the Middle East or the US or Australia because technologies capability to flatten the world and make the competitive level flat for everyone, it allows even us in Dubai to compete on a global level at a very high scale.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And you serve clients from all over the world not necessarily Dubai.

Dany El Eid: All over the world yes we worked with companies in the US and Australia and Europe so there are no more barriers…

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you think that what makes you survive now is the marketing department of specific global companies which they use it for let’s say media and doing advertisements mainly most of the projects that I noticed is mainly advertisements, not a solution for something because it’s like something still new for the world so when they use it for interaction with the customer in the malls or specific crowded places with traffic it works.

Dany El Eid: Exactly and we were able to predict this trend very early so this is why we were amongst the first to coin the term marketing technology as opposed to IT because we saw that marketing was becoming more dependent on technology so marketing executives now need to almost have equal if not more understanding of technology than the IT department because now we are in a very tech enabled world so in order to keep consumers and clients engaged and enticed to use certain products it needs to be through the use of digital products so we came up with this concept of marketing technology and nowadays we even see certain companies, the appearance of chief marketing technologists so that also even at the board level companies are starting to understand the importance of having that type of designation in companies because now you cannot afford to have a gap between the technology side and the marketing side it is one thread, it’s very important that these two are connected and this is what we do and what we have claim to do for several years now is to bridge the gap between marketing and technology.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: You work with some startups as a mentor, what is this experience adding to you?

Dany El Eid: Very good question. We are part specifically myself a mentor at turn 8, part of the turn 8 initiative by DP world in partnership with I 360, we were amongst the founding members of turn 8 and the space where the incubator happens and it has been a great trial with Kemal and Yousef and all the guys from DP world brings together, a very positive thing for the ecosystem in the Middle East in the UAE specifically but mentorship, it was something that I was also venturing into as a way to encourage and promote entrepreneurship but I have to say it has been a learning experience, it always is even as a mentor, mentors wherever they are should never claim that they know everything, mentors specifically are providing support and advice to aspiring entrepreneurs but the flow of information goes both ways, the entrepreneur, the aspiring entrepreneur can teach a lot to a mentor and vice versa and this is where ideation and creativity happens, the mentor’s role is to give a clear path and a clear thinking process to the entrepreneur but the inspiration happens both ways and initially that is why I was very eager to be a mentor because inspiration happens both ways and it’s very important to always be inspired.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What are the software’s or tools that you use in your business and life that makes you more efficient?

Dany El Eid: We use mostly online tools, we are very strong advocates of the shared system, shared economies and open frameworks so we use a lot of online tools to add more efficiency to our processes, we use tools like Asana, like dropbox, Evernote, great innovative tools that help companies be more efficient and be able to share information a lot quicker, we’ve seen that it helps a lot.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you code, does one of your team do the coding or do you outsource?

Dany El Eid: We do everything ourselves.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And you don’t outsource any of the projects you are so just remembers?

Dany El Eid: We are a team of eight now, we are three partners if you want, senior management and we have a full-fledged team.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Where is your office?

Dany El Eid: We are working in fact out of the crib, staying very close to turn 8 and DP world, we stay in that system to be able to always keep cross-pollination of ideas, we always learn new things as we go and it’s a great space because there are always new tech startups coming in and we get inspired by them, they get inspired by us the space is great so that’s where we work out of.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you are based in the crib that is great. Take us through your daily life and work routine, what is it look like?

Dany El Eid: Well from waking up.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: From waking up until sleeping.

Dany El Eid: From the first hour well I wake up always around 630 or seven, I jump straight to my phone, the first thing I do is grab my phone and look at what’s happening, the latest trends I do my reading very early, look at tech blogs and what’s happening, I do that for a few minutes then very important I have my coffee because mentally I cannot function without coffee and then I have breakfast, fruit, very important part of the day and then I just get ready and go to the office, very early I go in and check on the team and work on the team and see what tasks need to be done sent a few emails, make a few calls, make sure everyone is on track with their tasks and their deliverables so a lot of management and a lot of making sure that everyone is aligned and on track and then throughout the day we either work on presentations or work on leads then towards the end of the day I do meditation, quite often I find it helps a lot with re-centering one’s focus and finding your center of gravity, re-centering yourself is very important so do meditation and then spend time with my dogs, walk my dogs and then either carry on doing some reading, I do a lot of reading in my spare time so reading is a very important part of the learning and growth process in any entrepreneurs life.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Other hobbies?

Dany El Eid: Than reading you mean, sports I try to do as much sports as possible, movies obviously I enjoy watching a lot of movies.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: We should go to the cinema together I love movies. Back to the crib, now you said that you are based there you have a trade license and Dubai and you can’t link the trade license in the co-working space in the crib or should you have an office?

Dany El Eid: We have a trade license and Dubai but we have an agreement with the crib that allows us to work in a that space.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And any company can do that?

Dany El Eid: Any company can do that.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So they give you like in the economy department comes visit this is the office that you are based in in order to save the costs of renting an office.

Dany El Eid: Exactly yes.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: That’s great. Who’s your top three mentors?

Dany El Eid: Top three mentors, do they have to be living?

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Not necessarily. But mentors are like people that you interact with I will ask you another question after that the three people that you’re inspired by.

Dany El Eid: I see, direct mentors I would definitely have to say my sister Rana was a very big part of knowing not only what to do and what not to do so learning from her mistakes in doing business, I would also have to say Kemal, when starting off pixel bug I met him through the startup weekends he was organizing startup weekends so also interaction was not very long it wasn’t a systematic mentorship role if you want but through the short amount of interaction I’ve had with him I was able to learn a lot and through his actions as well and what he was doing for the entrepreneurship ecosystem as well. Finally third one I would have to say one of my previous employers, I was working in an American company so I had a boss who also became very successful very quickly but also crashed very quickly so I was able to understand that it’s very important to keep a very conservative mode and approach at starting up because it’s a thin line between success and crashing so just to emphasize on this I wouldn’t say the three of them were specifically called mentors I just happen to learn a lot from them just because I am curious by nature it wasn’t like we were sitting specifically week on week and it was now my mentoring time it was just like a natural progression of things.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And who are the three people you’re inspired by?

Dany El Eid: I would have to say one of my biggest inspirations is Steve Jobs definitely, Elon musk nowadays, huge disruption he is doing, seeing and learning a lot from him and Richard Branson definitely.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Top three favorite books?

Dany El Eid: Top three favorite books, think and grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Einstein by Walter Isaacson and Steve Jobs also biography of Steve Jobs also by Walter Isaacson.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: The most important factors for success in three words?

Dany El Eid: Never give up.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: The top three apps that you use the new smartphone?

Dany El Eid: I use Evernote a lot, I use Facebook a lot and dropbox.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What are the habits that you are trying to develop to stay efficient?

Dany El Eid: Always trying to develop my people skills because business is all about people in dealing with people can sometimes be very tough but learning how to do that more efficient please very important, dealing with people in patients and remaining calm under pressure are very important.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you listen to any music when you work?

Dany El Eid: I do not. I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t enjoy it but…

Ahmed Al Kiremli: It makes you less focused.

Dany El Eid: Exactly, some people enjoy it, sometimes I do when I’m doing something more relaxed but most of the time I prefer to just put more focus on finishing a task quickly and having more free time to then listen to music or go out or whatever then to be distracted by music and taking longer to achieve a certain task.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you categorize your day into different tasks was each they different?

Dany El Eid: Each day is different and has to be especially as an entrepreneur in our roles in our lives you have to be flexible I know there are certain guidelines of what I want to achieve so sort of goals I set that I want to complete in a day but I wouldn’t say I schedule them hour by hour just because you always, there are always unexpected events that come up and you have to be able to stay versatile and flexible in order to address each one.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you follow any routine to sleep?

Dany El Eid: Meditation, as I was explaining meditation before going to sleep or in the evening is very important and then reading before going to sleep, that’s the usual part of my pre-sleep routine is to do the reading.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What makes you really happy?

Dany El Eid: Inspiring people makes me really happy and always feeling that I’m not working the day of my life because I’m doing what I love that makes me happy.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Last question, how can people contact you?

Dany El Eid: People can contact me either through email or social media.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Can you share email?

Dany El Eid: It’s Dany@pixelbug.com and on Facebook and Twitter, handles pixelbugDXB and on LinkedIn Dany El Eid.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Thank you so much Dany for this interview.

Dany El Eid: Thank you very much for having me it was great and thank you for the questions and your time.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: It’s a pleasure, thanks everyone, be efficient and stay efficient and see you soon with another leading expert.

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