How a Group of High Tech Entrepreneurs Inspired Their Community
June 23, 2020–
By: Nazila Fathi
Late last month, a group of immigrants called iBRIDGES held a virtual conference on a Zoom call to bring a cross-generational community of high tech entrepreneurs of Iranian-descent together. Their previous conferences had drawn hundreds of participants from all around the world.
This time, they were not sure if the two-and-half-hour virtual event, which had replaced a conference in Stockholm, Sweden, would garner a large audience. There was no chatting or greetings with some of the leading investors.
But the global pandemic had prompted some soul-searching questions. Entrepreneurs Kamran Elahian, CEO of Global Innovation Catalyst, and Fereydoun Taslimi, CEO of Sensorscall, had never before seen a risk scenario as unpredictable and confusing as the coronavirus pandemic.
“Over 25 percent of Startups in our incubator at Atlanta Tech Village, which is the fourth largest in the US, have gone out of business,” Taslimi, the president of iBRIDGES, said.
Private funding declined steeply during the pandemic. The prospect of going back to normal any time soon seemed dim. Many high-tech startups had no choice but to close.
iBRIDGES Aims to Connect a Fragmented Community
Like other immigrant communities, entrepreneurs of Iranian-descent are scattered around the world. To say the least, many are marginalized.
So they embraced iBRIDGES when Elahian along with several Iranian academics and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs founded it in 2014. iBRIDGES’s aimed to create a community of high tech entrepreneurs to exchange knowledge, best practices and innovative thinking. Their events in Berkeley, Toronto, Barcelona and Berlin attracted large crowds.
For the virtual event on May 30, the group invited some of the most inspiring Iranians. Among the speakers were Anousheh Ansari, CEO of X-Prize, who became the first female space tourist and Firouz Naderi, the former Director of Solar System Exploration at NASA’s JPL, who has an asteroid named after him.
To their surprise, nearly a thousand people logged to Zoom. Among the speakers were Iranian and non-Iranian, high tech startups and venture capitalists. Every single one of them urged the audience to find paths around every hang-up and ride out this storm.
Sheherzade Semsar, CEO of Politico EU, said startups should make their business model “COVID-proof.”
The moderator, Niclas Carlsson, CEO of Founders Alliance, urged the audience “to pivot now and get to the other side.”
Naderi proclaimed that “with every crisis comes an opportunity.”
Ansari went a step farther and called the crisis “a great time.” Because, she said, “at the heart of every innovator is a problem-solver.” She added that startups could re-examine everything and digitize any aspect of their business they could in this environment.
Their advice was the tell-tale sign of their ironclad resolve. Johann Romefort, the Managing Director of Techstars in Munich, Germany, put the conversation in context when he referred to entrepreneurs as “disruptors” who wouldn’t get deterred by failure.
In fact, many of those present had extraordinary stories.
Becoming an Entrepreneur During the Hostage Crisis
Elahian, the iBRIDGES co-founder, began his journey at the age of 18 when he left Iran to attend the University of Utah. For the young Tech-savvy Iranian, the University of Utah was an exciting place. It was where computer graphics was invented in the late 60s and was the playground of the founders of Pixar, Adobe, Attari, and Silicon Graphics in the early 70s. Elahian got two Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree by the age of 22. He joined Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto and as part of HP’s honor program was accepted to Stanford University to design a communication chip.
But as his real-life experience began, the road got bumpy. The chip did not work. Then, HP rejected his proposal to lead a program that would use computer graphics in the development of Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) software. He was too young and inexperienced, they told him.
Frustrated, and eager to launch his own company, he left HP. By this time, the Islamic Revolution had ousted the Shah in Iran and held 52 American diplomats hostage.
Never Took No for an Answer
Elahian began looking for venture capital at a time when his home country was officially a pariah state. Investors suggested that he should change his name to sound less Iranian.
Further, diversity and inclusion were myths back then, too.
“They said immigrants can make good engineers but not CEOs,” Elahian told me.
Ninety-four investors turned him down before he was able to raise money. The rejections helped him develop the resilience necessary to weather the obstacle-ridden road of entrepreneurship.
Three years later, in 1984, he sold the company, CAE Systems, to Tektronix Corporation for $75 million.
Over the next sixteen years, he co-founded nine startups and built three unicorn startups—companies worth more than $1 billion.
“You win only when you overcome the fear of failure,” he told the audience on May 30.
“The only way you find out if your way works is by trying.”
His story resonates with other entrepreneurs. Fast-forward, over three decades later, another young Iranian, pursued a similar dream.
Immigrants Are Resilient
Martin Basiri, 32, believes that immigrants, by nature, fit the profile of an entrepreneur.
“If you are not a risk-taker, you don’t leave your country in the first place,” he told me from his home in Kitchener Waterloo, Ontario.
“Those who migrate are different from average people from their circumstances to their personalities.”
He may be right. Planning for an arduous path, hard work, and a steep learning curve are all experiences common among entrepreneurs starting new ventures and also for immigrants starting a new life in a different country.
In 2010, Basiri came from Iran to Canada on a one-way ticket. His English wasn’t good and he had $6,800 in his pocket.
He finished a Master’s degree in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering and moved to Ohio for two years. While working to improve his English, he helped his two younger twin brothers, Meti and Massi Basiri, immigrate to Canada.
In 2015, he applied for funds to start his company, ApplyBoard, a digital platform that helps international students find and apply to schools. He, too, was rejected by some 200 investors. By the time he attended the iBRIDGES Toronto conference, he was already on the right path. “Naderi‘s talk gave me goose-bumps,” he said, adding how important it was to meet successful Iranians who had made it during tougher times.
By this time, Basiri and his brothers had cemented their own reputation as entrepreneurs in Canada. His brothers who work with him were named among Forbes three top 30 under 30 list. They were among the top 30 entrepreneurs under the age of 30. Basiri’s company has helped over 100,000 international students to study in North America. It employs 520 people and is worth $1.4 billion today.
Passing the Torch
It is stories like Basiri’s that propels iBRIDIGES to step up its efforts, even as COVID-19 is wreaking havoc.
Nadereh Chamlou, iBRIDGES board-member and former senior advisor to the World Bank, told me that Iranians are dynamic outside Iran and contribute to the economies of the countries where they lived in. “iBRIDGES wants to create a community for high tech startups so that people can pass on their experience and help one another,” she said.
iBRIDGES intends to ramp up its website to provide more resources for startups, like webinars with speakers and coaches.
“A lot of Iranian immigrants contact us and many of them have great ideas,” Taslimi told me from his home in Atlanta, Georgia. “But most of them cannot raise funds and have a difficult life as some have immigrated to countries with little opportunity.”
And as almost every business, from small start-ups to the largest tech companies in the world, is preparing for a challenging year, Naderi has found himself coaching younger people.
“I had to think like a startup during my entire career,” the seventy-four-year-old NASA scientist said. He spent most of his career conceiving ideas like sending a spacecraft to the moon of Jupiter.
“So, it was easy for me to coach young people,” he said. “They don’t lack ideas but they are looking for a soundboard to execute their ideas.”
Naderi may be the perfect person for it. He believes in approaching projects in a methodical way. “How do you go about them systematically?” he asked.
Enjoy Rahmanian’s Feathers of Fire From the Comfort of Your Living Room
By: Nazila Fathi
May 14, 2020–
Hamid Rahmanian’s Feathers of Fire sparked a connection when it played in some of the largest theaters around the world. The award-winning show, a story based on the Shahnameh, performed live for three years.
By releasing Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic movie on streaming service Vimeo this month, Rahmanian, the creator of the show, wants to introduce an uplifting Persian story to a larger audience.
“I want to show Iran’s culture in a positive light,” Rahmanian, an award-winning artist, told me from his Brooklyn home.
“And I want people to take a break for 70 minutes.”
“We all need hope during these dark times,” he added.
The visually breathtaking show is adapted from the 11th-century Persian epic book of the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, by Abolqasem Ferdowsi. It is among its very few stories that have a happy ending.
Feathers of Fire: An Excellent Movie in Coronavirus Lockdown
Feathers of Fire begins with birth and ends with birth. There are no deaths in the story.
I found Feathers of Fire, not just uplifting, but also relevant and inspiring. It is a story of leadership, tenacity, and the power of people to unite against adversity. The characters are puppets, but the audience sees only their shadows, which makes the show almost magical. The light and the soundtrack create a breath-taking ambiance.
NYC Theatre Review called it “magnificent” because all of the magic occurs live right before your very eyes.
“What the Walt Disney Company does for hundreds of millions of dollars in a single animated film that takes five years or more to create, the Feathers of Fire ensemble and the creative team does in eighty minutes using a centuries-old art form, elaborately designed shadow puppets, modern multimedia techniques, and a diverse company of extremely skilled and gifted actors,” it wrote.
Moral Lessons
The Shahnameh came out in 1010. Ten centuries later, some of those challenges still ring true.
Feathers of Fire tells the story of star-crossed lovers, Zaul and Rudabeh, who triumph against all odds.
Their secret? Wisdom and diplomacy rather than war, a much-needed policy in the world today.
Unlike other characters of the Shahnameh, whose lives perish by revenge or wrath, Zaul, a Persian knight, wins.
The story begins with Saum, a Persian knight, leaving his Albino infant, Zaul, in the forest to die. A mythical bird finds and raises the child. He enters into forbidden love with the princess Rudabeh after Saum repents and brings Zaul back to court. The king dispatches a large army to raze Rudabeh’s city to the ground to prevent the marriage. But, a wise and diplomatic Zaul persuades the king that his marriage to Rudabeh poses no threat.
Eventually, Zaul prevails and prevents a devastating battle. Their union gives birth to Rostam, the Hercules of Iran, and one of the main characters of the Shahnameh.
I admire and share Rahmanian’s passion for telling Persian stories to a cross-cultural audience. Through my books, My Name is Cyrus and Avicenna, The Father of Modern Medicine, I aim to create a connection, too, and introduce kids to global stories.
International stories are crucial in changing our perspectives about other cultures and recognizing how similar we are.
The Shahnameh, A Timeless Book
Iranians regard the Shahnameh as a literary masterpiece.
The book reflects Iran’s history, cultural values, its ancient religion of Zoroastrianism, and its profound sense of nationhood.
Ferdowsi completed the Shahnameh at a time when national independence had been compromised after the fall of the Persian Empire. The book begins with the creation of the world and the origin myths of the arts of civilization and ends with the Arab conquest of Persia in the seventh century. A mix of myth and history, the characters take the readers on heroic adventures filled with superhuman champions, magical creatures, heart-wrenching love stories, and centuries-long battles.
Although the book is the embodiment of the pre-Islamic Persian soul, it offers much more than a national treasure. Ferdowsi labored thirty years to create the world’s longest epic poems. As a document of human collective consciousness, it reflects the dilemmas of the human condition as it confronts us with the timeless questions of our existence.
Rahmanian’s Engaging Narrative
Rahmanian is not a novice to the Shahnameh.
He has spent the past 12 years working on the book. His first work on the Shahnameh was a modernized translation of some of the stories with miniature illustrations. The translator, Ahmad Sadri, a professor of Sociology and Anthropology, produced masterful prose in English, making the stories understandable even to native Persian speakers like me, who find the old Persian poetry difficult to read. The book is called Shahnameh, The Epic of the Persian Kings. It took Rahmanian, who is a graphic designer by training, four years to complete the 600 illustrated pages of the book (audiobook is also available).
In Zahhak: The Legend of the Serpent King, another puppet show, he told the story of a mythical character, the misguided Prince Zahhak, who is easily swayed by the devil to overthrow his crowned father. The Devil empowers King Zahhak by giving him monstrous snakes that grow out of the king’s shoulders.
After the puppet show, Rahmanian made the pop-up book, Zahak: The Legend of the Serpent King. It won the 2018 Meggendorfer prize. With the book, Rahmanian told me, he wanted “to delight the imaginations of readers all over the world from ages 2 to 102.”
In Pursuit of Perfection
It took two years to create Feathers of Fire, to make the puppets and rehearse until the performance was flawless. The show employs eight actors, 160 puppets and 15 masks and costumes. Its 134 animated backgrounds are rear-projected onto a vast, 15- by 30-foot screen.
“Backstage must work like a Swiss-made watch, every detail has to perform and execute perfectly, otherwise the show would not look correctly,” Rahmanian told me.
Rahmanian’s next project, Song of the North, is another shadow puppet production. It is the story of Persia’s Princess Manijeh, a hero who rescues her beloved from a perilous predicament of her own making.
The release date of Feathers of Fire this month is not accidental: on May 15, Iranians celebrate to commemorate Ferdowsi.
However, the biggest prize, Rahmanian told me, was that he had shared Iran’s rich visual and literary culture with a global audience. The show had 112 performances around the world. It sold out at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and CLA’s Freud Playhouse among many other theaters.
Francis Ford Coppola, the famed filmmaker, saw it no less than three times.
He called it “spectacular cinematic wizardry.”
Rent Feathers of Fire here.
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Movie Shows Avicenna Introduces Quarantine in 11th Century Iran
By: Nazila Fathi
April 21, 2020
As the coronavirus pandemic was claiming lives last month, Iranians and Afghans had a novel approach to enforce self-isolation: They relied on a soviet-era movie about the 11th-century Persian physician and philosopher, Avicenna or Ibn Sina, who allegedly introduced the idea of quarantine.
Iran’s state T.V. broadcast the black-and-white, 1957 movie called Avitsenna during the Nowruz holiday. In the movie, Avicenna introduces a 40-day isolation to combat the plague.
Story-telling on screen or in print has a magical way of changing minds, especially in countries where mistrust of the government and its narratives looms large.
People had ignored the government’s warnings to stay home.
But the staunchest critics were clerics who did not want to shut down their mosques.
The movie echoed the voice of wisdom from a distant past. Avicenna is a sane, caring, accomplished and “Muslim” figure in this culture. Newspapers praised the movie, proclaiming that it showed quarantine, in fact, was an Iranian invention.
“Our situation today is not so different than those days,” one newspaper wrote.
Afghans Embraced the Movie, Too
In Afghanistan, where religious leaders had also opposed shutting down mosques, the youth tried to get them to watch the movie. Their opposition was similar to the reaction Avicenna had faced.
Afghans shared the movie on their social media, urging the clerics to heed to the wisdom of a “Muslim” scientist.
The practice of quarantine, as we know it, began during the 14th century to protect Italian coastal cities from plague epidemics. Ships arriving in Venice from infected ports had to sit at anchor for 40 days before landing. Quarantine was derived from the Italian words quaranta giorni which means 40 days.
But a Facebook user called Gapidil referred to the movie and wrote that traders of Venice had learned about Avicenna’s successful 40-day isolation and introduced his approach, calling it quarantine. He reminded his readers that “quarantine,” actually, “originated in the Muslim world.”
There are many elements to this story that ring true to people in this part of the world. The number 40 is a mystic figure. It is cited in the Quran and in Persian poetry (Many afghans are Persian-speakers and Afghanistan was part of Persia). It resonates with 40 days of mourning for the dead and 40 days of caring for a newborn.
Scenes in the Movie Struck a chord with Viewers
The social and emotional consequences of the plague bear striking resemblance to those of Covid-19. “Don’t be afraid of the disease,” Avicenna told people in the movie.
“Stay away from crowds because the virus remains in the air. The Bazaar and the mosques should lock their doors during this period and everybody must pray alone at their homes. Clean your coins with vinegar. If you care for a sick person, insert pieces of cotton drenched in vinegar into your nostrils or chew the leaves of Artemisia.”
Artemisia or wormwood fights inflammation and parasitic infections (do not try this at home). It was banned in the United States until 2007.
Avicenna tells a fellow scientist at the beginning of the movie they could not greet one another properly because of the killer-disease. First, Avicenna says, they need to change their clothes. Then clean their skin with vinegar before they can embrace as was the tradition those days.
In other words, Avicenna became a unifying figure during the coronavirus pandemic. People in Iran and Afghanistan coalesced around him and his method to save lives.
The movie appealed to people’s nationalistic sentiments, too. One Iranian website referred to the movie, concluding that Islamic scholars had kept the candle of knowledge lit during a time that Europe wallowed through a period of intellectual stagnation.
Other Movies About Avicenna
The Physician, in which Ben Kingsley plays as Avicenna, is a great movie that shows Avicenna’s quarantine measures (available on American Netflix).
The movie is based on a novel of the same name by Noah Gordon which tells an engrossing story about Avicenna and his young British student Robert Cole.
Its romantic subplot, however, may not appeal to Muslim clerics who may dismiss the story’s moral message.