In fact, Time has just interviewed him the day before our interview. He discussed matters such as why today only 20 percent of Muslims live in the Arab countries or Middle East, the traditional idealistic strongholds of the Muslim world. “The journalist also wanted to interview my father and younger brother who are visiting Finland. My father told him he is very proud of me. It made me feel very good.” The father is also partially responsible for the son’s initial spark of interest in the IT world. El-Fatatry, who was born in Egypt, became interested in computers, and especially the Internet, in his teens. His father was the Editor-in-Chief in the biggest newspaper in Dubai. It was using his father’s work computer that young Mohamed got his first taste of the worldwide web already in 1997—long before the average Dubai resident. The joy was boundless when he realised that WWF wrestling results were available online in real time. The matches were two seasons behind on local television. “I went to my fathers editing office at 6pm and we left at 3am, when the paper was sent to the print. I was online the whole time. I became quite a superhero at school, being able to predict next year’s wrestling champion. That’s when I realised the power of the Internet!” Later El-Fatatry studied information technology at an American university and worked, but at the same time he was sure that there was more to be learned. He was searching the net for further study opportunities and bumped into the free education system in Finland. El-Fatatry made an excursion to the north and became assured that he would like it here. And soon he started his studies in the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. “Many thought I was crazy when I left my steady job for a school in Finland. I am grateful for my parents who have always trusted and supported me. Our family is spread out all over the world at the moment,” El-Fatatry says referring to his brother and sister, who all study abroad. At Helsinki Metropolia El-Fatatry got the idea of a web community for Muslims. The teachers encouraged him, even though his schoolmates thought he was a bit dotty. How could anyone start a Muslim website in Finland? Finland is not even near any countries with major Muslim population.
“Who’s the sucker now?” El-Fatatry smiles. The original name of El-Fatatry’s business was MuslimSpace, a social and entertainment-centred online portal targeted at a Muslim audience. It caught on and received a lot of interest in the media. After Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest newspaper in Finland, wrote of the small but interesting company, El-Fatatry received a call from Pietari Päivänen. The two men met, their interests and chemistry clicked, and in the end of their meeting Päivänen was ready to invest 50 000 euro to Muxlim. “I actually received three calls; one from Pietari, another from the USA and a third one from Belgium. I chose Pietari, because I thought it would be good to have a Finnish business partner, if I run the company from Finland.”
He is Mohamed El-Fatatry, 25,
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Prize. For me the most important thing was that Nokia received the same award ten years ago,” says El-Fatatry, who chose Finland as the country for his studies partially due to Nokia’s reputation. El-Fatatry is constantly asked why Muslims need their own online community, if they use Western entertainment websites as well. He explains that just a few years ago you couldn’t upload Muslim material on Youtube without receiving a lot of unpleasant feedback from other users. He wanted to create a Muslimfriendly community, where no one would be mocked. El-Fatatry has received a lot of praise for the friendliness of his community. “Most Muslims are normal people who love their families. The picture of Muslims that the media boosts is not always truthful. For example, a recent study shows that over half of the Muslim reportages have to do with only one percent of Muslims.” With Muxlim.com, people always talk of a good idea. Most good ideas are simple. El-Fatary says he was just in the right place at the right time. He thinks Muxlim.com could have been founded by anyone, also by a non-Muslim. “It is hard to believe now, but the online community could just as easily have been founded by some other Muslim named Mohamed. This is a commercial company. I knew what I was doing, because I wanted to use this kind of a service myself. That I admit.” That’s a good way to sum the recipe for a perfect product: Make something that you would use yourself.
50 people. The company has offices in Helsinki and New York. “At times it feels weird that our lives revolve around this business. I, for example, haven’t unpacked my suitcase in years. On my recent business trip to the US, I visited three states in one day. And I didn’t think there was anything weird about it.” There have been attempts to buy the successful business, but El-Fatatry has been reluctant to sell an unfinished product. “At the moment one maybe could get a few million for this business, and live happy in Hawaii with the money, but what would be the point. Everything else is much more interesting than money at this point. And I can assure you that this is just the beginning. We have so many possibilities for development,” El-Fatatry says. Currently, there is plenty of work to be done. El-Fatatry travels more than six months of the year and says he suffers a continuous jetlag. He is also a wanted speaker. This spring he has given a speech at the Presidential Entrepreneurship Summit organised by President Barack Obama in Washington. A few months ago El-Fatatry made the list of the 500 most influential Muslims. In February he received the 2009 Internationalization Award of the President of the Republic from the Finnish President Tarja Halonen. “The knowledge of the Internationalization Award spread across the Muslim world and people reacted to it like it was a Nobel
the founder and CEO of Muxlim. com, a million euro business.
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