What We Do:
Gradberry.com is the leading careers portal for student internships and new graduate jobs in the Middle East. The start up connects students, graduates, employers and Universities, and aims to mitigate youth unemployment in the region, by planting fruitful careers.
Launched in November 2011, Gradberry has a presence in 550 Universities globally, and is now posting jobs from the U.A.E, KSA, Egypt, Ireland and UK. Clients include Google, IBM and Philips and over 200 SMEs. The Fruit Bowl, gradberry’s career blog, provides career resources to support and facilitate the job search experience for students and new grads.
In 2012, one year after launch, the startup was a winner at the United Nations ITU Young Innovator’s Competition, and winner of the Cartier Laureate for the MENA Region.
Gradberry.com will be launching the Gradberry Academy in 2013, which aims to educate the community with skills in new and emerging industries.
For students:
Our philosophy is to “plant fruitful careers” for students and graduates. Hence, all activities we undertake adhere to the below objectives:
- To enable free flowing information between employers, students and universities alike.
- To ease the transition from university to careers for students and graduates.
- To eliminate the “quarter life crisis” that graduates experience, once they enter the working world.
- To allow graduates to find careers and workplaces where they “do what they love and love what they do”.
For employers:
Our values involve assisting employers in finding the right talent, hence we aim to:
- Enable free flowing information between employers, students and universities alike.
- Encourage and facilitate interaction between employers and potential candidates.
- Assist in every step of the recruitment process.
- Educate and raise awareness on working with respective employers in the Middle East.
Iba Masood
Co-founder and CEO
Iba Masood, is a 2010 Finance graduate of the American University of Sharjah. She co-founded Gradberry.com after spotting a gap in the market for a portal that connects students, universities and employers. Iba is a recipient of the Arabian Business “Young Achiever of the Year” award, has written for the Huffington Post on Youth unemployment, and was recently awarded the Cartier Laureate for the MENA Region. She is also one of the 30 most influential youth under the age of 30 in the Middle East, as awarded by Gulf Business. Iba enjoys speaking at events on youth engagement and the power of social media in entrepreneurship and giving career workshops to students.
When she is not strategizing, Iba can be found using her willpower to muster enough strength to visit the gym.
Syed Ahmed
Co-founder and CTO
Syed Ahmed, is a 2011 Mechanical Engineering graduate of the American University of Sharjah. As a student, he was president of the Power Hit Radio Club, and a recipient of several entrepreneurship awards. He has also been a brand ambassador for Pioneer as a dj, a record label producer and designed facebook applications and websites for multinational brands. Passionate about the business idea and determined to make it launch, Syed joined gradberry as a non-coder and learned to code in multiple languages on his own. Syed is a winner of the ITU Young Innovator’s competition 2012, and a member of the Microsoft Biz Sparks Program.
When he is not coding or designing till the crack of dawn, Syed can be found kicking some serious ahem, on Steam and his Xbox.
Moylin Yuan
Community Manager
Moylin Yuan is a 2012 Animation graduate of SAE Institute, Dubai. As a student, she volunteered at film festivals, the dog shelter, and designed anime wallpapers for a web group. Besides using her community management and design skills to help students and grads at Gradberry, she is currently working on her portfolio, relearning French and catching up on her many hobbies, all of which take more than 140 characters to describe.
Jason Torion
Social Media Intern
Jason Torion is the youngest and most recent member of the team. He’s socially savvy and has an undying love for coffee. Currently doing his A-Levels, he’s at a crossroad as to what to take or where to go for university. To date, he has volunteered in film festivals, youth engagement events and designed several posters for a cat shelter in the UAE. During his free time, he plays the guitar and keyboard, if he’s not up late playing games or randomly browsing the internet looking at memes.
Suraj Shirvankar
Web Development Intern
Suraj Shirvankar is a second year student of Heriot Watt University in Dubai. Suraj Shirvankar picked up an interest in programming learning languages like C,Java,Ruby and Python during his early years of high school, and continually expanded his experience since. Currently working for YoArabia and TheGadgetNation as a Web Dev. He is also a consultant and researcher specializing in Android and Web Development mainly focusing on PHP. When he is not programming you can find him playing MMOs until he is tired enough to sleep.
Valentina Swetta
Graphic Design Intern
Valentina Swetta has been working for Gradberry since February, notably working on the ‘Apples and Oranges’ webcomic for the Fruitbowl section. Fresh out of A Levels, Valentina has had two hundred and fifty six Oreos, twenty gallons of milk, yet still no clue as to what course she might take. Still searching through the many different opportunities the world has had to offer her, she hopes that she’ll soon find a course she’s actually interested in. When not working for Gradberry or freaking out about her life choices, Valentina does art in her spare time, or doing… things… that 18 year old girls do… like counting money.
