Rana Tarakji is the founder of Cary, a free download app which she says is the first mobile app for buying and selling cars. The Lebanese-American, 23, who moved to Dubai from Beirut two years ago, has already secured US$100,000 from the crowdfunding website eureeca.com for her start-up.
8am
I am a great believer in waking when your body needs to wake. Obviously if I have a meeting or a project dominating my time then I will rise earlier.
I don’t really eat breakfast. I may have a granola bar and a glass of juice but I need my energy more in the afternoon, so lunch is more important to me. When I first arrived here I was working for Groupon, an e-commerce business, and it taught me a lot about the opportunities and the way an online business works. I left there to join a restaurant reservation company, which was great. I wanted to build my own mobile application but ran out of resources. I was out-sourcing the work to India, my zero experience in building apps didn’t help in the venture but it taught me valuable lessons. I then met Mohammed, my co-founder, and Cary was born.
10.30am
I arrive in the office with recruitment on my mind. We have only been up and running for three months but we have 40,000 downloads. It is a mobile world now and that proves it. We have set up a process of virtual recruitment; we don’t recruit for a job, we recruit for a task and pay accordingly. We have raised $100,000 and given away 7 per cent of our company, so we don’t want to waste it.
12pm
I talk to Mohammed regularly though the day. He is involved in other businesses, so his time is precious. I try and be goal-orientated but find I get obsessed with one task. It can take over, I want it to be right. I have a spreadsheet that lists what my task is, the objective and the result, and it glows red if it is not done on time. Unfortunately there is a lot of red at the moment. That could be my unrealistic expectations, my bad time management or the fact that the task is not that important.
1pm
Lunch. I’m a pescatarean, I only eat fish. I’m not a health food nut but I don’t like what is being added to the meat we consume. Too many additives, too many chemicals, too many changes. I don’t always eat organic fish but I feel (or hope) fish can’t be as treated as badly as red meat. Basically, lunch is a tuna sandwich.
3pm
I am constantly on the lookout for what other apps and car auction sites are doing, so I trawl similar agencies for anything we should be doing. I’m a manager so I have to manage. I believe in meritocracy, therefore I think if you do a good job you should be rewarded. Right now we have very few full-time staff, but we have a lot of freelancers that are given tasks to do. If you do them well with motivation and pride and show initiative, then you can become a part-time employee and again if you do that with the same attributes and vigour then you will gain a full-time post. It seems in a lot of companies those that get paid the most don’t do the most work and vice versa, I’m going to change that. I know I am young to be managing people but I believe in delegation and empowering people. I love to learn, I just hope I’m learning the right things.
4pm
I play one, maybe two, games on the pool table in the office. It breaks the day up, gives everyone a chance to look away from the work station and laugh for a moment. I love pool.
5pm-7pm
I often work through to the evening, getting lost in a task, then it’s fine dining with my friends if I’m lucky. I live in the Marina so there are plenty of places to choose from and some excellent fish restaurants.
11.30pm
I’m trying to go to bed early, which I have been almost keeping to: 11.30pm is an acceptable time. It can slip, but I like to think if it does it’s because I am learning something about a new skill, or a new market or a new media. Life is about learning and I’m not about to let myself miss an opportunity. Ambition is key to business. Those that want to have a $2 million to $3m company have drive, but that doesn’t show ambition. I want to run a global company that leaves everyone gasping for breath.
ascott@thenational.ae
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
PRISCILLA
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Sofia%20Coppola%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Cailee%20Spaeny%2C%20Jacob%20Elordi%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Habib El Qalb
Assi Al Hallani
(Rotana)
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
BlacKkKlansman
Director: Spike Lee
Starring: John David Washington; Adam Driver
Five stars
The BIO
Favourite piece of music: Verdi’s Requiem. It’s awe-inspiring.
Biggest inspiration: My father, as I grew up in a house where music was constantly played on a wind-up gramophone. I had amazing music teachers in primary and secondary school who inspired me to take my music further. They encouraged me to take up music as a profession and I follow in their footsteps, encouraging others to do the same.
Favourite book: Ian McEwan’s Atonement – the ending alone knocked me for six.
Favourite holiday destination: Italy - music and opera is so much part of the life there. I love it.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Xpanceo
Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
Ronaldo's record at Man Utd
Seasons 2003/04 - 2008/09
Appearances 230
Goals 115
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
Dr Afridi's warning signs of digital addiction
Spending an excessive amount of time on the phone.
Neglecting personal, social, or academic responsibilities.
Losing interest in other activities or hobbies that were once enjoyed.
Having withdrawal symptoms like feeling anxious, restless, or upset when the technology is not available.
Experiencing sleep disturbances or changes in sleep patterns.
What are the guidelines?
Under 18 months: Avoid screen time altogether, except for video chatting with family.
Aged 18-24 months: If screens are introduced, it should be high-quality content watched with a caregiver to help the child understand what they are seeing.
Aged 2-5 years: Limit to one-hour per day of high-quality programming, with co-viewing whenever possible.
Aged 6-12 years: Set consistent limits on screen time to ensure it does not interfere with sleep, physical activity, or social interactions.
Teenagers: Encourage a balanced approach – screens should not replace sleep, exercise, or face-to-face socialisation.
Source: American Paediatric Association
Top tips to avoid cyber fraud
Microsoft’s ‘hacker-in-chief’ David Weston, creator of the tech company’s Windows Red Team, advises simple steps to help people avoid falling victim to cyber fraud:
1. Always get the latest operating system on your smartphone or desktop, as it will have the latest innovations. An outdated OS can erode away all investments made in securing your device or system.
2. After installing the latest OS version, keep it patched; this means repairing system vulnerabilities which are discovered after the infrastructure components are released in the market. The vast majority of attacks are based on out of date components – there are missing patches.
3. Multi-factor authentication is required. Move away from passwords as fast as possible, particularly for anything financial. Cybercriminals are targeting money through compromising the users’ identity – his username and password. So, get on the next level of security using fingertips or facial recognition.
4. Move your personal as well as professional data to the cloud, which has advanced threat detection mechanisms and analytics to spot any attempt. Even if you are hit by some ransomware, the chances of restoring the stolen data are higher because everything is backed up.
5. Make the right hardware selection and always refresh it. We are in a time where a number of security improvement processes are reliant on new processors and chip sets that come with embedded security features. Buy a new personal computer with a trusted computing module that has fingerprint or biometric cameras as additional measures of protection.
Zayed Sustainability Prize
