Casting a wide, sustainable net
Edited by: Hend Elsagheer
Photo Taken By: Rayaheen Sam Qatena
Whether she is 5,000 feet above the ground in a parachuting class or playing the violin, Heidi Omar does it with a loud chuckle and a daring smile. When it comes to Omar, you can most definitely always expect the unexpected.
Omar is a 24-year-old Mechanical Engineering alumna who is most recently known for co-founding Bahtinet, a manufacturing startup that specializes in sustainable fishing nets made out of banana fiber waste. Her company has won various awards at AUC and beyond, including being finalists at the World Federation of United Nations’ (WFUNA) competition, and it had all started with wanting to help the fishing community of Ismailia.
She was born in Sharqeya and then immediately moved to Cairo to spend her teenage years along the Nile in the heart of Zamalek with her mother and four siblings. But now, she resides just miles away from AUC; where it all started.
“I had a regular childhood. I was not very academically gifted; I was a B+ student, and I was a very calm person,” Omar reminisced.
Omar considers hitting 15 as a turning point in her academic journey, as she felt intimidated by the then-recently announced high standards set by Thanaweya Amma cutoff scores. With a burning desire to join engineering, Omar left her family’s Alexandria summer getaway behind and returned alone to Cairo just in time to apply for schools offering the IGCSE system.
Having completed all of the engineering requirements by her second year of high school gave Omar plenty of time to broaden her horizons. She got her first job as a web admin for a website called Menus Egypt and remained there for a year and a half.
“I remember the interviewer questioning my age and telling me that I’m too young for this position, that being too young could either mean I’m too incompetent or that I’m just really intelligent,” Omar commented.
Later on, she joined the mechatronics program at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime (AAST), where she spent her two and a half years as the designated tutor for her friend group, regularly meeting with them and simplifying even the most complicated mechatronics practices.
Among those classmates was Amr Haytham, a former AUCian who majored in Mechanical Engineering who was considering applying to AUC again and randomly suggested one day that Omar does the same. Safe to say, the application was in her favor, and she joined AUC in Spring 2020.
“She is smart and loyal. She taught me to pour my heart into whatever I’m doing, whether it was for business or pleasure,” said Haytham.
Omar flourished in the Mechanical Engineering department (MENG), joining a work-study program as a research assistant, where she created a digital archive system of all MENG students’ profiles. Later on, she volunteered as a note-taker in the disability unit to help students with visual impairments.
“It was all on a whim. My life is all based on coincidences, especially the biggest milestones in my life; they were all coincidental, but I make use of these coincidences,” she said.
This was also the case when she applied to Tomorrow’s Leaders Gender Scholars (TLS), a journey that started with a “random application email” to begin a “life-changing experience.”
Omar spent this year-long scholarship participating in civic engagement projects and learning more about gender, leadership, and equality.
“It was all about the people, the idea of belonging to a group of people who are really intelligent academically but also doing so many different things. You feel like you are in a community that pushes you to be and do better,” she said.
Masa Tantawy, a TLS alumna and Data Science senior, told The Caravan how Omar is a “true leader” who continuously contributed to the scholarship’s sessions with her ideas and cheerful energy.
“She inspired me to be like her: loved by everyone. Her ideas are unique and out of the box. I would describe her as exuberant, visionary, and ambitious,” explained Tantawy.
Although Omar was preoccupied with TLS and her academics, the World Federation of United Nations’ (WFUNA) competition “Under The Starry Sky” caught her attention on CareerWeb. This competition offers a chance for youth with innovative ideas to receive a series of project management workshops and training. Within a few days, she teamed up with her closest friends, Yara Yousry, Mariam El Halaby, and Aliaa Moussa, to join the competition together, but with no solid idea in mind.
After meeting and brainstorming, the idea of Bahtinet came to life through a site visit by Yousry, in which she visited a village called Bahtini in Ismailia for an urban development class. The group then brainstormed making sustainable materials to help the fishing industry thrive.
“Despite being a coastal area, the fish wealth was put to a halt due to the toxic materials the fishermen used. We wanted to help this community in any way,” Omar said.
Inspired by a project she saw at Cairo Design Week 2022, Omar suggested using banana fiber as a raw material to make fishing nets. Soon enough, the team was ready with all preliminary information on the validity of the idea and the strength of the material.
One stage after the other, the team found themselves among the top finalists at WFUNA, where they received project management training and were invited for a sailing trip along the Norwegian coast to present their work across five fishing ports.
“It was a back-to-nature experience to showcase the ideas that this group of people came up with,” she recalled.
The team, or Bahtinettes as they refer to themselves, started looking for funding opportunities, the first of which was the Student Union (SU)’s “Real Life Competition” in which they came in second place and won $1,000. After that, they received an Undergraduate Research Grant, worth $1,500. They also started expanding their network outside of AUC, reaching the top 10 in Babson College’s ePitch Competition and winning the MINT EgyBank Incubation Program.
Bahtinet’s latest achievement is reaching the Global Student Entrepreneur Award quarter-finals, where they won regionally and received $2,000 in funding.
They are currently working on the second prototype of the biodegradable nets, which involves treating it and analyzing the strength of the water tension in collaboration with Eshra Fishing Net Factory, an Alexandrian factory that was founded in 1957.
“I never expected Bahtinet to grow this much. It grew with the people we knew and the support they offered us,” Omar reflected with a smile.
But while walking us through her journey, Omar kept returning to the core value that she believes in; faith.
She believes that by accepting what life throws your way, you will reach exactly where you are destined to be. She credited this to her mother, who taught her the power of being content with what she has.
“If something bad happens to you, accept it. God is moving you in the right direction. I got rejected at MIU [Misr International University], but if I hadn’t joined AAST instead, I wouldn’t have known Amr, and I wouldn’t have joined AUC, and then I wouldn’t have been here,” Omar said.
