Bridging Gaza, MENA Talent With Global Tech Opportunities

Q: What market needs led to the creation of Apricot and what have been the main lessons the company learned in its first year?
A: Apricot stems from a clear market inefficiency: some boot camps in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) promise to produce top talent while operating on a pay-to-play model, creating a credibility gap. Levant-based talent has reached competitive skill levels but lacked a bridge to high-paying US and global tech markets. Traditional NGOs and UN programs focused on training, not placement, so we built a nonprofit recruiting firm with leadership from Google, Salesforce, and Fortune 50 companies to close this gap.

Q: What operational mechanisms do you have in place to ensure service quality, SLA compliance, and corporate standards in contexts that may involve complex situations?
A: Operational resilience is engineered into our model. For high-risk zones like Gaza, we decouple employment from physical presence: engineers are contracted for internal dev shop projects, not direct client-facing roles, allowing seamless substitution during disruptions without client impact. Payment continuity is non-negotiable. For higher-stability placements, we enforce strict infrastructure checks using secure internet and legal IP frameworks. Zero IP breaches have occurred. After Oct. 7, we were the sole entity maintaining Gaza payrolls by relocating operations to Cairo, proving that contingency planning must precede crises.

Q: What success stories showcase the capabilities of Apricot’s model? 
A: Two cases demonstrate our model’s efficacy. First, a stalled HVAC logistics SaaS project for a US firm was revived by a Gazan engineer using WhatsApp for coordination. The solution optimized route planning, reducing drive time by 30%. The same engineer later built compliance dashboards for Affinity Care, an NGO based in Minnesota, ensuring federal housing standards for disabled populations — despite working under bombardment.

Second, a Palestinian engineer in Cairo was placed at Brisk Teaching, an AI startup. His performance secured a €60,000 (US$69,700) plus skilled-worker visa in Ireland.

Q: What has been the primary pushback or friction you encounter when pitching the Apricot model to potential clients?
A: Concerns center on perceived instability in the MENA region and doubts about engineer caliber. Our engineers hold computer science degrees from accredited universities, complete top-tier bootcamps, and have tenure at companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Y Combinator startups. The talent pool is globally competitive, just underserved.

Q: How do you typically manage the three-way legal framework, international invoicing, time zones, and communication protocols when a client onboards talent from Apricot?
A: We leverage existing remote-work frameworks but reject exploitative models. Time zones are managed pragmatically: engineers adjust schedules to overlap with clients in North America or the European Union. Contracts are standardized, payments are direct-deposited via legal channels, and tax obligations fall on contractors where local enforcement is negligible due to geopolitical realities. This is not ideal, but it is the only viable solution for displaced talent.

Q: What is Apricot's usual engagement model, and how does it adapt to the needs of the client? 
A: Our engagement model is highly adaptable, tailored to each client’s specific needs. For non-technical founders, we operate as a fractional CTO, providing end-to-end managed services. This includes assembling cross-border teams, like a project manager in the West Bank, back-end engineers in Gaza, and front-end developers in Cairo. In other cases, we offer pure staff augmentation, embedding engineers directly into client teams, or facilitate contract-to-hire placements with a headhunting fee, where revenue is reinvested into our nonprofit mission.

Q: In terms of cybersecurity and intellectual property, what frameworks, best practices, or contractual clauses do you implement to ensure data protection?
A: We tailor our security approach to each client’s requirements. For high-sensitivity projects, we provision dedicated machines with client-approved security configurations from inception. When operating in SaaS environments, we adhere to the client’s internal security frameworks. For codebases, we enforce GitHub repositories with mandatory two-factor authentication and restrict access to pre-release products. Financially, we mitigate regional risks by conducting criminal background checks, disbursing payments only to verified individual bank accounts — never third parties — to prevent fraud.

Q: Which specific skills will be in highest demand in the MENA region over the next few years?
A: AI adoption will dominate, but its integration into enterprise systems will lag, sustaining demand for mid-to-senior engineers. The gap between tools like Copilot and production-grade code will drive the need for domain-specific AI assistants, which are tools that ensure compliance without sacrificing agility. Engineers who master emergent AI tools and adapt them to real-world use cases will lead the next wave. Short-term hiring freezes reflect market uncertainty, not obsolescence; the focus must be on strategic upskilling.

Endurance and creativity will also be in demand. Unlike more hierarchical cultures, Levantine talent proactively flags issues, while embedding originality into solutions. Their drive stems from a hunger to participate in the global tech economy, often overcoming systemic barriers. This blend of assertiveness and endurance is rare in offshore markets, where execution often prioritizes speed over innovation.

Q: Considering the political instability and conflict across the region, how has Apricot designed its operational model to ensure resilience and the long-term continuity of your mission?
A: Our model prioritizes diversification. While 90% of placements are Palestinian, we actively engage talent from Syria and other MENA markets, capitalizing on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) investments in post-conflict economies. Geographic agility is key: 50% of our clients are in the GCC, like Saudi Arabia or UAE, ensuring demand stability due to time-zone alignment and Arabic language fluency. This regional interdependence, coupled with the GCC’s tech sector boom, insulates us from localized disruptions.

Q: How the current armed conflicts in the region are expected to reshape the future of the global tech ecosystem?
A: The geopolitical volatility in Gaza and Iran is disrupting investment flows and alliances within tech. Silicon Valley is being drawn into ideological divides, evidenced by Sequoia Capital facing backlash from Muslim founders and Middle Eastern investors like Wamda Capital over perceived biases. Assumptions are being challenged in VC circles, creating friction in boardrooms. This polarization may redirect capital away from historically dominant hubs, forcing tech leaders to reassess geopolitical risks in partnership and funding decisions.

Q: What are the most impactful steps to be taken to fully unlock the talent potential within the MENA region?
A: MENA’s talent is underserved, not unskilled. Our data shows that engineers from displaced communities deliver at parity with global peers, showing 100% retention over 12 months, with zero performance issues. Their resourcefulness mirrors agile startup cultures. The ROI is clear: cost-efficient, high-output teams. People, corporations, nations should treat this as a strategic advantage, not charity.

Q: What is your growth roadmap for the next 12 months in terms of strengthening and expanding your service offerings?
A: We are launching a physical dev shop in Ramallah, backed by West Bank grants, to provide localized, high-quality employment infrastructure. Concurrently, we are scaling our proprietary CRM/ATS platform to optimize talent matching. Our new venture, Principled Careers, targets ethically dissenting tech employees exiting firms like Google, Microsoft, or Meta, placing them while donating headhunting fees to employ over 20 MENA engineers per hire, creating a self-sustaining talent pipeline.

Q: How will you ensure the company scales effectively while maintaining the integrity of its social mission?
A: Scale is not the goal; solving the talent-access gap is. Our model has a natural market cap that stands at hundreds of millions, not billions, and thrives as a replicable blueprint that can be adopted by others. We prioritize problem-solving over hypergrowth, like open-sourcing tools or launching focused ventures like Principled. Profitability funds impact, not the reverse.