January 2020

Home

Community Letter

January 2020

Community Letter

Date: January 31, 2020

Dear friends and family,
I started this newsletter series to provide a frequent answer to the recurring question of "What's up?". It was at the Zi-tel breakfast that I asked Hamed, Jahan, and Mohammadreza the same question: What is up? Everyone was in shock. Didn't you hear? Qasem Soleimani is dead now… Then a series of events started… Iran's counter-attack, then the Ukrainian airplane and then after effects… poof! One can not handle the speed of these events, and the main question my friends ask me: Is it worth living in Iran? How can we survive and thrive at the same time?

Well, I think your home, your city, and your country is the people you surround yourself with. Their thoughts, action, and decisions define your life. I'm fortunate to be surrounded by the real elite of Iran and good-hearted kind explorers all over the world. You are one of them.

At the monthly TEDxTehran meetup, we discussed potential speakers and themes for TEDxTehran 2020. What do you think? Reply to this email with your suggestions for potential candidates.

At the Oppmakr Institute, we are working with Iran Arghaam, SamanTel, eSafar and Dream Days on the board level to restructure their business model and help them thrive. Companies can be a force of good. Seriously!

I never thought my passion for art converts to a class! but it did! I’m going to share how investment, ethics, and contemporary art ties up at the **ILIA Academy**

In 2014, I —along with my co-writer Narges Jokar and editor Navid Khaasteh, started writing a book to combine 4 ideas from TED Speakers, Simon Sinek and Barry Schwartz.
Well, we couldn't finish it up in a way that we should and the text was in my archive for more than 4 years. Now I started publishing it on my Virgool account. I guess my Farsi readers are more satisfied now!