The two biggest opportunities your business has right now are free to learn.
Two free trainings on your phone. One puts artificial intelligence to work on jobs you have no time for. The other finds where heat, power and water are costing you, and who will fund the fix. A mentor comes with both.
Free. No card. Nobody will ask you for financial details.
Micromentor has run free mentoring since 2008
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More than 75,000 mentoring connections worldwide
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These two trainings were built for this region with support from Google.org
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Micromentor has run free mentoring since 2008 • More than 75,000 mentoring connections worldwide • These two trainings were built for this region with support from Google.org •
You have already used artificial intelligence. You just did not call it that.
Your map app routing you around traffic. A voice note turning itself into text. Captions appearing on your video. Now point that at your business.
What this used to take
A designer for a flyer or a menu
Half a day writing the week's posts
An accountant to tell you what actually makes money
A partner to think out loud with
What it takes now
You describe what you want, and get three versions
An hour on Monday, and the week is written
A clear picture, without the shoebox of receipts
Something that answers back at two in the morning
Work that needed a team, a partner or an expensive education is now open to anyone. A business of one can work like a business of ten.
“AI has been playing my co-founder role. It helped me a lot strategically as a solo female founder in tech and investment, both male-dominated spaces.
”Shay Gaafar, Founder and CEO, TwentyToo, UAE
You do not need to be good with technology. The training assumes you never have been.
The weather is already taking money out of your business. You can take it back.
Not as a cause. As a line on your bill. The summer your electricity went past what you planned for. Stock that spoiled before you sold it. The afternoon nobody walked in because it was too hot.
Step 1
Find where it goes
A few plain questions about your power, water, deliveries and waste. The money usually leaves somewhere nobody thought to look.
Step 2
Fix the cheap things first
A door seal. Different bulbs. A delivery route that stops going out half empty. Bigger changes pay for themselves inside a year.
Step 3
Someone else pays for the rest
Money exists specifically to help small businesses make these changes. Some you never repay. Some costs less than your bank charges.
That third one is worth reading twice. Most small businesses never touch that money because nobody told them, or showed them how to ask. Much of the second training is how to ask, naming the real programmes and bank desks in Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The heat is coming either way. It can cost you or pay you.
Why we built these two, and not something else
Business owners kept telling us the same thing. I am working harder than I ever have, and I cannot tell where it is going.
A shop in Egypt, a workshop in Jordan, a farm in Morocco, a kitchen in the Gulf. Long hours, rising costs, and every decision made alone, late at night, with nobody to check it against.
That is not a failure of effort. It is a question of access. A large company under the same pressure has a team, an accountant and a budget. You have your own two hands.
Two things have genuinely changed. The tools stopped being expensive: work that needed a specialist can now be done free, in Arabic, on a phone. And the money for these fixes stopped being theoretical. A whole layer of funding was built for these businesses, and almost none of it reaches them. The barrier was never eligibility. It was knowing it existed.
Reading about what is possible is not the same as knowing what to do first. So both trainings come with a mentor you choose yourself, free, who you can bring a half-finished idea to before you spend anything on it.
You do not need to be technical, or to leave your business for an afternoon, or to know one word the experts use. You just need somewhere to start.
In their own words
Real founders who took part in building this training. None of them are actors.
“I work from home because I am a mother. AI saved me time, helped me with tasks I'm not specialized in, and let me focus on progress without needing someone else.”
Norhan, business owner, Egypt
“AI helps me think faster and organize better. But I don't let it speak for me. I always check: does this sound like me? Does it actually help? If not, I rewrite it.”
Sara Faheem, Operations and Communications, Egypt
“Even as a mentor myself, I use AI to guide me like a mentor. It gave me my confidence back.”
Norhan Ahmed, coach and mentor, Egypt
What you get when you register
One free account opens both. Either order, any speed, between customers.
Training one
Working with artificial intelligence
Which two or three tools are worth your time, how to ask them for something useful, and where not to trust them. No technical background needed, Arabic throughout.
Training two
Protecting your business and your margin
Where heat, power, water and waste are costing you, the cheapest fixes first, and how to get someone else to pay for the bigger ones.
Comes with both
A mentor you choose yourself
Free one-to-one mentorship from someone with real business experience. You browse the mentors, read what each has done, and pick the one who fits what you sell. No pressure, no schedule. One message, whenever you want a second opinion from someone who is not selling you anything.
How it actually starts
Four steps, and the longest one is deciding what you want help with.
You register. About two minutes. Both trainings open straight away.
You read whichever part is bothering you most. Ten minutes between customers is enough.
You add your business to your profile: what you sell and what you are stuck on. This is what mentors read.
You browse mentors and message one. You choose them. It does not need to be polished: “My electricity bill has doubled and I do not know where to start” works fine.
What it costs
Free
Not a trial. Not a first month. Free.
Both trainings, start to finish
Every worksheet, guide and country toolkit
One-to-one mentorship, also free
A certificate for each training you finish
Everything you download is yours to keep
About two minutes. An email and a password.
Production note: every button on the page points here. Swap the anchor for the real registration URL.
What this is not
Free training is unusual enough that being suspicious is the correct reaction.
Not a loan. Nobody will ask for your bank details, collateral or credit history.
Not a funding application. Registering commits you to nothing.
Not a course you attend. No live sessions, no fixed times, nothing to close your business for.
Not a sales funnel. Micromentor is a nonprofit. There is no paid version.
Not a mailing list. Your details run your account. Nothing else.
The full outline, if you want it
Most people register without reading this part.
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Where to begin
What this technology actually is, in plain language, and the things you already use that run on it
Where in your week it can take the most weight off
Real stories from founders across the region, including one who built a national profile from a village with almost no resources
Choosing what to use
Five plain questions for judging any tool: does it work in Arabic, is it easy, is it free, does it work on a phone, is it built for beginners
The five areas of your business it can help with: getting customers, staying organised, answering people, working out what to sell, and keeping track of money
A comparison of the recommended tools, and step-by-step guides for the handful worth learning first, including a free option for bookkeeping
Getting good results
How to ask for what you want so you get something usable instead of something generic
A ready-made library of requests you can copy, adapt and reuse
The common mistakes, and where not to trust it: tone, cultural nuance, and anything sensitive
A weekly routine that turns one piece of work into several, in about an hour
Working with a mentor
How mentors use the same tools, so the two of you speak the same language
Written so it also makes sense for anyone who might want to mentor someone else one day
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What is actually happening
The four things hitting businesses in this region hardest: extreme heat, water shortages, sudden flooding, and rising seas along the coast
How each one reaches you, whether through your own costs or through your suppliers and your customers
A short check on how exposed your business is, based on where you are and what you do
Cutting the cost
Eight yes-or-no questions that find where your money is leaking
How to work out what your energy, water, transport and waste are really costing you, using simple calculators
Fixes ordered cheapest first, with honest payback periods, from a door seal to new lighting to solar on the roof
Separate guides for food and farming, small manufacturing, shops, and hospitality
How to keep trading when the weather stops your suppliers or your deliveries
The specific barriers women-owned businesses run into here, and how to work around them
Finding the money
Eight different ways to pay for the work, in plain terms, from your own savings to money you never repay to credit at better rates than a normal loan
Which kind suits which sort of change, and how to avoid taking the wrong kind of money
A guide to the paperwork each one wants, the warning signs, and how to make the ask
A toolkit for your country naming the real banks, portals, guarantee schemes and programmes, for Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar
Questions people ask before registering
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It is real, and no. Micromentor is a nonprofit that has run free mentorship for more than a decade, and these two trainings were built for this region with support from Google.org. There is no paid version, no upgrade and no commission. Google.org funds programmes like this, and Micromentor delivers them. That is the whole arrangement.
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That is the normal starting point, and the training begins there. The short version: it is software you talk to in ordinary words, and it answers. You have already used it without knowing, in your map app, in voice notes that turn into text, in captions that appear on videos by themselves. Nothing assumes you know how it works, because you do not need to.
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You do not have to. There is nothing to attend. No live sessions, no set times, no travel. It is written to be read in short pieces on a phone, so one section fits in the gap between customers. Take three weeks or three days.
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Fair, and usually true. General advice fails because it does not know what you sell, where you are, or what you already tried. Two things are different here. The material is written for this region and for specific kinds of business, down to which office to call in your country. And it comes with a person. A mentor can look at your actual business and tell you which one thing to do first. That is the part a video cannot give you.
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Some work well, some work partly, and the training is honest about which is which. Arabic is one of the five things every tool is judged on, there is a section on an Arabic-first option, and the material is direct about where you need to read the result yourself before it goes out. One of the founders featured uses these tools specifically to reach Arabic speakers across different dialects.
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Then read it as a cost training, because that is mostly what it is. Higher electricity. Stock that spoils. Deliveries that do not arrive. Customers who stay home when it is too hot. Water that costs more every year. It does not ask you to care about the planet. It asks where your money is going, shows you the cheapest fixes first, and points you at funding to pay for the rest.
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Yes, and some exists specifically for businesses your size. Some you never repay. Some is credit at better rates than a normal bank loan, sometimes with a few months before repayments start. Some does not involve a bank at all. The training explains each kind in plain language and names the real programmes in Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It cannot promise you will be approved, and it says so. What it can do is stop you being turned down for reasons that were avoidable.
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Not until you want to, and there is no schedule to keep. But it is worth knowing that the part people say made the difference is almost always the conversation rather than the reading. Both trainings point at specific moments where a second opinion is worth having: choosing between two tools, deciding which fix to spend money on first, or having a funding application looked over before you send it. And you do not need a polished question. “My electricity bill has doubled and I do not know where to start” is a perfectly good first message, and your mentor has heard versions of it before.
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A certificate for each training you finish: the Micromentor Certificate in AI for Small Business, and the Micromentor Certificate in Climate Resilience for Small Business. Both are worth having in front of a bank or a funder, because they show you did the work rather than just had the idea. Everything you downloaded is also yours to keep: the request library, the worksheets, the funding guide and your country toolkit. Plus a mentor relationship that does not end when the training does. Your details are used to create your account and let mentors see what your business does. They are not sold or passed to advertisers, and you can close your account whenever you want. The full privacy policy is here.
Both of these are happening whether you learn them or not
The tools keep getting cheaper. The summers keep getting hotter. One is an opportunity, the other is a cost, and the same two trainings deal with both.
Free. Two minutes to sign up. Nothing to attend.