The two biggest opportunities your business has right now are free to learn.
Two free trainings, self-paced, on your phone. Artificial intelligence can take over work you have no time for. Cutting what heat, power and water cost you puts money back in your pocket, and there is funding to pay for 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 the traffic. A voice note turning itself into text. Captions appearing on your video by themselves. Now imagine pointing that same thing at your business.
What this used to take
A designer, to make a flyer or a menu look right
Half a day writing posts and captions for the week
An accountant, to tell you which products actually make money
A partner to think out loud with when a decision would not wait
What it takes now
You describe what you want and get three versions to choose from
An hour on a Monday, and the whole week is written
A clear picture of your money, without the shoebox of receipts
Something that answers back at two in the morning
Work that used to need a team, a partner or an expensive education is now open to anyone who asks. 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 first training assumes you have never done this before.
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 that pushed your electricity past what you planned for. The stock that spoiled before you sold it. The delivery that never came because the road was flooded. The afternoon nobody walked in because it was too hot.
Step 1
Find where it goes
A handful of plain questions about your power, water, deliveries and waste. The money is usually leaving somewhere nobody thought to look.
Step 2
Fix the cheap things first
A seal on a door. 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 is set aside specifically to help small businesses make these changes. Some you never repay. Some costs less than your bank would charge.
That third one is worth reading twice. The money exists. The reason most small businesses never touch it is that nobody told them, or showed them how to ask. A large part 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. The question is whether it costs you or pays you.
Why we built these two, and not something else
Business owners kept telling us the same thing in slightly different words. 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, no time to stop and think. And underneath it something quieter: the decisions all being made alone, late at night, with nobody to check them against.
None of that is a failure of effort. It is a question of what you have access to. A large company under the same pressure has a team, an accountant and a budget. You have your own two hands and whatever hours are left.
So we looked at what had genuinely changed, and two things stood out. The tools stopped being expensive. Work that recently needed a specialist and a budget 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 to help exactly these businesses, and almost none of it was reaching them. The barrier was never eligibility. It was knowing it existed.
Then the part a training cannot do. Reading about what is possible is not the same as knowing which thing to do first, in your business, this month. So both come with a mentor: a real person with business experience, free, who you choose yourself and can bring a half-finished idea to before you spend anything on it.
You do not need to be technical. You do not need to leave your business for an afternoon. You do not need to know one word the experts use. You just need somewhere to start. This is that place.
Business owners in the region, 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 trainings. Either order, any speed, on a phone, between customers.
Training one
Working with artificial intelligence
Which two or three tools are worth your time for a business like yours, how to ask them for something useful, and where they are safe to trust. No technical background needed, with Arabic in mind throughout.
Training two
Protecting your business and your margin
Where the heat, power, water and waste are costing you, what to do about it starting with the cheapest fix, 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 one has actually done, and pick the one who fits what you sell. Bring them the tool you are unsure about, the fix you cannot afford yet, or the funding application you have half-written. There is no pressure and no schedule. One message, whenever you want a second opinion from someone who is not selling you anything, and the training tells you exactly when those moments are.
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 to get something out of it.
You add your business to your profile: what you sell, where you are, and what you are stuck on. This is what mentors read.
You browse mentors and message one. You choose them, not the other way round. It does not need to be a polished question. “My electricity bill has doubled and I do not know where to start” is a perfectly good first message.
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 you cannot leave. Your details run your account and match your mentor. 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.