Tarek Nasr runs a social media agency thriving in the middle of the biggest social media story of the past year.
He is Managing Director and Founder of Planet360, one of the leading digital agencies in Cairo, Egypt.
It was just over a year ago that demonstrators took to the streets of Cairo to demonstrate in public for the first time, demanding change, then demanding a revolution, and then forcing the ouster of strongman President Hosni Mubarak.
This was called by some "The Facebook Revolution," because it was Facebook, Twitter and other social media that spread news, gave courage, and announced when demonstrations would be taking place.
On February 11 last year the seemingly impossible happened: Mubarak resigned, and is now on trial for corruption.
Tarek Nasr was educated in Egypt, Europe and the United States. He started his career working in traditional advertising agencies in Europe and the Middle East, but soon took an interest in digital media. Three years ago he struck out on his own, founding Planet360 in Cairo, a digital agency focused on social media.
He has an extraordinary view into the astounding role social media played in the "Facebook Revolution," both as a social media professional and as an active participant in the street protests that led to the overthrow of the government last Spring.
I met Tarek at a social business meet-up during SXSW in Austin earlier this month. He and his partner came from Egypt to meet people at SXSW, "to find out where we stood versus everyone else, in the US and in the world," when it came to social media. It seems in many ways his experiences with social media have been life changing for him and his fellow Egyptians.
His views about social media were formed before the revolution when business was almost impossible to find. Then came the uprising, when success or failure depended on Facebook and Twitter. Now he says "the revolution has only started."
And as the political struggle continues, his agency business has taken off. It seems now decision-makers in Egypt understand the power of social media.
I arranged to talk again with Tarek last week over Skype, as we discussed how his career started, his fateful intersection with social media during the Arab Spring, and what his life and business are like a year later.
Here's an excerpt, in which he discusses what it was like living through The Arab Spring, the fall of Mubarek, and the role social media played in the revolution in Egypt:
And here's the entire 25-minute interview we had in which Tarek also talks about Egypt before The Arab Spring as well his business--and his life--since last February: