About Manal Rayes

Manal Rayes is the founder of Garage-X, MENA’s leading digital launchpad and studio for apps with NoCode with training programs to upskill citizen developers. Manal started her professional career as a teaching and research assistant in University of Sharjah upon graduating as the first on her cohort, then moved after 7 years to corporate world where she played the roles of application, business analysis and process specialist in Dubai World Trade Center and Dubai Tourist Department, Ungerboeck Software (as a ME CSM managing clients like Expo2020, ADNEC, Riyadh Exhibition Center, Qatar Exhibition Center, and more) for another 9 years, before taking the plunge to fulfill her passion in entrepreneurship. Manal joined as a mentor in Silicon Valley’s Founder Institute (UAE & GCC), before launching Garage-X as a response to the new futuristic trend in the intersection of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Citizen Developers and Digital Innovations with NoCode/LowCode. Manal has helped hundreds of young promising talents to upskill their digital potential and launch and grow successful startups and digital products. She has contributed to the innovation and digital transformation field by growing the first and largest MENA community of nocoders (though the launch of 1000 Arab Nocoder initiative), organizing build-in-public, launch-in-public, hackathon events, bootcamps, and specialized courses for schools, entrepreneurship centers, and colleges.