About Ahmed Shoukry

Hello, I am Ahmed Shoukry or A. I. Shoukry. I am a urologist, academic, and author. I love to read, write, learn, and share with the world all of that. Here is my short story.

When I was in high school, I survived a car crash, and while lying in bed in a hospital, I wanted to understand what is happening inside my body. I decided that I want to apply for medical school, and now I am a professor of Urology at Cairo University. 

In 1999 I launched an online portal for sharing hobbies, sports, interests, and meetings in real life, abkaria.com later on abqaria.com. I started blogging in 2004 and in 2006, I felt the need for an Arabic blogging portal. So, I founded an online platform for independent bloggers, dedicated to citizen journalism, i-bloggers.com, and later on ibloggers.org. The platform offered free blogs for its members and curated blogs and news from news agencies, side by side. I also founded several online portals for several niche communities, the most successful was Mdlinked.com. I still believe that online communities are more successful when they are based on shared interests. All these projects are currently shut down.

After my grandfather passed away in 2008, I felt a great responsibility to help in shaping Egypt’s political future, so I became politically active. I ran as a candidate for the Egyptian Parliamentary twice. Once before the 25^th of January uprising in 2010 in Shirbin, Daqahlia district, and again in 2012 in Dikernes, Daqahlia district, placing second place with 102,000 votes. I also co-founded El-Adl Party (Justice Party) in 2011 and fast forward five years later I was vice president of the MisrAlQawia Party. In late 2016 I resigned from all political positions. I stopped political activism since then.

I found myself in despair so I started running. A few months later I ran two half marathons. Since then I am a casual runner, I even published a running memoir.

I noticed the lack of Arabic-speaking podcasts; I took the initiative and learned how to write, host, produce and publish a podcast. In September 2017, I launched Istqlal Podcast to raise awareness of the importance of this medium of communication and to spread knowledge. I reflected on this period in my blog post, “Finding my Voice“.

In late 2017 I wanted to try another medium of communication, self-publishing. Although self-publishing has been around for a while, the awareness of it and its use is still lagging in the Arab world. I published three books through 2018, each reaching higher bestselling ranks in their respective categories, and later on topping the bestseller lists. My first book is In or Out: A Practical Guide to Decision Making followed by my running memoir It’s Not Just About Running: Reflections on Life and Change in Egypt. My latest book is Anchor System Thinking: The Art of Situational Analysis, Problem Solving, and Strategic Planning for Yourself, Your Organization, and Society.

Through 2018 and 2019, I self-published my three books in Audio format, exploring a new way for audiobook productions. Owning full copyrights by producing and using the crowdsourcing platform Findawayvoices. I reflected after publishing three books in my blog post, “Why I published three books in English“.

In our turbulent times and the uncertainty we are living in today, we all seek advice for growth. I have noticed that most online courses on decision-making are more targeted toward business professionals. They all lack the transformation needed to make great decisions, especially in life. So in march 2020, I founded The Decisions Academy. An online learning platform for decision-making in life and work.

Obviously, I am behind shoukry.org and now running the life & work newsletter A. I. Shoukry Newsletter.