The 2023 Lindas: 3 Endeavor Entrepreneurs Earned Our Most Prestigious Award

Joining Endeavor’s global community of entrepreneurs is not easy. Candidates are vetted extensively and we select those who showcase integrity, trust, high-impact ambition, and a commitment to paying it forward and spreading the power of entrepreneurship globally. They do this by role modeling, mentoring, and reinvesting in the next generation, creating a Multiplier Effect.

Out of the thousands of Endeavor Entrepreneurs in our network, only a few earn our highest honor each year: the Linda Award. First celebrated in 2019, the award is named after Endeavor’s co-founder and CEO Linda Rottenberg. Its recipients embody Endeavor’s values at the highest level and are nominated by their peers, mentors, board members, staff, and others. The final choices are made by the Endeavor Global Board.

The award ceremony, held on December 5 at Endeavor’s annual Gala in New York City, honored three incredible entrepreneurs. Each of the winners below have accomplished incredible feats in emerging places around the world, transforming lives and markets. Congratulations to all of them!

Gibran Huzaifah

eFishery founder and CEO

Indonesia

Gibran Huzaifah grew up next to a traditional wet market in East Jakarta. He didn’t come from an elite background or attend an Ivy League school in the United States, but he did get himself into the Bandung Institute of Technology. It was there where he took a course on fish farming (aquaculture) and built his own catfish ponds to help pay for his living expenses and classes. Upon graduating, he was already managing more than 75 fish ponds. Gibran created an Internet of Things device and feeding system that automatically feeds fish the exact amount of food they need at the proper time each day, cutting the cost and labor of running a fish farm. eFishery was born.

eFishery now supports 70,000 fish and shrimp farmers running 300,000 ponds across Indonesia’s many islands. Gibran offers farmers a variety of end-to-end solutions to help them make a better living. He’s raised the standard of living for those farmers, growing their average GDP by 64%. He’s also raised $300 million for eFishery, making it the first aquaculture unicorn and Southeast Asia’s first agritech unicorn. This year, it began selling its fish in Boston, and aims to continue to grow its US and global distribution.

Karim Beguir

InstaDeep co-founder and CEO

Tunisia

Generative artificial intelligence models are often seen as new Silicon Valley tech, but in 2014 Karim Beguir left a lucrative career in London to co-found InstaDeep, an AI company in Tunisia, Africa. The company uses deep learning to solve difficult problems across a variety of industries, and its impact is already global.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Karim and his team worked with BioNTech to use deep learning to develop an early warning system that detects new variants of the quickly-evolving virus and predicts how risky they are. The collaboration saved lives and was so successful that BioNTech purchased the company in 2023 for nearly $700 million—the largest-ever exit for a Tunisian tech company. Karim and InstaDeep continue their work, cementing Africa’s role as a player in the development and safe use of AI technology.

Sergio Fogel

dLocal co-founder and co-president

Uruguay

Sergio Fogel grew up and graduated from high school in Uruguay having never seen or touched a computer. By chance, he saw a 1980s Sinclair ZX Spectrum 8-bit computer at a friend’s house during an extended stay in Israel before college. It changed his life. He quickly decided to attend Israel’s Institute of Technology and soon after that, worked as a researcher at IBM in Haifa. However, when family drew him back to Uruguay, he realized he could not find a similar job there due to how undeveloped the technology sector was. That’s when he became a tech entrepreneur.

Sergio founded a number of companies over the years, and in 2016 spun dLocal off one of them. It’s proven to be his most impactful company yet. At dLocal, Sergio built a payments solution that helps global companies in developed markets sell into emerging markets, bridging what was a growing digital divide. Through a single API, the company connects large players with billions of possible customers. The company has quickly expanded into many markets throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa. It reached unicorn status in 2020.

Sergio has single-handedly boosted Uruguay’s economy and created a massive Multiplier Effect that continues to expand its entrepreneurial ecosystem (along with many others). More than 15 companies have already been started by former dLocal employees. And when dLocal went public on the NASDAQ (DLO) in 2021, its market cap represented 20% of Uruguay’s GDP.

Special thanks to photographer and videographer Kieran Kesner, who created the three films above for Endeavor. You can find his work at kierankesner.com.