{"id":57527,"date":"2025-05-09T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/?p=57527"},"modified":"2025-04-15T12:47:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T16:47:51","slug":"alexswug-iftar-2025-recap-a-night-of-innovation-appreciation-and-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2025\/05\/alexswug-iftar-2025-recap-a-night-of-innovation-appreciation-and-connection.html","title":{"rendered":"AlexSWUG IFTAR 2025 Recap: A Night of Innovation, Appreciation and Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each year, the SOLIDWORKS User Group hosts many Keystone events that have a big impact on the surrounding SOLIDWORKS Community.<\/p>\n<p>After <strong>3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE World, the first event to occur is AlexSWUG\u2019s IFTAR event in Alexandria, Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>AlexSWUG has a tradition of combining this cultural event with SOLIDWORKS Tips &amp; Tricks and networking. In addition to the fantastic group of people, food, and presentations, this group also decided to honor their mothers with this event, as it took place on Egypt\u2019s Mother&#8217;s Day. This group continues to succeed. The SOLIDWORKS Community is thriving in Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>As we approach Mother&#8217;s Day here in the US, this is the perfect time to highlight this event and relive all the great moments.<\/p>\n<p>To recap the event, please check out this blog written by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/mhussein92\/\">Mohamed Hussein<\/a>, leader of AlexSWUG.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/20250321_195723-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>What is IFTAR?<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nIFTAR, meaning &#8220;breakfast&#8221; in Arabic, is the cherished evening meal during the holy month of Ramadan\u2014a time when families and communities gather to break their fast, share food, and deepen bonds. It\u2019s a celebration of unity and compassion, observed and respected across cultures and beliefs. At its core, Ramadan\u2014and IFTAR\u2014is about connection.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Tradition That Keeps Growing<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nSince its start in 2022, the AlexSWUG IFTAR has become more than just an annual gathering\u2014it\u2019s a growing tradition. Attendance has soared over the years:<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcc8<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2022: 15 attendees<\/li>\n<li>2023: 65 attendees<\/li>\n<li>2024: 95 attendees<\/li>\n<li><strong>2025: 150 attendees<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/20250321_191232-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A Tribute to the Mothers Behind the Magic<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nThis year, we added a heartfelt twist by honoring the women who quietly power our world: the mothers of our engineers. In celebration of Mother\u2019s Day (March 21st), we took time to thank them for their unwavering love and support\u2014with flowers, cakes, special gifts from <strong>BSF Egypt<\/strong>, and touching personal stories that left no dry eye in the room.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Activities That Brought Us Together<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nCommunity and fun went hand-in-hand with three crowd-favorite activities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\ud83d\udee0\ufe0f <strong>Model Mania Extreme<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>\u265f\ufe0f <strong>Chess Tournament<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>\ud83d\udd29 <strong>Screw &amp; UNO Card Games<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/20250321_19583520_1_-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"770\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A Special Guest to Inspire Us<\/strong><br \/>\nWe were honored to welcome <strong>Professor Dr. Ihab Adam<\/strong> from Alexandria University. His engaging technical session and round-table discussions around SOLIDWORKS and simulation in research sparked meaningful conversations and future collaborations.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/img_e887020_1_-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>A Collective Effort, A Shared Mission<\/strong><br \/>\nNone of this would have been possible without the continued support of <strong>SWUGN<\/strong>, <strong>BSF Egypt<\/strong>, and <strong>2B Digital<\/strong>. Together, we brought to life a key mission of the SOLIDWORKS Community:<\/p>\n<p><em>To empower people who use SOLIDWORKS to connect, collaborate, and learn\u2014anytime, anywhere, on any device.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mohamed Hussein, leader of AlexSWUG, provides an update on the IFTAR event in Alexandria, Egypt.<\/p>\n... <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2025\/05\/alexswug-iftar-2025-recap-a-night-of-innovation-appreciation-and-connection.html\">Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":57521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2933,4678,50,3,26,14,18,16,454],"tags":[40,41,1890,2966,54,2069,19,2078,1378,1750],"class_list":["post-57527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3dexperience","category-3dexperience-world-2025","category-collaboration","category-community","category-customer-stories","category-design","category-solidworks","category-tips-tricks","category-user-groups","tag-3d-cad","tag-3d-design","tag-3dexperience","tag-3dexperience-world","tag-collaboration-2","tag-community","tag-solidworks-2","tag-solidworks-simulation","tag-swugn","tag-user-groups-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57527"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57530,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57527\/revisions\/57530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}