Grant Writing · Pitch Training · Funding Strategy
Communicating impact to the people who decide.
I'm Abdullah Zeyn, a program manager and ecosystem builder. I help founders and institutions win non-dilutive funding, and I train the people who have to stand up and pitch for it.
Let's Work Together →
What I do
Funding & Workshops
Funding applications, pitch training and funding strategy look like three different services. They are one job: making the impact of your project clear to the people who decide, whether that decision gets made in a written proposal or in twenty minutes in front of a jury.
I work from both sides of that table. As a founder I secured over €125,000 in non-dilutive support. I have coordinated a €300,000 ESF+ project across twelve partners, scored 48 out of 50 on an EIT Ignite application at the first attempt, and pitched on stages in three countries.
Funding & Grants
Proposal review
You have a draft and a deadline. I read it the way an evaluator will, and tell you where it loses points, before the panel does.
Get in touchFull proposal development
From call analysis to submitted application: narrative, budget, work packages, and partner coordination.
Get in touchFunding strategy workshop
Which programmes fit your organisation, in what order, and what each one actually demands of you.
Get in touchWorkshops & Speaking
Pitching & Public Speaking
How to structure a pitch, tell a story on stage, and make complex ideas land in 60 seconds or
60 minutes. This workshop is built from real experience. I've won first place at Star Parade
2024 out of 80+ startups, took 2nd place in the International Founders Award, and pitched at
events from Berlin to Cairo. Participants walk away with a structured pitch framework, live
practice with feedback, and techniques for handling pressure on stage.
Who it's for: Founders preparing for investor pitches, professionals
presenting to stakeholders, students entering competitions, anyone who needs to communicate
ideas clearly under pressure.
Building Startups That Create Impact
From idea validation to funding applications to measuring real-world impact. I founded
Museful, an AI-powered museum guide, secured over €100,000 in non-dilutive support, and
completed five accelerator programs including Campus Founders and Media Tech Hub Babelsberg.
This workshop covers what actually works in early-stage startup building: lean validation,
grant applications, partnership development, and how to make that impact legible to the
people who fund it, all based on what I did rather than what a textbook says. One session I
ran at BTU ended with two participant teams founding and entering Star Parade.
Who it's for: Early-stage founders, university entrepreneurship
programs, innovation labs, NGOs building tech-driven projects.
Awards
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4x4 unter 40, Innovation, 2025
Wirtschaftsjunioren Deutschland · SZ Institut · DIHK
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Star Parade 2024, 1. Platz
Kategorie Digitalisierung
Partners, Funders & Programs
Workshops at
About
I'm a program manager and ecosystem builder based in Berlin. Most good projects don't lose on substance. They lose in the application, the pitch, the twenty minutes in front of a jury, because nobody translated the impact of the work into terms a decision-maker can act on. That translation is my work: I help founders and institutions communicate their impact, and I train the people who have to stand up and say it. I learned both sides the hard way, by doing them.
I was born and raised in Egypt and moved to Germany in 2018 to study Heritage Conservation and Site Management at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, on a Gerda Henkel Scholarship. My master's thesis was the first in my programme to deal with museum digitalization through augmented reality. In 2022 I learned to code at Le Wagon Berlin.
That opened the door to the startup world. My first venture was in green mobility, supported by the Berlin Startup Stipendium, a Berlin Senate programme delivered by the Berlin Innovation Agency. In 2023 I went back to what I actually care about, cultural heritage, and founded Museful, an AI-powered museum guide. I took it through five accelerator programmes, among them Campus Founders and Media Tech Hub Babelsberg.
Museful is where I learned funding from the applicant's side of the table. I secured over €100,000 in non-dilutive support and deployed the product at three museums: the Hegel-Haus in Stuttgart, the Stadtmuseum Cottbus, backed by the Brandenburg Teilhabefonds, and the Grand Egyptian Museum during RiseUp Summit 2025. Writing those applications taught me more about how evaluators think than any course could.
Since then I've worked the other side of the table. In the Startup Community project at BTU I ran more than ten workshops and co-built the Startup Lausitz ecosystem brand. I went on to coordinate SocioInnoLab, a completed €300,000 ESF+ social innovation hub spanning twelve partners, where I designed the incubator and delivered workshops in Germany and abroad. Coordination is a different discipline entirely: keeping a consortium, a budget, and a reporting obligation all pointing the same way.
In 2025 I wrote my first EIT application, for Ignite New European Bauhaus, and scored 48 out of 50 at the first attempt.
Along the way the work picked up first place at Star Parade 2024 in the Digitalisierung category, and the 4x4 unter 40 Innovation Award in 2025 from the Wirtschaftsjunioren Deutschland.
Today I'm Program Manager at HPI Engine. Alongside that, I take on proposal reviews, full proposal development, and funding strategy workshops. I still run sessions on pitching and public speaking; it is where the case is won or lost in person.
I work in three languages: Arabic, English, and German.
Founder of Museful
Museful is an AI-powered museum guide that transforms how people experience cultural heritage. Deployed at the Grand Egyptian Museum during RiseUp Summit 2025, with personalised tours in more than ten languages and museum partners in Germany and Egypt.
Visit Museful.de →
Get in Touch
Let's connect.
Tell me the programme, the deadline, and where you've got to so far, or just say what you need. A proposal review, a full application, a workshop. I read every message myself.
Or write to me directly:
zeyn@museful.de