The U.S. Embassy in Amman is hosting former NASA astronaut Marsha Ivins from March 21-26, 2012, for a number of lectures and workshops in Aqaba, Ma’an, Tafeeleh, Irbid, Mafraq and Amman, to meet and inspire Jordanian youth and share through presentations her experience as a pioneer woman astronaut in space exploration and space research.
Ivins, who is a veteran of five space flights, has recently retired from NASA, the U.S. Space Agency in 2010. Marsha Ivins spent over 1318 hours in space to perform a study in the field of space engineering.

Marsha Ivins graduated from the University of Colorado in aerospace engineering and holds a multi-engine Airline Transport Pilot License, and she has logged over 7,000 hours in civilian and NASA aircraft.
Her speaking program will share the experience of space exploration to develop interest in science among the young people of Jordan.

We will try to get the schedule and location of her workshops and update here at AC.

Jordan Amman based startup accelerator Oasis500 has concluded its 10th startup boot camp in collaboration with the British embassy in Jordan.

Out of 350 applicants 65 entrepreneurs where selected to take part of the boot camp 15 of those being from out side Jordan. The startups that participated covered a wide range of fields including commerce, online services. Mobile and digital content.

The boot camp provided entrepreneurs with training in a variety of fields, including marketing, investment techniques, pitching techniques, business model creation and market segmentation, attracting investment and how to approach investors.

Google has launched recently a website dedicated to Egyptian parliamentary election that starts today.

The site http://google.com.eg provide a number of services, news about the election aggregated from the web and that can be filtered according to any egyptian political party or issue.

It also has a section which provides a google map mashup that asks users for their national number to get info about where to cast their vote and other voting information, this is done using Egypt’s supreme juridical comity for elections sites.

Also google has a YouTube Channel dedicated for the election called “sayyedqararak” that features videos from elections candidates. The channel is in partnership with BBC, Egyptian Satellite Channel On TV and Egyptian news Maser Al Youm.

As today is the election and if you were an Egyptian who did not vote yet, this is a useful service for you.

As an estimated three million pilgrims have gathered yesterday on the plains of Arafat in Mecca for a key rite of Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage. Worldwide, around two billion Muslims are celebrating the holiday known as Eid Al Adha.

In this occasion ArabCrunch greets every Muslims worldwide: Eid Mubarak and may God bless you. And for our readers who are not Muslim, we say: Happy Saturated and may God guide you and us to the best.

You’ll find interesting information about the holiday of Eid-ul-Adha and about the Hajj at the following links.

-Eid-ul-Adha (the Festival of Sacrifice) is celebrated throughout the Muslim world as a commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim’s (PBUH) willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Eid-ul-Adha is celebrated on the tenth day of the month of Zul-Hijja.

-The Hajj, or pilgrimage to Makkah is a central duty of Islam whose origins date back to the time of Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH). It brings together Muslims of all races and tongues for one of life’s most moving spiritual experiences. For 14 centuries, countless millions of Muslims, men and women from all over the world, have made the pilgrimage to Makkah, the birthplace of Islam. In carrying out this obligation, they fulfill one of the five “pillars” of Islam, or central religious duties of the believer.
(source:�Ummah 2.o)

For more detailed explanations of the rich history and traditions of Islam, feel free to visit the following sites:

Islam Guide.

Islam Web

Islamic Tube

Just Quran

Best Islamic Sites

Sisters Magazine

#pic from Aljazeera English.

General  Michael Hayden, United States Air Force (USAF), Retired, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Deputy Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) is the keynote speaker at Black Hat Abu Dhabi.  He will share his insights on “cyber security and cyber threats in a changing world”.

lack Hat, the world’s leading information security conference, will take place from the 12th to 15th December 2011 at Emirates Palace.  The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) represented by the UAE Computer Emergency Response Team (aeCERT), in cooperation with Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research (KUSTAR) with UBM are responsible for bringing Black Hat to the Middle East for the second year in a row.

Mohammed Al Nasser Al Ghanim, Director General, TRA, and aeCERT said, “We are extremely pleased to have General Hayden as the keynote speaker for Black Hat Abu Dhabi 2011; as security continues to be at the top of the list of priorities for enterprises and governments in the region, his experience in running two of the most well respected security agencies in the world will provide invaluable insight to CIOs in the region.”

General Michael Hayden, Ret. served as director of the CIA (2006-2009) and deputy director of National Intelligence (2005-2006) when world events were changing at an accelerated rate.  He was also appointed to the post of director of the NSA from 1999-2005 by President Clinton.

Black Hat Abu Dhabi will offer a full range of sessions, including ten training programmes, followed by three briefing sessions running simultaneously to the exhibition.  The two days of briefings will discuss and demonstrate the latest and most important security issues facing the market today.

Last year Google started something useful for the Arab tech and startups ecosystem by hosting events in several Arabian cities branded gdays.

As with last year Google developers conference is coming to the region once again. Google has announced that gJordan is coming to Amman (the capital of Jordan) on October 23 & 24! and to Dubai g|uae on October 19 & 20!.

The 2 events have the same format, first day is geared towards developers focusing on Google developers tools in mobile (android) cloud computing, and so on.

The second day is geared at technology Entrepreneurs, Webmasters, University Students, IT and Business Professionals.

Registration is free, and space is limited, so register now for the day of your choice below on gJordan and gUAE

US based National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC) has opened registration to its Fifth Annual High Tech Road Show Las Vegas and Silicon Valley January 11-18, 2012 to both business leaders and high-level government officials from throughout the Arab world.

The trip will include attending International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) NUSACC will also arrange meetings for delegates with senior executives representing some of the biggest names in the tech industry as well as SMEs and government officials. Also it will include visits to high-tech companies, research facilities, and educational institutions in Silicon Valley.

For more info you can visit the site, space in the delegation is limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. fees for participating in the High Tech Road Show is $2,500 per person and it does not include air ticket to the US.

#image credit

Tomorrow is Eid Al Fitr in most Muslims countries. In this occasion I send my greetings (see my Video below) to All Muslims worldwide and specially AC’s Muslim reader: Happy Eid, Eid Mubarak and May Allah accept from me and you. If you are not Muslim then I also wish you a happy Tuesday  :).

What Is Eid Ul Fitr?

Muslims celebrate ‘Eid ul Fitr on the first day of Shawwal — the tenth month of the Islamic calendar, following the month of Ramadhan (in which the revelation started and ended 20+ years later, and which is also the month of fasting). Following a Lunar calendar, Muslims mark the beginning of the month with the sighting of the new crescent.

The month long fasting of Ramadan culminates into the festival of ‘Eid-ul-Fitr (the Festival of Fast-Breaking). It is a festival of joy, family reunion and thanksgiving to Almighty God. The giving of a special charity for this occasion is obligatory. This is known as Zakat. Muslims dress in holiday attire, attend a special community prayer in the morning, and visit friends and relatives. Greetings of “‘Eid mubarak,” or “a blessed ‘Eid” are exchanged.
Eid Ul Fitr Prayer

:

Allaho-Akber, Allaho-Akber. La ila-ha ill-lal-lah. Allaho-Akber, Allaho-Akber. Wa-lilahill hamd. 

(Allah is great, Allah is great. There is no god but Allah. Allah is great, Allah is great. And all praises are for Allah).

Here are some links to websites that helps you know more about Islam:

Islam Guide.

Islam Web

Islamic Tube

Just Quran

Best Islamic Sites

Sisters Magazine

#image by creativesam,

In the spirit of spreading positive, inspiring stories from Palestine, a group of young volunteers started TEDxRamallah, the first TEDx event in Palestine and Jordan to be held in April 16, 2011.  TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-LIKE experience.

TEDxRamallah will take place in Bethlehem on April 16^th with simultaneous events in Beirut and Amman. Over 20 cities will also simulcast the event, reaching areas as far as Shanghai, Montreal and Reykjavik and as near as Damascus, Dubai and Riyadh.

Some of TEDxRamallah, the speakers include, Gisel Kordestani director of New Business Development at Google for Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Suad Amiry a Palestinian architect, author of “Sharon and my Mother in-Law: Ramallah Diaries”, Fadi Ghandour founder and CEO of Aramex, a global logistics and transportation solutions provider, Rim Banna Palestinian singer, lyricist and composer. Julia Bacha an award-winning filmmaker who has worked on films exhibited at the Sundance, Berlin, Jerusalem, and Dubai International Film Festivals, and broadcast on Al Arabiya television among other channels, Mohammad Khatib is a Palestinian refugee who grew up in Arroub Camp originally from a village called Qastina. co-founder Bazinga! a startup catalyst and a tech hub in Ramallah, Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is the godfather of Arab accounting, also credited for promoting the significance of Intellectual Property in the Arab region. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon appointed Abu-Ghazaleh, as vice chair of the UN Global Compact at the UN headquarters in New York. He was born in 1938 in Jaffa, Palestine. Wael Attili  co-founder and chief creative officer of Kharabeesh Network and many more.

If you want to attend You can register here deadline is  13th of April, you can support the event by adding a twibbon to your Twitter or Facebook profile, or follow the event page on Facebook or Twitter pages.

Disclosure: ArabCrunch is a media partner to TedXRamallah.

On the 29th of November ArabCrunch represented by its founder Gaith Saqer, went to Egypt’s boarders with Gaza strip at the city of Rafah, trying to get an entry to the besieged strip.

Saqer’s intention from entering Gaza is purely humanitarian and non political, the plan was to connect with relevant parties and AC’s team in Gaza to prepare for AC’s events that would help the Palestinian youth start new startups as such help downsize the employment tall on around 1 million Palestinians living in gaza and to help improve the living conditions of many gazans and Palestinian refuges who live off UN aid.

The other humanitarian aspect of the visit, is that Saqer want to visit and meet his extended family who he did not see since over 22 years.

The Egyptian government receives aid annually from the U.S government with a billion or so dollars.

ArabCrunch express its disappointment lets hope the Egyptian authorities’ decision is not based on US government pressure.

Markedu is brining its top trainer and speaker Michael Leander to train Egyptian marketers in latest methods of social media and email marketing during its Social Media & Email Marketing Summit which will be held in Semiramis Intercontinental hotel in cairo 20th and the 21st of this month.

Michael Leander who is chairman of the Federation of European Direct Marketing’s Interactive Committee will be showcasing topics such as: 5 step action plan, How the social media content concept for communities, social networks and blogs can help you multiply your success, How to manage your social media message streams effectively.

Other speakers of the event include: Dr. Hayk Hakobyan who will be speaking “ignite your audience to start sharing and never stop” and Fady Ramzy “Social Media Marketing in Egypt – key trends and what you can expect to happen in the very near future”

Disclosure: ArabCrunch is a media partner to this event.

For the first time in our history a technology event refuses to issue a media pass to ArabCrunch! No event from Dubai to London to Washington to Silicon Valley have ever refused to issue us a media pass before. But folks at MENA ICT Forum in Jordan did not issue one for us!

The tech event coined as the region’s ICT forum is organized by Information Technology Association of Jordan, int@j which gets funding from a US federal government program called “US Aid.”
We asked the forum organizers both Intaj and the out sourcing partner a Jordanian marketing company, Pinnacle Business & Marketing Consulting( headed by a former Intaj CEO) to issue us a media pass, the answer on September 21st to AC’s Founder “We have not finalized plans for media presence.” And until now with repeated requests they did not issue us a pass! The event started today and will end tomorrow!

We wonder why? Is it because the event is mainly sponsored (or funded) by the US Federal government?

ArabCrunch is the #1 tech and startup focused blog from the Arab world. Our worldwide ranking according to Invesp is #6 in innovation and e-commerce and 10th in startups ahead of blogs in these categories from media icons such as Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Forbes. So why would an event deny a pass for a media outlet thus deny the event free coverage?

We were granted a media pass to Obama’s Summit on Entrepreneurship back in April in Washington DC. But at that time we did not post about the plots against ArabCrunch and who is behind them. So now because we revealed that the US administration is no good in attacking us, then we are unwanted and maybe terrorists?

The founder of ArabCrunch is a proud Jordanian, Intaj pride and mission is to help Jordanian tech companies and “recently startups”, we asked them before for support against the unfair competition form Hillary Clinton’s competing projects but no words of support.
We asked Jordan’s Minister of ICT Marwan Juma for support over twitter for the post that had the leak about US State dep. plans to destroy us, instead he sounded like giving excuses to the US department of State:

If they can not support AC in words, it is strange to show bias and refuse us a media pass. We are really disappointed, as not issuing us a media pass is symbolic rather than anything else.

Is this a new chain of plots against ArabCrunch?

Update: A NEW POST It Is About “Injustice & Liberty”: Update About Hillary Clinton’s Competing Project with ArabCrunch

Update 2: this is a long post: Our sources who are close to the U.S State Department and the US Department of Defense have informed us that if you do not find ways to collaborate with the State Department ” they will destroy you.”

Update 3: We are not looking for “cheap” publicity with this post. The event with Craig and Steven is older than the post publishing date. there are better ways to get public attention rather than involve such controversial issues that involves our name “VS. in some ways” the only super power in the world which would put the writer of this post safety  at “risks”. This post is not a waste of time. The public needs to know what is going behind the scenes. The public needs to know that what is unjust, unfair,  what is blackmail, hypocrite and “criminal in general, not pointing to anything in specific about the word criminal”

We hate politics at ArabCrunch and we try our best to avoid it, but this time it came to us.
Steven R. Koltai State Department announced recently during US Delegation on Entrepreneurship event held in Amman, Jordan at the end of last June that U.S Department of State will launch a competing project to ArabCrunch.NET on its website, the competing project will have mentoring match making targeting Muslims and Arab entrepreneurs. And it comes under the U.S Federal government and Obama‘s plan to “support” entrepreneurship in the Arab & Muslim world. As a pillar in a new policy to fight “terrorism” by engaging with people in the region.

During the event which was organized by a new event group in Amman Called Amman Tech Tuesday, I raised my hand asking the delegates who some of them are real entrepreneurship like Tom Kelle from TechStar and Shervin Pishevar SGN and an investor in gowala to join ArabCrunch.NET, that led some people (without mentioning names) to call my question as “advertising for ArabCrunch”, while others told us that the “whole event is a propaganda for the US. government.”

Then I  moved on to ask Steven from the State dep. that we do not feel comfortable at ArabCrunch to have the U.S State Department competing with us, since the US federal government has over 1 trillion USD in yearly budget, 1 million soldiers, Nukes, around 1 million CIA, FBI and other intelligent personal inside USA alone let alone the company that operates under other cover “and let alone in other countries around the world.”

I told him we can deal with the private sector competition, but not with (the only) super power like the US government. This move is 100% against the capitalist principles and the free market ideology that the United States government has been professing around the world for decades. I also told him that this sound like Communism.

He replied back by saying there is room for everyone and the amount of resources the US gov. is putting in this is low! Yes it is low to take down a small startup like ArabCrunch. And I do not believe that people at the US Stat Department believe there is something called room for everyone!

After the event Greg Behrman from the US State Department and a Member of its the Policy Planning Staff, has proposed that I meet him along with Steven in order to discuss and “collaborate” off course I said NO, as the term “collaboration” meaning becoming spy in the technical term.

I recently sent the following message to Creg from the state dep. and yet he did not reply:

Sir,

Apology for not replying earlier, I understand your government is about to launch a competing project to http://arabcrunch.net with a mentoring website at the U.S. state dep. site   among other projects aimed on entrepreneurs  in the name of helping!

This means the US federal government is competing with a private startup from the Arab/Muslim world: ArabCrunch. which is 100% against the  principles of free market and the freedom  innovation that US federal gov. professed around the world for decades , Governments should  not enter in competition with the private sector, specially if they are indigence.

As I said in the US delegation event in Amman, Jordan last month, ArabCrunch can not compete with the US federal government, which has over 1 trillion USD in yearly budget an army of over  millions soldiers  CIA/FBI agents nukes and what not with advanced weapons.

Your friend from the U.S Stat department answered by saying there is room and not all U.S federal budget is put into this project. Room? Yes for sure it does not need billions to destroy ArabCrunch and oust it. It needs very little effort, actually there no way to even  compare between AC, me and US. Federal gov. Me and ArabCrunch are no match to your resources at any level, we do not even make 6 figures, we are still in the startup mood.

At ArabCrunch we got NO political agenda, we are not an NGO, Mark Zagroubring said once you can not change the world by being an NGO, because you will be begging for money all the time. We are a startup aiming to help other startups and geeks speacialy Arabs and Muslims . and until now ArabCrunch is the only one  from the private sector  in the world doing what we do, with focus on Arabs and Muslims.

My advice is that the U.S federal government or any of its agencies should not  compete with ArabCrunch network and not fund (directly or indirectly) those who start competing projects to ArabCrunch group.

This makes me honestly scarred and not just worried about ArabCrunch but also about my own personal safety. US gov. is a super power, we on the other hand are Nada. Also I am not sure how would the US government feel about a small non American entity that is competing with it, in some of its projects and that is growing day after day. As i have no intention in leaving or closing ArabCrunch at any case.

I can deal with competition coming from with private sector, but at the level of governments ( specially if they are Super powers or backed by) I get really  worried.

Thanks,”

The US government has started a competing Arabic news TV to Aljazeera with its 100%  owned ” Alhurra Arabic TV”, and before its army has bombed Aljazeera offices in Baghdad and Afghanistan killing Aljazeera Jordanian correspondent in Baghadad. A memo that was leaked during Gorge Bush terms said that he had planned to bomb Alajzeera Head Quarter in Qatar.

Yesterday, a US republican Congressman has asked for the execution of alleged Whistleblower Bradley Manning. Wikileaks also recently published a leaked document that dates to 2009 about US army plans to destroy wikileaks image to the public by attacking its heart ( trust.)

Our sources who are close to the U.S State Department and the US Department of Defense have informed us that if you do not find ways to collaborate with the State Department ” they will destroy you.”

We are not a political organization and we do not have any political agendas, but it seems George Bush motto of “with us or against us” is still valid and applies to not just to politics but also on tech and entrepreneurship!

We’ve been and still under attack from different directions, we will not consider the US Federal government or any other government as enemy even if they consider us as so “directly or indirectly.”

It would be interesting to see how far the “engagement plan” will go to!

#Hillary Clinton photo by merfam. other photo by 3alarasi.

TechWadi is hosting its first event in Beirut, Lebanon on the 23rd of this month. The event will discuss on accelerating entrepreneurship and venture capital in Lebanon and across the Arab region.

The forum will gather US Mulsim and Arab Investors, executives, entrepreneurs and policymakers from the US state Department.

The event will be held at American University of Beirut Olayan School of Business for one day and will start at 9 pm Lebanon time. It will kick off with guest speakers from Berytech, techwadi and AUB Olayan School, then with a speech by Greg Behrman from US state Department. It will also include speakers like : Saeed Amidi, General Partner, GTIP, Tony Feghali, Director, Entrepreneur Center of OSB, Ossama Hassanein, General Partner, GTIP , Magid Abraham, Founder and CEO, NASDQ listed comScore and Hala Fadel, Chair, MIT Enterprise Forum.

For  registration and full agenda you can head to this page.

(Disclosure: ArabCrunch is a Media partner to this event, The events has the U.S. department of state  as one of its sponsors, ArabCrunch is completely independent and has no political views, so we do NOT endorse the US government or the US Department of State in any way.)

# AUB pic by deutsch_laender.

Updated.

Again I am exited about worldcup, today’s seems also exciting USA will play against England, even though USA is more advanced than UK in technology and has better startup ecosystem, England has a deep history in Football that roots decades back.

Here is quick the guide where to follow the game live whether  via online video streaming or via text and below is the Twitter live updates about the game.

Update: first half ended 1:1

Update2: #Englandgoalkeeper now a trending topic on Twitter, because the goal was his mistake.

Update 3: game ended 1:10

Live on Aljazeera Sports.


Watch live video from السويفى للبث المباشر on Justin.tv

2-Twitter:



3- BBC Live Coverage

4- Live from Video CBC and look tvU.

#image via Twitter.

Update 6: game ended 1:1 stay tuned for ArabCrunch Guide to Follow world cup online and on your mobile…
Update2: 5 PM GMT first half ended….

Again with world cup 2010  one of the most exciting events in the world and I am very excited, here is the live video streaming of the first match, in case one stream close down we will do our best to add a new one.

For other ways to watch the first game here are some links:

Update 3-4-5:
better quality
Watch live video from FでやるGame on Justin.tv

Watch live video from --**VIVO**-- on Justin.tv


Watch live video from FでやるGame on Justin.tv

Live Broadcasting by Ustream


Update2: more Video streams:

Watch live video from football tv on Justin.tv


Update: here is the live stream of Mexico VS. South Africa.

Worldcup opening has started in case you can not watch it on TV here is a couple of video streams:


Video chat rooms at Ustream


Watch live video from FでやるGame on Justin.tvThis stream on justin works too.

And here is a link to BBC live coverage, if you know another place that live streams the first match and opening please post it via comment.

ArabCrunch opens guest posting to entrepreneurs and  industry professionals- todays post is by Omar Aloyoun, he is Technology, Marketing & Product Management specialist and a Business Strategist in EVERNET. He was one of the entrepreneurs who pitched at Arabnet conference. He is looking forward to bringing new Customer-driven & Market-driven e-products to the world. You can reach him at his ArabCrunch.NET profile here. ( if you want to be a contributor or post a guest post email me at EditorATarabcrucnchDOTcom, Guest posts does not represent AC’s point of view.)

The majority of conversations and web-storming sessions that took place during and after the successful ArabNet conference were all focused on the importance of an organized follow up to the conference. It’s a call for an Industry CRM and a measurable call-to-action plan between the region’s proactive users, Venture Capitalists, Social Media Moguls (e.g. Google, Yahoo) and entrepreneurs.

ArabNet event was an important step that has helped accelerate, predict and shape a roadmap of the Web industry in our region. A zone rich with money, skilled human resources and a unifying language landscape but still lacks the momentum to innovate and achieve due to many factors that have been discussed extensively during the conference eight panels.

One of the most compelling experiences that made the scene at ArabNet is the Live Tweeting which proved how social media are shaping today’s conversations and events. The instant ArabNet attendees were actually front channeling the conference panels discussions; an exciting back channel conversation (#ArabNetMe) was winding up on the twitter-sphere.

Both the region’s competencies and weaknesses were clearly described by many leaders. Many hot discussions were insisting on overriding organizational and governmental Paradox to ignite Arab Innovation. This was clear in Fadi Ghandour speech at the conference laying a big responsibility on all industry players including Governments, Private Sector, VCs and Entrepreneurs. He also stressed out the importance of true utilization of youth talents, creating new jobs, commercializing ideas and stopping talent immigration.

During Google Arabia event in Dubai, Google has characterized year 2009 as the Internet tipping point for MENA and the year in which the Internet has graduated in the region.

Mohammad Gawdat (Google’s Managing Director, EMEA) adds that a total of 3224 patents filed from MENA region in last 13 years, with Jordan leading with more than 150 comparing to 233,000 patents for Japan. Gawdat adds that optimism is on the horizon and that the region has the chance to ‘leapfrog’ over Western region; it’s the responsibility of all online players including users, agencies and web moguls.

So what makes an Innovative nation?

As per Steve Jobs CEO of Apple  “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower”, so where shall we locate innovation in MENA knowing that Web industry in the region is a me-too adopter of others technologies for products that were created for different cultures and segments.

MENA region has a low Tech Startups Density Index comparing to neighboring countries, USA, and Europe. This index reflects how much these startups can attract venture capital dollars per person. Entrepreneurs and Youth are the bricks of our new economy, and talent and technology plays a major role in keeping these startups on the cutting edge whatever challenges they face. An Innovative nation calls to invest in brains not bricks and needs to transform any challenges it faces into assets and to leverage the business talents of young people.

Real innovation is about adding value for both the business and its consumers. An Innovative culture nurtures entrepreneurship spirit even within inside companies by having an Internal Marketing Tactics (B2E/Business-To-Employee) through initiating a wide brainstorming sessions with creative employees, allowing promoted ideas to see the light of day by developing an efficient value chain.

Companies also need to engage in ideas conversations with external customers to capture ideas on their offerings. This will help shape future products roadmaps, formulating a dynamic forum to capture and act on customers’ best ideas, and taking these innovative ideas to markets.

An innovative nation utilizes untapped resources and assets to achieve unmet needs by filling a gap in the market. We need creators’ entrepreneurs who can make real difference and we don’t need more imitators. We want startups that build and establish value before preplanning monetization and money will follow.

Many startups need to reinvent themselves and more serious angel investors are needed to empower more startups out of the life cycle funnel. Many investments are gaining market share with a continuous market growth (The Stars as Per BCG Matrix); these can be converted to cash cows by providing them with all resources they need.

What applies to startups, also applies to commercialization of ideas. Fadi Ghandour said: “In order for innovation to really occur, we need to stop launching new ideas and focus on a few whether they succeed or fail”. Another approach is to uncover great ideas, generate a large quantity of them; a few may break even and many may become rewarding and pay back the costs of the broken down ideas.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who implement them are priceless, Mary Kay Ash.
Measuring innovation in MENA Advertising Ecosystem

MENA crowd should change the way they look to Advertising pinnacle. Whether it is Holistic Social Media Advertising, Contextual Text Based advertising (e.g. Google AdSense), Display Advertising or Keyword Search based CPC Advertising. According to Google, “Users need advertisers because they provide valuable additional information”.

The ArabNet advertising panel has missed a crucial point of why we have few advertisers?

Advertising platform resides in a two sided market where advertisers make up for one side and media publishers make up the other site.

The problem resides in the lack of advertisers’ landing pages readiness. Many potential advertisers are Brick & Mortar businesses that do not have a significant online presence or online business strategy. Brand’s online presence lack real value, does not engage with its audience, neither have a direct sales channel and have a bad design. Offline businesses without an online strategy underestimate the rewards coming from starting their new digital channels.

Brands should gain better ROI by adding Analytics, capturing customer insights, starting a professional blog, writing whitepapers and having an online customer acquisition strategy that enable building customers database. Any systematic marketing or re-marketing efforts will fade without profiling customers.

By communicating these values through the marketplace, the first building block for a real MENA based Affiliate Network (Performance Based Marketing) can be setup. A business or retailer will recruit affiliate publishers who can match an industry segment with their targeted audience. By cultivating the advertisers’ performance, we will encourage more publishers to enter the market.

The total outcome will transparently encourage and promote more quality Arabic content. Although MENA region have 56 million online users in Arabia region, we contribute for 1% of world’s online content.

Social Media Innovation

I  was impressed during ArabNet Online Advertising panel when Khaled Jabasini (Founder, E-marketing MENA) partially stripped to make a buzz, as a symbol of social media true utilization and how originating a positive word of mouth will support brand’s products more than any well written brand’s own sales pitch because it’s a trusted experience message originating from customers to the customer, and as Jabasini said: “advertising with zero dime cost” by allowing a brand to engage positively with audience and build a mutual experience. This is aligned with the new myth (via @umairh) “Advertising is the price a business pays for not being creative”. And as per Nielsen, “Winning online is about Serving Audience and not creating impressions!”
MENA region demand is for more collaborative business in the cloud, more service-oriented customer-centric dynamic platforms than static webs.

According to Yahoo!’s Alexa top 500 global websites, only 6 MENA based sites are in the list, including Google’s KSA and AE regional search page. (Maktoob #162, Kooora.net #251, Traidnt.net #400 and MyEgy.com #440).

Final Opinion

Innovative institutes do exist in the region; however their activities and influence are limited to the country or the region they are in. They need to expand beyond to include more areas in the MENA region. One example is Microsoft Innovation Lab in Cairo (MILC).

Going back to the Web industry CRM, I can say that ArabNet has triggered a new collaborative network between industry experts (Look @ ArabNet Twitter Lists), never seen before in the region. Experts are fragmented in each country and if we invite a Silicon Valley Investor to Jordan for example, there is no centralized database, or no mean of reaching talents, and the same matter applies to the whole region. For this ArabCrunch.net was created as the first Arabian web Industry hub that enables collaboration and technical Q&A Web-Storming sessions between experts and entrepreneurs and as brands and experts’ database.

Final advice to startups: focus on current trends and era that can be summarized by “The Internet is reaching into the phone” and “Browsing is out; engaging experiences are in”. One example utilized by many brands and agencies is mobile targeting and advertising. The users are sent to the mobile version of their websites when a mobile browser is detected.
Let us carry forward the innovation cycle in the region. Let us embrace the endless possibilities.

In few moment, founder  of ArabCrunch Group is going to speak in Amandla Forum in Kempinski Hotel, Dear Sea, Jordan. The title of speech is “Effective Use of Social Networking”.

You can follow Gaith’s speech from twitter, just follow us on twitter, or by using the hash-tag #arabcrunchnet, and you can follow the Amandla forum in general by folloing the hash-tag: #amandla.

See the live streaming: from here

We are here at dead sea Amman, Jordan covering Amandla forum and now live streaming Thomas Gensemer speech, he was handling Obama’s online campaign and he will now showcase Obama’s case study:

Under the them, “communications empowerment” the Amandla forum has lineup some of the top-notch minds to train the regions’ communications professionals in the latest trends in the industry. They include renowned brand transformation strategist, Marty Neumeier, author of bestsellers such as BRAND GAP and ZAG and thomas Gensemer, the CEO of blue stat digital, the company that helped organize president Obama’s campaign, as well s many more.

The forum features hands-on practical training sessions and panelists from the top Internet and media companies in the region such Bayt, Yahoo! Middle East, Flip Media and ArabCrunch.

In the press conference today Thomas highlighted how did the online campaign of president Obama made a success in raising 600 million USD: personal touch, old school door to door campaigning.. the internet just scaled it!

PS: Follow us on ArabCrunch for live blogging from the event and some live video streaming.

Here is the full program:

Day 1:

• 8:00
• Registration
• 9:00
• Opening Ceremony & Amandla Surprise
• 10:00
• Plenary Speaker 1-Thomas Gensemer, Online Strategies
• “Mobilizing Online Communities that Drive Meaningful Results”
• 10:45 Plenary Speaker 2-Marty Neumeier,Brand Strategies  &  Innovation ”Are You Zagging Or Lagging?

• 11:30
• Networking Coffee Break              Sunny FM
• 12:00
• Plenary Speaker 3-Bill Orme,  Press and Media Development
• 12:45
• Plenary Speaker 4-Abdel-Rahman Ghandour, Advocacy in the Arab World
• 13:30
• Lunch
• 14:30
• Plenary Speaker 5- Bob Walsh, Public Relations and Advocacy 
                                 ”A Conversation with Bob-Public Relations for Public Diplomacy:
                                  ”Empowering people to Change the World”
• 15:15
• Networking Coffee Break
• 15:30
• Workshops
• Brand Strategies                                                 Marty Neumeier                            
    ”The Zag Workshop”
• Government Communications                          Ed Salazar
    ” Overcoming barriers to communication with Governments ”
• Basic Press and Media (Arabic)                        Abdelhamid Abdeljaber
   ”Effective Communication Strategies”
• 17:30
• End of First Day
• 20:00
• Gala Dinner

Day 2: 6th May

• ime
• 9:00
• Workshops
• Storytelling                                                PennyLegate                                                              
”The Power Of Storytelling”
• Brand Strategy                                         Marty Neumeier
    ”The Zag Workshop”
• Online Strategy                                         Thomas Gensemer & David Nassar
    ”How to Develop an Effective Online Communication Strategy”
• Citizen Journalism and New Media     7iber
• 11:00
• Networking Coffee Break
• 11:30
• Sponsor Speech
• 12:00
• Panel -Communications in the Arab World -Moderator Rania Atalla
• • Ahmed Nassef – MD / VP of Yahoo! Middle East
• Anis Salem – Development Works
• Isam Bayazidi – Ikoo
• Laith Zraikat – Jeeran
• Nadine Toukan – UrdunMubdi3 
• Rabea Ataya – Bayt.com
• Saad Abdul Hadi – Al Nasher PR & Advertising
• Yousef Tuqan – Flip Media
• Zeid Nasser- Media Me
• 13:30
• Lunch
• 14:30
• Plenary 6 - David Nassar,Online Strategy Arab World (Embracing the power of Online Communication in the Arab World)
• 15:15
• Coffee Break
• 15:30
• Workshops
• Press and Media Development-                              Bill Orme
”Transparency vs. Thought Control”
• CSR-”Corporate Social Responsibility                   David Nassar
      in The Internet Age”
• Effective Use of Social Networking (Arabic)         Gaith Saqer/ArabCrunch
• 17:30
• Closing Ceremony

( Disclosure: ArabCrunch is a media partner to the event.)

Amman, Jordan; Nablus, West Bank – No one denies the hardship that Palestinian brothers are facing in West Bank, starting from the suffering caused by the occupation and the high number of unemployment among Palestinian youth.

A couple of Palestinian youth wanted to do soemthing to start a change, the idea came in one of the meetings of Amr Tamimi, Ayman Awartani, Omar Abu Safieh and Mohammad Asmar. First, they thought of a video community for technologist in Nablus, Palestine. Later, they decided to make it such an event from time to time.

Amr started with his friends with a small event hosted at his dad’s office in Nablus. They called it DEMO.PS It quickly moved to An-Najah National University with more than 80 attendees. The theme of the event was to share experiences and educate the public about Palestinian startup companies and how to make them successful.

Demo.ps organized a series of sessions that talk about many topics, such as:
Startups and innovations
Web applications, and development
E-marketing and solutions for making business
Mobile development
New Technologies
Programming Language
And more …

Today, we are proud to announce that Amr Tamimi is the ArabCrunchStart Ambassador in the West Bank. Amr Numan Tamimi is a very talented student at An-Najah National University, and a well known web developer specializing in Ruby on Rails.

Well, We at ArabCrunch have a clear mission of helping Arabs, Muslims and people in the emerging world to just innovate.

We started 2 years ago with this English blog with only 2 USD investment, then successfully concluded ArabCrunch DEMO, the launchpad event for Arab technologies last year.

At the end of 2009 we launched ArabCrunch in Arabic to bring our vision to everyone we can reach in the Arab world. And in less than a month launched ArabCrunch.NET as the first social platform to connect and empower Arab tech professionals with mentorship and startup Q&A  along with the ecosystem social profiles . Thanks to the backing of Bassel Ojjeh Former Vice President Yahoo!

About one week ago we announced here ArabCrunchStart a global events initiative from ArabCrunch and run in collaboration with AC’s global Ambassadors program, a program which aims to help at the grass root level, entrepreneurs  to start their startups and to help geeks innovate and be come top-notch engineers.

Today, DEMO.PS moves in to its next level, I am glad to announce that DEMO.PS is now part of ArabCrunchStart program and now called ArabCrunchStart #Palestine.

With this announcement ArabCrunch continues playing one of its important roles since day one of its inception, which is bringing the fragmented, emerging and young Arab technology and startup sector together, from Silicon Valley, to Bahrain.

Under this announcement ArabCrunch ambassadors will work closely with private and non – government entities in the West Bank of Palestine promoting entrepreneurship and offer free mentorship to Palestinian youth via ArabCrunch.NET mentorship match making program.

ArabCrunchStartPalestine will work in 2 tracks: startuping and technology advancement, and will host a series of events featuring top notch local and global speakers, startups and highly skilled engineers.

ArabCrunchStartPalestine will also work closely with the Palestinians startup and tech community and help them in any way possible.

DEMO.ps will redirect to ArabCrunchStartPalestine profile on ArabCrunch.NET/StartPalestine and all events will be managed via ArabCrunch.NET upcoming events application.

Quotes:
Gaith Saqer, ArabCrunch Founder.

” At ArabCrunch we started small, using a very old PC. Our brothers at DEMO.PS are young and also started small with almost nothing, but like AC they are growing day by day, and this is what startups are all about,”

” Palestine is in the heart of every Muslim and Arab, serving our Palestinian brothers should be a top priority to anyone. As the only completely independent entity with a full time staff that is focused in helping Arab entrepreneurs, tech professionals and geeks, ArabCrunch is very proud to serve the youth in Palestine”

Amr Tamimi from Demo.ps team:
“ I ‘ve been following ArabCrunch since its inception, I saw its growth day after day, I am honored to be an ArabCrunch Ammbsador in the West Bank and 48 territories. Now by becoming a part of the ArabCrunchStart team DEMO.PS will grow to its next level in helping Palestine youth to innovate at a grass root level”

“Uniting DEMO.PS with ArabCrunchStrat should be a model for all Arab tech professionals. We need unity.”

“Uniting DEMO.PS with ArabCrunchStrat should be a modle for all Arab tech professionals, we need: unity.”

The opening session featured Larry Summers, Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. He highlighted the fact that growth rates recently have been phenomenal compared to the Industrial Revolution – not by a factor of 2 or 5, but by hundreds. And mainly concentrated in emerging markets. This story will be written by entrepreneurs. Larry shared his belief that Entrepreneurship isn’t just new technologies, it’s new ways of doing business, new perspectives, new organizational methods. Economic growth is “better recipes”, and the path for permanent and continuing change is “the path of innovation”.

The morning session was called “Promoting entrepreneurship and enabling business”, with Karen Mills, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration; Kemal Dervis, Vice President of The Brookings Institution; Obiageli Ezekwesili, Vice President for Africa at the World Bank; Sheikha Hanadi bint Nasser bin Khalid Al Thani, founder and CEO of Amwal; and Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, Founder of Celtel International.

The audience brought up the issue of “culture” several times. Why is the Arab world so failure-averse? Sheikha Hanadi disagreed that it is a problem of culture: it takes 3-4 years to start up a business in the Arab world, and so “failure” means much more than in Silicon Valley, where businesses can restart in a matter of months. This is a key point, suggesting that policy changes are in order to make the economy more fluid and flexible.

Another recurring theme: a network of Angels to fund companies in the $5000-$500,000 range. Typically, it is previously successful entrepreneurs that fund smaller ventures and take a risk; as more and more success stories emerge from the region, this network will be created. Sheikha Hanada weighed in: not only is capital important, but angels need to put in their experience, their knowledge, and their mentorship. Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim is an angel, but he is focused in his home country of Sudan; he cannot spread his energy to the entirety of Africa or the Muslim world – others are needed.

Sheikha Hanada highlighted one major problem: 50% of unemployed in the Arab world are first-time job seekers.

Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim weighed in on the use of the “China model” for the Arab world: first, China is a huge country with sufficient scale and market to develop independently of the rest of the world. Second, for years China operated on severe oppression: shooting mayors, officials, etc for “treason”. Most importantly, even the Chinese one-party President steps down every 8 years: what of the Arab leaders? If you want the Chinese model, implement it in all its ways.

The after-lunch session was titled “Unleashing the Power of Women Entrepreneurs” and featured: Valerie Jarrett, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor, with an introduction from Farah Pandith, Special Representative for Muslim Communities, U.S. Department of State; Tamara Abed, Director of Aarong; Faridah Nambi Kigongo, Founder and Managing Director of Nambi Children Initiatives; Dina Powell, Global Head for Corporate Engagement at Goldman Sachs; and Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank. I could not attend the whole session because, as press, we had to undergo early security check for Hilary Clinton’s speech, but I caught the beginning:

Dr. Mohamed Yunus, Nobel laureate and founder of Grameen Bank –with 8 million borrowers and over $8 billion distributed spoke first. Dr. Yunus discussed the beginning of his micro-finance plans: the banks only lent to people who already had money, and less than 1% of all borrowers in Bangladesh were women. So Yunus gave himself as a guarantor, and made a commitment that 50% of borrowers should be women. They saw that money funelled to a family through women had a greater effect than the same money through men, and now out of Grameen’s 8 million borrowers, 97% are women. Yunus discussed every person’s choice: you can be a job seeker, or a job giver. Everyone can be an entrepreneur.

Update: To apply as an ArabCrunch Ambassador please read the end of the post.

At ArabCrunch we have a mission to drive entrepreneurship and innovation, something we started implementing

around 2 years ago with this blog.

Gradually we’ve been adding initiatives toward achieving our mission, the last one you know of is our mega project ArabCrunch.NET the social network that empowers innovators with great apps and tools.

Today, we are brining our work to the grass root level and to the whole world. Aiming to reach every city we can reach: meet ArabCrunchStart.

I am happy to announce that ArabCrunch.net worldwide ambassadors program has officially started with confirmed ambassadors from USA, Washington, NY, London and Saudi Arabia.

ArabCrunch Ambassadors will work under ArabCrunchStart global event program which aims to help at the grass root level, entrepreneurs  to start their startups and to help geeks innovate and be come top-notch engineers.

With our current line-up of ambassadors we are working together to rollup local ArabCrunchStart events in these cities and in works to add more cities, so stay tuned for more information.

Please make sure to follow and invite your friends to ArabCrunchStart on: ArabCrunch.NET, Facebook and Twitter to get updates about programs, events, schedules and locations.

Here is a list of the Arab tech community heroes with their bios: ArabCrunch Ambassadors, if you live in one of the cities/countries where the ambassadors live,  please be in touch with them and follow them on ArabCrunch.NET to stay updated with their initiatives:

Amir Kabbara (ArabCrunch US  & Seattle Ambassador)

graduated with Distinction and Cumm Laude from the Foster Business at the University of Washington, Seattle. Throughout the past 3 years, Amir had the opportunity of working with multiple start-ups including Myyeyou, a Chinese professional social networking website, and EcoShop Network. In the corporate world, Amir has worked in T-Mobile as a Project Manager and in Microsoft as a financial Analyst. Outside of work, Amir spends the majority of his time working with non-profit and leadership organizations in the US including the Golden Key Honor Society, Sigma Alpha Lambda Leadership Society, Children International and the Red Cross. Amir is a member of the NWEN (Northwest Entrepreneurship Network) and is on the board of Collegiate Professionals.

Amir and Rony are currently acting as the ArabCrunch Ambassadors in the US. US audience, please contact them at US.Ambassador@arabcrunch.com if you have any questions, feedback or want to know more about ArabCrunch’s initiative and events in the US.

Rony Ferzli (ArabCrunch US  & Seattle Ambassador)

received his Bachelor and Master in Electrical Engineering from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon in 1999 and 2002 respectively. From 2002 to 2003, he held a research position in the Department of Electrical and Computer engineering at the American University of Beirut working on signal processing and pattern recognition problems. From 2003 to 2007, he joined Arizona State University as a PhD student majoring in Electrical Engineering researching image restoration and quality assessment. During the PhD, he worked at various companies such as Intel, Acoustic Technologies and Picaris working on state of the art algorithms in signal processing and computer vision. He is currently at Microsoft working in the Unified Communication group researching video conferencing codecs and architectures as well as optimization techniques for boosting performance. His research interests are in Image and Video Processing, DSP architectures, Neural Networks and Mixed Signal Design.  He has more than 8 patents in the field of Electrical Engineering as well as at least 20 papers published in reputable international journals and papers. Rony is an active member of the IEEE society where he helped organizing many conferences as well as being a lead reviewer for major IEEE journals.

Saleh Alzaid: ( Saudi Arabia Ambassador)
Saudi web entrepreneur, founder of the popular untiny URL web app: Untiny.com which was featured on ArabCrunch, PC Magazine Life hacker to name a few, Saleh was also featured on NYtimes. He is also software engineer, blogger, owner of Twtbase.com.  Currently  he lives in Riyad, Saudi Arabia. if you live in Saudi Arabia and want more info you can email him at: Saudi.ambassador@arabcrunch.com

Rami Sawas (London Ambassador)

Born and raised in Aleppo (Syria). moved to London (United Kingdom) in 2001 and completed BSc(Hons) in ‘Computer Science’ and Masters in ‘IT and Internet Law’.

He Currently works as a ‘Site Development Executive’ at Mothercare and carrying out a PhD research in the field of ‘Business Rules & Regulatory Compliance.’

Rami has passion for everything Web and Internet related, including social media, innovation and networking with entrepreneurs. if you live in UK or London you can email him at: London.ambassador@arabcrunch.com

Feras Al-Natsheh: (NY Ambassador)
ex-ArabCrunch Intern he is Computer and mobile programmer, finished his BS in computer networking and currently is pursuing an M.B.A. in NYiT Manhattan.

If you want to join ArabCrunchStart program  becoming an Ambassador  and you meet the following qualifications please email your Bio/CV along with 2 articles of your original writings  please also mention why you want to join this program to ambassadorATarabcrunchDOTcom :

Qualifications:

-  Entrepreneur or with Experience working in the Internet or tech industry. Experience in Sales and/or Business Development is a plus.

- A Bachelor´s or Master´s degree or a proven track record.

- Excellent English writing skills, Arabic fusha writing skills is a plus.

- Excellent work ethic to perform assigned tasks.

- Proactive, highly motivated, enthusiastic and able to work in an organized manner.

- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.

- Able to lead a team to help support your efforts in creating and promoting country events.

- Ability to reach companies from all sectors of the market in the country.

And, Most Importantly…
Have an entrepreneurial spirit and have the passion to help Arab Entrepreneurs develop their skills and reach their goals.

Yesterday and today ArabNet conference has been running in Beirut in lebanon brining together the Arab Internet industry a long with few startups.

The conference is well organized and has managed to get fans and advocates across the Arab world who is tweeting massively, this resulted in making #arabnetme a global trending topic on Twitter since yesterday, but a counter move by some haters called it a Terrorist Summit!

I have made few video interviews with a number of Venture Capitalist but was not able to upload them since the Internet here in Lebanon ironiclly is really bad. I will do more interviews today and give you my view about the conference soon.