So far, the Arab tech startups and innovation seen has been hard to spot, despite some events like GITEX, it is hard for the most promising Arab startups and for emerging technologies to be spotted in the Arab world, whether they are consumer or business applications.

GITEX is turning into an Enterprise IT exhibit, while other tech events cost great amount of money to attend and sponsor, leaving the little guy out of the spot, at the same time consumer tech apps have no place at these event!

What are the hottest startups? What are the great innovation happening in the Arab world? And who are the people behind them?

In order to know ArabCrunch is pleased to announce that we are organizing ArabCrunch DEMO 08 (DEMOIZE.)

DEMOIZE will be the Arab world’s launch pad event for emerging technologies, developed by startups or by established companies.

The event will be held on the 20th of December 2008, Amman, Jordan. At a state of the art auditorium at Prince Sumaya University, our  Organizing Partner is Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship’s  (QRCE) DART. 

The event is an effort to bring enthusiasm to newly launched companies and products, find great innovation, spot technology trends, and learn from the experience of emerging startups and current corporate players.

World class keynote speakers will be present at the event to give speeches, sharing their know-how and expertise in managing and running great innovative global and regional companies, thus sparking vigorous discussions and debates during the event.

The event ends with a networking reception to bring entrepreneurs, CEOs of established ICT companies, venture capitalists (VCs), corporate decision makers, developers and engineers, IT professionals, IT students, media, and early tech adapters, together igniting new relationships that can help everybody in their business and to further deepen the knowledge sharing.

The event aims to spread entrepreneurial spirit and innovation across the Arab world, and help Arab originated startups, and the existing Arab made newly launched products to thrive and succeed.

Stay tuned for the event website and on ArabCurnch.com for more details on the schedule, demonstrators and speakers. Meanwhile if are interested at speaking at the conference or for sponsorship details email: editor@arabcrunch.com

So Aljazeera launching of Sharek (an Arabic word which means participate) is smart way to get breaking news and exclusive content for the channel from people who were on site. But those people have to know Arabic as for the time being Sharek is only in Arabic. 

Aljazeera’s Sharek is part of the new redesign of Aljazeera Arabic homepage, which is half way to full customization of Aljazeera’s news.

With Sharek users can upload news videos and/or pic through the web site, or send it via mobile phone or email to sharek@aljazeera.net. Where Aljazeera may publish it on the site or on TV.

Citizen journalism has been around for years now, in the Arab world Maktoob has a section in its news website that allows anyone to publish news. International news station CNN has iReporter , but unlike both of them Sharik uploaded content is handpicked by Aljazeera’s editors to make sure the story is true before it is published, which is a good policy to keep real news from lies. As One of iReporter’s user once published that the CEO of Apple has a cancer which led to depreciation of Apple’s stock value, and put CNN in an embarrassing situation.

Maktoob’s news is full of non news worthy content, but its use of citizen journalism has been kind of successful in its sport channel.( see Editor’s note on the comparison with Wikeez here.)

The first company to use Citizen journalism years ago was the south Korean company OhmyNews , another company is NowPublic the Canadian company that bought Trumors from Guy Kawasaki. 

It is official iPhone 3G is now available in Egypt via Vodafone and mobinil, making Egypt the first Arab country to have a  iPhone 3G officially.

Vodafone Egypt’s website announced the availability of iPhone 3G,  so does mobinil’s website . I also saw an ad for Vodafone announcing the availability on MBC TV. 

I do not have enough information about the pricing and plans VodaFone, but the iPhone 3G will only run on Vodafone network, meaning no unlocked iPhones. (I have contacted Vodafone for more info before, but they did not reply, I’ll try again now.)

As for mobinil the prices are iPhone 3G 8GB  for 3,800 Egyptian Pounds (EGP), iPhone 3G 16GB for 4,450 EGP, with special plans designed for iPhone.  

Vodafone iPhone 3G launch in Egypt is part of an agreement between the mobile operator and Apple to sell iPhone in ten markets worldwide for Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Qatar, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey .

ArabCrunch was first to report in the news that Orange will launch iPhone 3G sometimes this month in Jordan, which was confirmed by Orange representative, however there seems to be some delays in the launch, since Orange Jordan did not get the 3G license yet in Jordan! Nevertheless I will update AC’s readers with Orange position in this.

Mashbale 2nd Annual Open Web Awards ( ArabCrunch is the only Arab orginated blog Partner) is a unique opportunity for the most accomplished websites and services to receive international recognition for their achievements.

During the nominations round, Mashable, received over 43,000 verified nominations. They narrowed down this huge pool to the 10 most-nominated sites and services in each category (where 10th place was a draw, Mashable allowed more than 10 nominees in that category).

Now it’s time to vote for your favorites in the first of two voting rounds before it ends. You can vote for one company in each category per day until midnight on November 30th. There are 26 categories. Get voting!

Though we need at least dozens more to help flourish entrepreneurship in the Arab world. The MIT Arab Business Plan Competition is designed to encourage all entrepreneurs in the region to start their own company and, ultimately, create a nest of leading firms in the Arab world. It also brings to the Arab world all the MIT expertise in entrepreneurship and in running such competitions.

The equivalent of the MIT Arab Business Plan Competition in Boston is called the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competitions which has created a number of leading firms and thousands of jobs in USA with an aggregate value of over $10.5 billion dollars.

MIT (massachusetts institute of technology) is a leading school in Boston USA and has leading MBA program. Many of the brightest engineers and managers in USA came from MIT.

MIT Arab Business Plan Competition is open to all Arab nationals with a business idea. The only requirement is to be part of a team. You cannot enter the competition as one person. The competition believes that a viable team should comprise minimum 3 individuals.

As the competition is aimed at fostering entrepreneurship in the Arab world, At least 2 members of the team should be citizens of the Arab world, and the business concept should be implemented in a country within the Arab world.

Eligible Arab countries are: Lebanon (host country), Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, and Yemen.

The winner of the Competition will receive prize money of USD 50,000. And the members of the winning team will be given the opportunity to attend the MIT Global Startup Workshop (GSW) . The first and second runner-ups will receive a check of USD 10,000 and USD 5000 respectively.

To apply for the competition users are required to fill the online application form(found here ) consisting of 16 questions that summarize their business idea and the means of implementing it. The application is available in English language only and should be filled in English too.

The deadline for submitting the applications is Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 23:59, GMT.

Announcing the first round winners, will be on 23 February 2009, where thirty teams will qualify for the second round of the competition. The winning teams will be invited - After doing their business planning homework - to on Monday, March 23, 2009 to attend a one-day workshop lead by Ken Morse, Managing Director of MIT Entrepreneurship Center in Cambridge, MA. During that day each team will also be designated a mentor who can help on the business plan, and lead them to a successful business plan submission meeting the deadline of 13 April 2009.

Announcing the second round winners will be on 19 May 2009, where 9 teams will qualify for the third round of the Competition.  On Round III: The 9 teams will be invited to Dubai to present their business plans on Thursday, June 11, 2009, where The 3 winning teams will be announced in a ceremony in Dubai on Friday, June 12, 2009.

The global mobile content market will be worth $167bn by 2013, shared among players such as MNOs, Content Providers and third parties such as content aggregators and billing companies.

Currently MNOs take a significant percentage of the revenues generated by Content Providers when they use their networks. This has resulted in high prices for end-users and consumers being deterred from accessing mobile content on a wider scale. This unattractive situation has become a disincentive for MNOs and Content Providers alike, with some Content Providers attempting to bypass the MNOs or exit the sector altogether. Clearly, the situation needs to change. But it will be down to the MNOs to make the first moves, says the report.

The new report examines the three main scenarios facing the Operators and the sector as a whole - the ‘Dumb Pipe’, ‘Smart Pipe’, and ‘On-Portal’ routes. Modelling the market in such a way has enabled Juniper to create a detailed forecasting and modeling tool to examine how a future market may develop under different conditions.

According to report author Andrew Kitson, “One single scenario will not win out since different business and revenue models have to co-exist in the mobile content market. Players will adopt multiple approaches that best fit their markets. Crucially, if MNOs are to benefit financially, they need to move away from their Dumb Pipe roots to the Smart Pipe model, though they will clash with the content providers which already dominate the Smart Pipe. A compromise needs to be found.”

If MNOs can change their ARPU-driven mindsets to focus on value creation and support for their partners, they can swiftly make the change.

Other findings include
•    Under the Smart Pipe model, MNOs will not see their share of the overall mobile content market rise appreciably, but revenue will rise in value by 125% over the 2008-2013 period.
•    Under the On-Portal scenario, content providers will see their share of the market rise from 54% in 2008 to 68% by 2013, providing they can secure more attractive terms from MNOs.
•    Third parties – especially aggregators and billing service providers – will come under pressure from larger players (such as MNOs) seeking to achieve horizontal integration and economies of scale.

The report provides coverage and forecasts from a global perspective as well as from a regional viewpoint by looking at how the market will grow or wane under the On-Portal, Dumb Pipe, and Smart Pipe scenarios around the world.

Whitepapers and further details of the study ‘Mobile Content Strategies & Business Models: Scenarios & Forecasts 2008-2013’ can be freely downloaded from here.