Saudi based National net ventures (n2v) has announced that it invested in Mj in the region (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and UAE) , they have not invested until now in pure play e-commerce ventures, I would advice them to seek to diversify their investments and explore new disruptive e-commerce ideas.

Jordanian gaming developer Quirkat has launched MENA Speed (Sur3a) on Sony Play Station, the company says the game works with both PSP and PS3.

“MENA Speed is the first drag race game with tracks in major cities across the Middle East, pumping adrenaline with screeching tires and burned rubber across the roads of Dubai, Amman, Kuwait and Cairo. The player can customize and upgrade the car then accept challenges across different terrains.

 
There are many different power-ups to enjoy by upgrading the car engine, gearbox, cooling system, and manifold to improve its performance; and customize its look with different paint jobs, spoilers and rims; all with a wide range of options.”

While it provides an edge “somehow” for regional gaming developers to develop games with local touch “or” feel, they are encouraged to rather create a new untapped and exciting games that can be combined with the rich Arabian and Islamic cultures.

Maysalward announced today that is has received investment round from Turkish venture capital firm Timar Ventures.
Maysalward is one of the first if not the first mobile games developer in the Arab region. It was founded in 2003 in Jordan with offices in Amman and Irbid.

Maysalward has a portfolio of 35 mobile games and 20 online games with titles such as Trix, Tarneeb and Balote regional card games, which were in the top download charts over the past 5 years.  Portfolio includes Tawla backgammon, street football, super arcanoid, word search and other casual and classic arcade games. Maysalward games can be found Nokia Ovi Store, BlackBerry App World, Apple App Store and other independet App stores & operator portals. The Company latest games just launched include “Hand” (a variant of Rummy) on the BlackBerry App World and “Colonel” on Apple App Store. The company says on Nokia Ovi store during 2011it has exceeded more than 250,000 downloads.

Timer Ventures, is chaired by Dr. Boulos Doany the founding CEO of Oger telecom. The VC has recently invested 1 million USD in Jordanian accelerator Oasis500.

The company says that this investment will help Maysalward focus in developing games over numerous App stores and expand in to several new markets.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

It seems folks at Oasis500 are boycotting ArabCrunch, they do not send us their news nor invite us to their press events, even after repeated calls from our side!

In a press release handed to the media Oasis500 the second accelerator program after Meydan in Jordan announced that it has secured a USD 1 million investment from TIMAR Ventures, a Turkey-based early-to-expansion stage venture capital (VC) fund.

This investment is targeted at the first funding round of Oasis500 Ventures 1, the investment arm of Oasis500, and will be invested directly into startup companies, either during the initial USD $15,000 funding stage or beyond.

TIMAR Ventures is a USD $150 million early-to-expansion-stage venture capital fund that invests globally in companies that apply disruptive innovation in technology and business models to create category dominant players. It also invests in the “replicate-and-innovate” model which aims to replicate successful business innovation models within Turkey, the Arab region, the Central Asian Republics and Central Eastern Europe.

(Via Business.Jo)

Deputizing for Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan, President of the El Hassan Science City and the Royal Scientific Society, today has welcomed the winners of the fourth round of Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Competition (QRNEC).

Founded by the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship in 2004, with the full support of El-Hassan Science City & El-Hassan Business Park, the competition aims to fuel the spirit of Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation across society in Jordan, and to help Jordanians to turn their entrepreneurial ideas into successful companies that supply innovative products and services to regional and global markets.

“I am confident that the outputs of this competition will add more life into Jordan’s Innovation Ecosystem by providing additional dealflow, investment and incubation opportunities,” said Princess Sumaya.

For his part, Farhan Kalaldeh, the Executive Director of QRCE, pointed out that the focus of this year’s competition was to attract investors and raise their awareness of the investment opportunities offered by emerging technology startups and the commercial potential of transforming ideas into products and services aimed at regional and global markets. Moreover, the focus was directed at strategic sectors of the Kingdom’s economy, such as ICT, Clean Technology and Life Sciences.

QRNEC had 400 participants in its fourth round, with more than 120 projects. The competition process involved comprehensive training in the areas of strategic planning, business plan development, project management and other topics related to starting and growing high impact technology companies.
Thirty teams were nominated for the final phase of the award in three categories: Startups; Projects under Development (Pre-Startup); and Universities. Project sectors were Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Clean Technology and Life Sciences. From these, 19 winning projects were selected:
In the Startups Category, the following projects were selected:

• First place: Mixed Dimensions (MXD) – a company that develops tools for gaming companies and online Interactive 3D applications developers.
• Second place: Naratech Labs – a company that assists pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, chemicals, food and beverages manufacturers to develop new products.

• Third place: TAQETNA – a company that develops smart renewable energy products and services.

In the Projects Under Development/ Pre-Startup Category, the following projects were selected:

• First place: Nitrate Production System – Developed a business plan for a company to design and manufacture an innovative new (patent pending) device for producing Nitrogen-based fertilizer in continuous and sustained quantities without the high cost of production associated with petrochemical-based fertilizers.

• Second place: Taltol – Developed a business plan for an online marketplace where users can buy and sell digital content & products.
• Third place: EduServ – Developed a business plan to provide online tools to establish better links between schools and parents.

In the Universities Category, the following projects were selected:
• First place: Mawdoo3.com from Hashemite University – Developed a business plan for the first Arabic website to offer high quality Arabic articles with automated Arabic keyword analysis service.

• Second place: Jordan Unmanned Systems’ from German Jordanian University – Developed a business plan to produce electrically powered UASs (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) for a variety of applications.

• Third place: Yadawi from Yarmouk University – Developed a business plan for an online store selling handmade items on regional and global levels.

It is worth mentioning that QRNEC awards amount to $50,000, awarded to projects in the fields of ICT, Agricultural Technology, Renewable Energy, Water, Life Sciences, and Advanced Technologies.

There are some controversy about the role Wikileaks has played in the recent Arab Awaking or the Arab Spring that ousted 3 tyrants so far.

However today the role has become clear, as around 200 military veterans and activists demonstrated in front of the US embassy in Amman, Jordan. The first demo in front of the embassy in Amman since 25 years. The demonstration was an objection to in US government interference in Jordanian internal affairs after Wikileaks US embassy cables revelations about its role in Jordan.

The demonstrators burned the US and Israeli flag and chanted slogans such as “ the people want to expel the Americans” “no US embassy in a Jordanian land” and” no US bases on a Jordanian land” . They also demanded the Jordanian armed forces to liberate Palestine “from the river to the sea”.

Ali Habashnah president of Jordan’s military veterans committee told Aljazeera Arabic “we came here to object to US embassy recruitment of CIA agents who plot against our Palestinians brother’s right of return to Palestine.” and he threatened an open strike in the event of continued interference in internal Jordanian affairs by the US embassy.

In the letter sent to the US ambassador in Amman the demonstrators said “this demo is against US policies and not against the friendly American people.”

Via Aljazeera, Albosala and Jordan News

#image credit.

There are many cooking resources online, but what distinguish Zaytouneh is that it provides short quick and professionally done tutorial cooking videos.

Founded by Jordanian female entrepreneur Fida Taher Alawieh, the site is currently available in Arabic but plans an english version in a couple of months according to Fida’s tweet. Fida says over Twitter that she plans 200 videos in 2 months and 1000 over a year time.

This service comes handy for people who want short and fast cooking recipes specially bachelors like me.

Here is a video in how to prepare “Taboula” Salad:




(PS: we will update this post with more info once we get them)

Jordanian youth movement has launched online petition 7erakjo.org rejecting the proposed Jordanian constitutional amendments and in demand for a comprehensive reform.

The activists are demanding to amend Jordan’s constitution in ways that would bring a completely elected parliament as right now half the parliament is appointed by the king, bring a parliamentary elected government, right now it is appointed by the king, and to bring guarantees for public freedom.

In about 2 hours of  its launch the petition got 142 people signed-up, the movement page on facebook said that the website has been under intrusion attempts from “suspicious parties” but the site is back to work now. This campaign coincide with the start of the Jordan parliament to discuss and approve these “patches”,” according to the movement.

A US diplomatic cable sent from US embassy in Amman and published on Wikileaks this week discussed Jordan’s IT sector status and plans after Yahoo acquisition of Jordanian portal Maktoob.

The cables dates in 10/15/2009 said that Yahoo maktoob acquisition has generated excitement in the country about Jordan’s future as a regional IT hub. The Embassy held meetings with both industry and government officials where government officials “envision Jordan’s role as the “India of the Middle East,” with Jordan providing technical support, customer service and back-end software development instead of front-line innovation, marketing or development.”

However some government officials and private sector contacts expressed to the Embassy officials doubts that Jordan can ever rival Dubai as the technology hub of the region.”

In a September 14 meeting, Samih Toukan, the CEO and a founder of Maktoob, told US Economy Office that Jordan’s advantages in the technology sector are comparative but not absolute. He cited that while Jordanian labor is cheaper in Dubai and higher education is better than Egypt, “till there are more qualified engineers and software developers in Egypt and the quality and variety of labor is better in Dubai because of Jordan’s relatively small domestic population with limited numbers of third-country technology experts.”

Toukan also refuted claims that Jordan has bilingual work force as exaggerated , as Maktoob found very few university graduated who are fluent enough in English to carry on their business tasks. Which in our experience we agree with him.

Toukan also had several suggestions to improve innovation in Jordan “till more qualified engineers and software developers in Egypt and the quality and variety of labor is better in Dubai because of Jordan’s relatively small domestic population with limited numbers of third-country technology experts.” Toukan touched in the problem of importing skilled foreign labor specially IT managers and suggested that the government should relax rules to import them as they would help the IT sector in Jordan become a leader in the region.

According to the Cables in October 5 2009 Jordan’s King Abdullah outlined an IT strategy that reflects some of Toukan,s suggestions “the King announced that the GOJ (government of Jordan) will provide administrative and financial assistance to IT startups and will work with universities and the public and private sectors to further develop IT-related industries in Jordan.”

The king did not offer details in how the plan will be implemented or paid for. “but called for a panel of IT experts to present a detailed action plan to him by the end of the year.”

“In a meeting two days after the King’s announcement, leaders of the Information Technology Association of Jordan (Intaj) privately expressed to Economy Office skepticism of the King’s plans, saying that limited funding and the limited influence of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MOICT) on the sector make it unlikely that the announced plan will move the sector forward.”

Jordanian government officials told the embassy that they plan o increase internet penetration in Jordan from the current level of 29% to 50% by 2011. The cables notes that the most significant action on this front involves a cooperative effort between the Royal Jordanian Air Force, the Public Security Directorate (the national police), and the MOICT to run fiber optic cables to elementary schools in remote parts of Jordan, connecting under-served communities outside of the big cities of Amman, Irbid and Zarqa.

The government is running eight tubes of fiber-optic cable lines to under-served rural areas, while the last mile of connectivity will be provided by private companies, including Orange and Wi-tribe.

The government of Jordan is also “pursuing a partnership with Microsoft to set up cloud computing systems in small towns and to provide residents with low-cost desktop units they could use to access the internet and e-mail. Quanadilo asserted that Microsoft is excited about using this project as a prototype to test cloud technology in the developing world and says that Microsoft executives are coming to Jordan in November to meet with King Abdullah about this and other technology projects in the country and region”

Nidal Quanadilo, Director of ICT Investment and Promotion at Ministry of ICT told US embassy officials that Jordan does not have an ambition to become the new Dubai (the major IT hub in the region). but rather the India of the Arabic speaking world . Providing customer service support and back-end software development to companies based elsewhere. According to Quanadilo is planning to expand the call center industry with three tax advantaged technology centers to attract call centers and similar businesses, he cited that call centers would employe hundred if not thousand of jordanian. with according to him Jordan textile industry employed mostly foreign workers.

The cable comments that even though there are still significant obstacles to be overcome to achieve Jordan as a regional hub, including implementing and funding the King’s IT initiatives, Jordan is taking concrete steps to lay a firm foundation for a well-connected future.

As what ArabCrunch knows about the King’s and the government initiatives, at the time of this cable there were talks about a government run venture capital fund. We did not hear anything that suggests that this fund is operational. What we know that the king envisioned 500 startups, which was implemented by Oasis500 offering bootcamp, training, mentprship and funding for early and seed stage startups. Oasis500 founders include Intaj and other private companies such IV Holdings which received funding from the US government.

In its part Intaj has been working recently with industry companies and the Ministry of ICT regarding the development of the next National ICT sector strategy for the years 2012-2016.

I have outlined in 18 Apr, 2009 several points that would help Vibrant Startup Based IT Sector Ecosystem in The Arab World
that could be used in Jordan and I plan to do follow up posts citing recent experience and observation of the industry in general.

# Full cable: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/10/09AMMAN2306.html

Two Jordanian startup who were incubated in Jordan based startup accelerator Oasis 500 have secured investment rounds.

Masmoo3 turns Arabic books into Arabic Audio formate available through several channels such as Apple’s App store, Google Android, Windows Mobile 7, web and others, while Dakwak reviewd by AC in July 2010 offers websites crowd sourced translation.

Masmoo3 received funding from angle investor investor Ihab Al Ramlawi, while Dakwak received investment from IV Holdings, according to government run Jordan Times the amount of the deals were not announced.

Lisa Kawar a Jordanian mom was looking for a certain product and had to visit so many stores and waste a lot of time, checking around where to find it. that’s when she thought “why dont we have a website, on which we can search for products in the different stores in town” and Menwayn was born.

Menwayn launched about a week ago in beta mood covering only Jordan for the time being, is a comparison shopping site for a wide range of products the are available on brick and mortar stores such electrical appliances, office equipment, furniture and products for the whole family including babies, kids and teens, meaning the site does not offer its own bought products or manages inventory and fulfillment.

The site offers consumers to list products according to the option the they chose such as brand, technology, dimensions, price range or seller name. Products can also be listed to all the sellers who have this product their location, full contact details, their listed prices, and even special offers when available. However what is lacking is a feature that can list a single product availability in all stores and the price list of each store for that product.

Menwayn offers offline stores a free admin panels to add and update their products list with information such as description, availability, price, contact details and special offers. Lisa has told us the site secured 25 stores in Jordan from big local brands such as ike hikmat yassin, hani darwish khalili, tahboub, zaki ghul, smart buy, and issa murad.

Lisa told us she plans to add more Arab countries soon and plans to enable users to buy products online. The site is available in Arabic and English and is incubated in Jordan’s accelerator Oasis 500.

Update: English version fo the sites is back, Arabic site Tawhed.ws is still not accessible in Jordan. Update 2: one commenter is claming he is in Jordan and the site is accesible, however he is only one claiming so, if you are in Jordan please let us know if tawhed.ws opens with you.

After testing in several IPs from Jordan we found that tawhed.net and tawhed.ws are not accessible in Jordan which means that the authorities in the kingdom have blocked the site. We do not know since when the site was censord.

Tawhed and Jihad is a site that publishes opinion, interviews, magazines, and Fatwat from Muslim scholars such Ibin Taimia in both English and Arabic. There is also fatwa “virtual book shelf” from Jordanian scholar Abu Mohammad Al Maqdsi, who is believed to be the mentor of formers Alqeada leader in Iraq Abu Musab Alzarqi. Mohammad Al Maqdsi was recently sentenced in Jordan to 5 years in prison in charges of recruiting members to join “terrorists” organizations, he said that the accusations are not true, and that he was charged because “we stood against the Americans who are killing our brothers in Afghanistan.”

The site contains also speeches by Osama Bin Ladin, however it says it published everything it sees:

“ from beneficial writings, but spreading a certain piece by a certain author, does not by any means indicate that the author agrees with everything we say, and it does not mean that we agree with him on everything he says in his other writings, and Allah is the One who guides to every good. “

Here is what the site says is “its call”:

“A call to migrate to Allah by clearing Tawheed (Monotheism), disavowal from shirk and association, and a migration towards the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and following him clearly.
A call to manifest Tawheed (Monotheism) and proclaim the most powerful knot of Eman (Faith), to uncover the way of the two friends (of Allah) Muhammad and Ibrahim peace be upon them, and to demonstrate the alliance to Tawheed (Monotheism) and its people and enmity towards shirk and its people.
….. more at the site.”

If you are in Jordan and want to visit the site, you can use bypass censorship by using Tor on for windows, Mac or linux  ( remmber Tor is 3 progarmes and works only with FireFox make sure to read insturcions) or Ultrasurf for windows. if the site is blocked in your country please let us know.

Amman, Jordan based Noqoush Mobile Media Group, the Arab company specialized in mobile advertising and mobile media monetization, reported that it has closed first 3 million US dollar investment round.

In a press release the company stated that a group of Arab and Foreign angel investors lead the round but did not disclose who ( we will try to get their names.)

The company said that the round will be used to help Noqoush with developing its mobile advertising technology “AdFalcon”, what it describes “the region’s first specialized advertising platform developed to link mobile applications developers, mobile website owners with advertisers to provide them with the a chance to achieve financial returns.” Something that sounds similar to US based Admob which was founded by Syrian entrepreneur Omar Hamoui and was acquired by Google in 2009 for 750 million dollars.
We have little information about Noqoush, it said in the press release that it was founded in 2010. A linkedin profile for Mahmoud Iswaid from Jordan stats that he is a cofounder in the company, he previously worked with Yahoo and Maktoob before its acquisition by Yahoo. We will try to get more information and update you here.

A new survey by the Arab Advisor Group reveals that 41.6% of mobile handsets in Jordan are Smart phones with Symbian leading with 62% share of smartphones operating systems. iOS and Blackberry share the second place while Android came in third. Smartphone users also prefer the English language for their applications.

The survey revealed that in Jordan 95.8% and 87.5% of iPhone and Blackberry users, respectively, reported using applications through their smartphones, while 57% of Symbian smartphone users use applications. 91.4% of those who use applications prefer the applications in the English language, where only 8.2% of the respondents prefer the Arabic language.

The Arab Advisors Group said it will conduct two other similar surveys in the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the coming 3-4 months.

MarkaVIP, a home grown private sales website, today announced its expansion across the region.

The flash sales model, already well established in the U.S. and Europe, works on the forces of time urgency and scarcity. MarkaVIP sources excess or introductory inventory from premium brands worldwide to be sold to its private members within a limited period of time. In return, the customer gets much lower prices than they would normally be offered and opportunities to purchase products they may not otherwise have.

The site was launched in Jordan and Saudi Arabia in November 2010. Eight months later, the company is reporting that its rapidly approaching half a million members and attracts between 2,000 and 4,000 new members daily.

Membership to MarkaVIP is by invitation only. Customers must be invited, referred or approved to join the site, presenting suppliers with an exclusive and discerning online audience. Once accepted, MarkaVIP members gain access to deep discounts of between 40 to 70 percent on men and women’s apparel, accessories, children’s items, electronics and home decor.

They also have the opportunity to access new-to-region brands that use the site to run introductory launch campaigns as a means of market testing.

Having recently raised USD3 million in funding from U.S, European and Arab investors, MarkaVIP is expanding to the rest of the GCC countries and Lebanon. It reported that it now enjoys seven-figure monthly revenues and is on track to become the fastest growing Middle East e-commerce brand. It already is one of the fastest growing Middle East brand on Facebook with close to 140,000 fans.

According to Founder and CEO Ahmed Alkhatib, the key to MarkaVIP’s success has been market localisation. Despite the nascent state of e-commerce in the Middle East, he says the untapped potential of the region far outweighs the current barriers to entry.

“There are around 385 million people living in the Middle East and North Africa and 135 million of them are online currently. Internet penetration is expected to grow very quickly over the next few years, so we see a significant opportunity to provide the market with a convenient and secure online shopping platform that also delivers great value,” he said.

Alkhatib, a Jordanian American with over 10 years’ experience in Silicon Valley, has worked on some the world’s most recognized e-commerce brands during their start-up years, including eBay and Amazon. He also built the infrastructure for the largest U.S. customised apparel and products website Zazzle.com.

MarkaVIP has circumvented the challenges of low credit card penetration and cross border order fulfilment by setting up logistics hubs in every market where it operates. In addition to overcoming current infrastructure limitations, this hyper-local model enables MarkaVIP to develop offline relationships with its members and suppliers – a move which is not only generating strong repeat business, but is also helping to drive online purchases.

“Our results to date show us there is a real appetite for an online shopping model that works for this region. For us that means localising the flash sales model and e-commerce lifecycle so that we don’t compromise our convenience promise to our members. From the sourcing of our products, to how we market them online, our customer-focused user experience, and having product fulfilment centres in each of our locations – it is all designed to give our members access to great brands at great prices with the best possible delivery times and with no hidden charges or custom duties,” added Alkhatib.
MarkaVIP also plans further regional expansion later in the year. It competes with Jabbar’s flash sales site Sukar, where Alkhatib was CTO.

Humans do make mistakes. and the media is not an excpetion, even NY Times was once misinformed about a story.

This might be the first time we post wrong information. We posted that Aranim which is founded by the son of Jordan’s current prime minster “Suleiman Bakhit” has launched the Arabic FarmVille Clone “the happy farm.”. But Aranim connected us via Twitter saying that they are not associated with the game. Suleiman informed via Twitter that the game that is associated with Aranim is “Happy Oasis.”

So we apologies to Aranim, Suliman and to our readers and we will make sure mistakes like this do not happen again.

On Happy farm users build farms grow crops harvest them to get more coins and share gifts with friends. Users can also use Facebook credit to buy more coins ( buying extra credit seems how they are going to make revenues.) While Happy Oasis uses an Arabic character to grow an Oasis and harvest its crops.

In general International startups are not encouraged to copy International ventures, however in some cases having an Arabic clone or a clone with a true local touch and feel works. Take GoNabit for example which ended being acquired by LivingSocial.

I think Happy Farm and Happy Oasis  might be hit in the Arab world.

Amman, Jordan based MenaITech, the regional company specialized in building and deploying human resources applications, underwent a full acquisition from Jordanian systems’ integrator Optimiza.
The company stated that the acquisition process included 100% of its shares. but did not state how much was payed. Optimiza is a the only Jordanian publicly listed tech company in Jordan’s Amman Stock Exchange.

In his comment, MenaITech CEO, Dr. Bashar Hawamdeh said:
“I believe that this process will assist in the company’s expansion strategy and its interest to penetrate new markets, while maintaining trust in its capabilities which, for many years, have managed to compete against international products and solutions. During the upcoming stage, we look forward to increasing our market share and opening new offices that will belong to MenaITech’s network of branches in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and USA.”

MenaITech strategy also includes signing deals with business partners to represent MenaITech in some Gulf and North African countries in which the company has not launched its services yet.
MenaITech’s products include the human resources information management system MenaHR®, the payroll & personnel solution MenaPay®, the employee & manager self service solution MenaME®, the employee 360 degree feedback evaluation software Mena360®, the comprehensive HR consolidation and analysis module MenaExplorer®, in addition to the revolutionary cell phone notification service MenaSMS®.

We wrote before and e-commerce in Jordan and compared a number of sites, the winner who got investors confidence is Wheels Express. a  shopping and delivery site that expanded from just delivering DVDs into a number of other items including laundry.

Today at a press conference in Amman, Jordan, Oasis500 announced that Wheels Express has revived investment from businessman Emad Malhas and Kawar Group. The amount of investment was not disclosed. The startups is part of Oasis500 accelerator program and has received its initial USD 15,000 investment. according to a press release from Oasis500.

Wheels Express has demoed with MarakaVIP which received 3 million USD investment at Oasis500 angel network demo day recently.

In a press conference today in Amman, Jordan ,Oasis500 a startup accelerator announced the first two investments resulting from its first Oasis500 Angel network event. Where tow Jordanian startups MarkaVIP and Wheels Express, have received funding “investment”.

MarkaVIP a flash shopping website targeting the Arab region and compete with Jabbar’s Sukar has raised JD 2 million (USD 3 million) from Kawar Group and Hummingbird Ventures. MarkaVIP offer its members in the Middle East access to exclusive international brands at up to an 85% discount.

Ahmed Alkhatib founder and CEO of MarkaVIP told ArabCrunch  that the company will use the funding to expand their offering to new markets in the Arab region, including north Africa and in hiring more people.

Oasis500 has recently hosted a regional Angel Network Event, where a number of Jordanian startups demoed in-front of 70 investors from Jordan, the region and Silicon Valley in the USA. MarkaVIP and Wheels express where among them. The King of Jordan Abdula Bin Al Husain who is supportive to the advancement of the tech sector in Jordan has attended the event.

I called Oasis500 today, and they have not told me or invited me to the press conference!

Mobile, Fixed and Internet operator in Jordan is launching Orange Apps Award 2011 aimed at mobile developers companies or individuals. With applications in Arabic ( english is a plus) for Android/ Blackberry/ Java /Symbian /Windows only are accepted.

Orange Jordan divided the winning prizes into 5 categories: Community Category, Entertainment Category, Business Category, Orange Employees Category, Students top prize on each one is 5,000 USD, then 3,000 USD then 2,000, overall prose: 10,000 USD.

Developers can start registration starting from 16 of May 2011 till 3rd of June 2011, then Orange will start filtering the ideas of the applications and will notify the participants of top 50 ideas by email & SMS to submit their applications. The deadline for submitting the applications will be on 30 of June, 2011. top winners will be awarded during the Award ceremony which will be after med of July.

More info at the Award website.

We wrote back on July 2010 about Dakwak a Jordanian startup that use crowed sourced community translation to help improve translating websites to almost any language.

Recently the startups launched on site widget that allows your sites visitors to edit and vote up or down the translation of your site with out leaving it.

Also Dakwak has recently launched file based translation where webmaster can upload their language files and have them translated to other languages of their choosing, then they can point the file location to their visitors if they wish to help in improving the translation. Among other feature the startup has launched is enabling webmasters to default the language translated on their site.

Dakwak is now incubated on Oasis 500 a Jordanian startup accelerator program.

mediaME.com, the news community for advertising and media professionals in the Middle East has launched a free Classifieds service .

mediaME Classifieds listings categories cover all aspects of the jobs and freelance markets, featuring Job Postings, Job Seekers, Freelancers and Professional Service Providers with sub-categories for every advertising and media specialization. Also, the listings aim to serve the needs of sellers with categories for Media Opportunities, Sponsorship Opportunities, Events & Activities and Business Equipment & Software.

In a press release Zeid Nasser, Founder & CEO of mediaME.com said that launching the classified section in mediaME signals a shift towards mediaME.com becoming a marketplace for buyers and sellers.

mediaME owner is Jordan based MediaScope has received in Feb, 2009 investment from IV Holdings

Istikana the free to use ad-based online classical premium Arabic video content platform ( reviewed by AC here) and The Arab Telemedia Group today announced a new content partnership that will bring many popular TV shows from Arab Telemedia’s library, including “Akher Ayam Al Toot”, “Sham Shareef”, and many more to Istikana.

Under the agreement, full episodes of Arab Telemdia’s extensive library of thousand’s of hours of drama series will be available on the Istikana service beginning April, 2011. The Arab Telemedia Group is the first Arab production house to have won an International Emmy Award (Al Ijtiyah – 2008).

With this agreement istikana solidify its position as the platform for premium classical Arabic video content.

Google has launched today Google Maps domains enabling local search within a country in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

The Interface of these local maps is available English and Arabic as well French in some countries. Google navigation comes enabled with new Google Maps domains. Google Navigation offer directions from one distention to another.

Also users can now in these countries create “My Maps” a customized version of the user’s maps. Say your favorite hangouts.

Google also launched Google Map Maker in Saudi Arabia and UAE, Google Map Makers allows users to use their local knowledge to practically edit the entire map – from roads, businesses, parks, schools and more

One of the oldest online news sites in Jordan Ammoon has accused Jordan Intelligence in hacking the site.

The sites’ editor in chief Bassel Elkour told Jordanian newspaper Assabel the hacking happened when the site posted a statement from some of Jordan’s tribal leaders criticizing certain parties inside the government and corruption in Jordan.

Okur added that the site received direct threats from certain Jordanian security parties one day before the hack and on the next day a message popped up on the site saying that “ because you did wrong to the images of the country your site has been hacked by Jordanian expats in Australia! ” Okus dismissed the message as a decoy.

Like Tunisia, Egypt and the rest of the Arab countries Jordan is a police state who’s intelligence interferes in all aspect of life: sports, tech community media etc and has strong ties with the CIA.

On the story that Assabeel posted about the incident one commenter wrote: “ anyone who accuse Jordan intelligence will die!”

The country has recently been witnessing demonstrations across many cities against economic conditions, inflation and in demand for policy change. The country’s main opposition party showcased last month evidence of fabrication to the last parliamentary elections’ results.

Jordanian opposition main demands are a new election law and a change to the constitution which allows the prime minister to be elected or emerge from a parliament majority block, rather than how it is done now: appointed by the king.