Falafel Games, producer of the fully Arabic themed browser-based MMO game Knights of Glory, has been selected as a Finalist for Red Herring’s Top 100 Asia award, a prestigious list honoring the year’s most promising private technology ventures from the Asian business region.

The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of hundreds from across Asia. The nominees are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.

Falafel Games, with operations in China and the Middle East, was founded by Lebanese and Syrian Gaming and Internet veterans.

Updated.

in Arabic English and French. But the concentration is in Arabic. Especially the voice over:)Birdy Nam Nam is an iPhone/iPad game that was released by Lebanese developers Wryb Tech few months ago in beta mood as phase of collecting data and feedbacks.

Recently the game is officially launched the developers amended it, added more levels, weapons, character, they also amended the gameplay and revised the sound effects etc…

Here is the story of the game:

Early 2011, a group of Arab scientists in Dubai started experimenting a new drug on all kinds of birds; the drug was intended to turn birds into man’s best friend… They would clean the house, wash the dishes, do the laundry, cook healthy meals… Well simply make man’s life easier!

Everything was going well until something went terribly wrong, and the drug had a side effect which transformed those chicken into killing machines.

Without mercy, they fled the labs and started attacking Dubai, seeking for revenge. Their plan was simple : WORLD DOMINATION!

As the world was falling apart, people were crazily afraid and the fate of the human race was sealed: there was no escape from annihilation… Until a hero rose from the ashes, determined to fight back and save Humanity!

The player takes the role of the hero whose mission is to fight the birds invasion in a quest around the Middle East. The player will try to shote hostile birds, using many weapons and methods, even strategy for the advanced levels.

The game has 19 Levels including KSA, UAE, Beirut, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Qatar, etc.. We did not play the game because we do not have an iPhone but we liked it idea.

The game is available in iPhone and iPad iOS 3.2.2 or later on the iTunes app store. The game is in Arabic English and French. But the concentration is in Arabic. Especially the voice over:

And here is the game video from the developers:




It seems every hacker in the world is pointing his keyboard at sony, as hack number 13 has been targeted at Sony Europe by a lebanese hacker.

The hacker known as Idahc got anther users database at Sony Europe that contains around 120 users name, passwords, mobile phone numbers, work emails and websites addresses.

According to Naked Security the attacker claims that he used SQL injection to get the database.

This is clearly another embarrassment to Sony after millions of accounts in PSN got exposed by a hackers around last month.

achtART is an E-Commerce site for Arts and Crafts says it aims at helping regional and Lebanese artists and crafts-people showcase their artistic creations through an online platform and offer those creations for sale.

The site showcase artists products according to the category they belong to: paintings, home/ office accessories, design jewelry, wooden structures, not for profit, furnitures and fashion accessories.

Like any other e-commerce site achtART allows you to view items with their price add them to shopping cart and buy them at checkout. The website also features some of its artists.

The site has a nice concept but since it is about art, I think it should improve its design and UI.

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

The recently announced Egyptian Mossad Agent Tariq Abdel Razaq Hassan reveled that the Mossad revealed that he used several websites to announce phony telecom jobs targeting Syrian and Lebanese in order to recruit them to join the Mossad.

According to Egyptian newspaper Alyoum Alsabe , Tariq Abdel Razaq Hassan said he joined the Mossad via his request online, as after he saw an ad online to make money he clicked on it and it redirected him into the Mossad website where he sent him and email asking for a “job.”

If this news shows anything, it is that the Internet has become instrumental not in Mossad operations around the world but also in recruitment and propaganda. Another aspect is that Tariq is not highly educated, intelligence experts note that Mossad and the CIA focus in recruitment is not only on high assets such as politicians, businessmen, and the Media, the Mossad would recruit anyone educated, or not educated, connected or not connected.

Venture Capital firm Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), has announced three new investments in Lebanese-based companies: Pin-Pay SAL, iLevel SAL, and Multilane SAL. MEVP says the The funding will assist the companies in pursuing regional growth and extending their product offerings. The companies MEVP’s investmented are as follows:

• Pin-Pay SAL: Network-agnostic wireless payment operators, using platform where customers use a java based application to make and receive payment via their mobile phone directly into their bank accounts. Its goal is to transform the mobile handset into a payment tool. The app only works right now with lebaneas operator Alfa.

• iLevel SAL: Calls its self “The first shopper marketing agency in the Middle East”, helping sales outlet to optimize the shopping experience of their customers. Shopper marketing is the discipline of influencing the shopper at the point of decision through various marketing techniques.  iLevel provides turnkey in-store marketing solutions through research, consultancy and design.

• Multilane SAL: An innovative technology firm focused on designing and developing instruments for testing and characterizing optical communication equipment and optical infrastructure equipment.

It is another day and we are still alive and free the news today Group-buying startup GoNabit has launched its Lebanese version, now offering special deals the first one for women.

GoNabit works by offering offering time limited deals with dissents that can go to 60-70%, and its uses your social graph to leverage group buying, if enough people sign for the deal it gets sold, so the more people you invite from facebook the more probability you get the deal. meaning you are a viral marketer for the site.

With this launch GoNabit is one city ahead of Jabbar’s gout buying Cobone. GoNabit is majority owned by Bayt. Tiger Global Management is one of the major investor on Bayt and Jabbar.

You can read AC’s interview with GoNabit founder Dan Stuart

http://arabcrunch.com/2010/07/cobone-a-new-group-buying-startup-from-jabbar-to-compete-with-gonabit.html

In today’s Press conference Lebanaon’s “Hezbollah” Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah, displayed a video of an “Israeli drone” video transmission Hezbollah managed to hack in 1996. “Before 1997, the Resistance managed to capture the transmission of an MK drone and we managed to access this transmission which enabled us of capturing the images transmitted by the drone as the enemy’s operation room was receiving them.” Nasrallah said.  According to him a drone video feed Hezbollah hacked in 1997  has helped “Hezbollah fighters” to set up an ambush for “Israeli commandos” team who where in their way to conduct “military operations” in southern Lebanon.

In the press conference Hezbollah accused “Israel” of being behind  the murder of the former Lebanese Prime Minster Rafiq Al Hariri. He was assassinated in Lebanon in February, 14,  2005. In his speech Nasrallah said that a lebanese “Israeli spay”  has been “blackmailing” Hariri to think that Hezbollah was plotting to kill him.

Nasrallah also unveiled several intercepted videos from Israeli surveillance planes of the site of the 2005 murder of ex-Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri prior to his assassination. He said that these Israeli drones had carefully monitoring Al Harrari’s motorcade. “Such footage generally comes as the first leg of the execution of an operation.” he added..

In his speech, Nasrallah showed a profile of different Israeli spies and said they used high tech equipment such as mobile phones that can monitor other mobile conversations.

In December 2009, Wall Street Journal reported that “Military groups” in U.S occupied Iraq managed to hack U.S. Military and CIA Predator drones using software programs such as SkyGrabber — now available for as little as $29.95 British Pounds.

Nasrallah hinted that his party has other evidence and secrets to be reveled at “the appropriate time.”

Israel has developed many drone types including Heron TP (Eitan) which is  designed as a Multi-payload, Multi-mission platform  The Dorn has a powerful Turbo-Prop engine, which enables the aircraft to climb and operate at altitude above 40,000 ft avoiding any airspace conflict with commercial aircraft traffic. And can fly for 36 consecutive hours with full mission payload and reach the Arab Gulf.

#Via Almanar TV. Elbit Hermes 450 Image.

Octavia Nassar CNN’s Sr. Editor of Mideast Affairs Tweeted few days ago about the passing of Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah who is considered one of the most important Lebanon’s Shia Muslim leader. She Tweeted:

“Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah… One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”

She deleted her Tweet and later on, she went to CNN blog to explain her Tweet by saying:

“Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and a provides a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment on controversial or sensitive issues, especially those dealing with the Middle East.”

Here full blog post is here as we are not concerned with politics .

However that tweet has caused her 20 years long job with CNN as NY TIMES and mediaite reported . It also seems many of her fans over Twitter are angry as some of them setup a tweetbon in support of her. However some other tweets seems from Israeli sympathizers being supportive to CNN’s decision.

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.

Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) today announces the first close of US$10 million of a new fund, Middle East Venture Fund L.P. (MEVF).

Targeting over US$20 million, MEVP is a Middle East focused venture capital firm that invests in the early and growth stages, primarily but not exclusively, Lebanon and the greater Levant region.

MEVP will initially target the consumer technology and consumer products and services sector, it will also considers ventures in B2B services, logistics, food processing, and hospitality sectors. “We’re very pleased with the enthusiasm demonstrated by the investor community and their responsiveness to our investment strategy,” commented Walid Hanna, founder and Managing Director.

“My co-founders and I are firmly convinced of the remarkable high-growth potential of early-stage entrepreneurship in this region. The emergence of institutional investment funds to back talented entrepreneurs will further fuel local startup activity, attracting world-class talent and producing regionally, if not globally, competitive products and services.”

MEVP is founded by Walid Hanna, Rani Saad, and Tarek Sadi. Together, the co-founders have over forty years of experience in serial entrepreneurship, venture capital, global innovation acceleration, multinational corporate development, and strategic finance. They have invested and operated within and outside the MENA region and have been involved with leading startups, multinationals, and private investment funds.

ArabCrunch has recorded interview with the founders of MEVP during Arabnet where they announced some of their investments stay tuned in the coming day to view the video interview on AC.

Former regional marketing manager for Google in MENA  Nagi Salloum launched  today his new startup  Loomn.it (pronounced Loomnit, ArabCrunch.NET profile) a  new service that provides users with a simple way to share with anyone and across any platform, links, email address, images, video, documents (up to 3MB) and other digital content.

The idea is providing a short link to any shared item, say a long Tweet, just upload hit loomin.it and then you get a short link that you can customize and share on facebook, Twitter or anywhere in the web.

The nice part of the service that it takes away  the hassle of registration and using email, ”Loomn.it is ideal for those moments when users want to share stuff quickly with their friends without the hassle of using their email.” said Salloum. However the downside is that all content will be automatically deleted 14 days after link is created.

Some of Loomn.it services compete with Bit.ly and other URL shorteners and with Jordanian startup YouConvertit in the file sending feature.

Salloum is from Lebanon but currently living in Dubai,  he is also  CO-Founder  of other websites  such as Cineklik a movie and cinema guide for Lebanon, Ahlein.net a real estate finder for Lebanon, and Yoolki.com a latin to Arabic transliterator  that competes with Google Ta3reeb and Yamli.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Arab Business Plan Competition, which is the equivalent of MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competitions in Boston, has today announced  this year winners.

The Little Engineer from Lebanon won the first place and 50,000 USD, BioBusiness from Egypt is the first runner-up with a $15,000 prize , while Arabic Coach from Yemen and EG-Bioinformatics from Egypt are named as second runner-ups both received $5000 each in start-up funding. The announcement was made at annual celebration the competition in Cairo this weekend.
The competition went into stages, the the 4 winners where selected from 9 teams that where qualified for the third round of the Competition from the following sectors: Energy, Engineering, Healthcare, Internet, Software and Telecom.

Here is the bio of each winning team from MIT Arab Business Plan Competition  website and at the end of the post you will see the bio of all 9 teams:

1-The Little Engineer:
from Lebanon.

The Little Engineer is an after-school edutainment center which introduces kids and teens [age 4-16+] to pre-engineering courses such as robotics, physics, electricity, electronics, renewable energy and more. Students enrolling in one of the offerings will visit the center once per week, for 8 successive sessions closing with a competition. This center guarantees a friendly atmosphere where children can have fun while learning and building skills with the help of qualified staff. The course fee is $200.

Team:

Rana El Chemaitelly, General Manager
Albert Shamieh, Marketing Manager
Nadia Alamah, Branch Manager
Marwa Harb, Branch Manager

Stage: operational

2-BioBusiness:
from Egypt:

The solution being developed by BioBusiness for the continuous monitoring of blood glucose is a small product that will fit into a hand- held battery-operated ergonomic shape. The product is comprised of two pieces, the gBracelet is worn anywhere on the arm and is the main measurement sensor which transmits the glucose measurements wirelessly to the gMon hand-held device. The gMon is the main display device. It displays the continuous curve of blood glucose levels, keeps track of the glucose level trends, and produces alarms of current/ predicted glycemic highs or lows.

Team:
Islam Badreldin, R&D and Information Manager
Amr Elwakeel, HW Lead Engineer
Mostafa Elwakeel, General Manager
Stage: Conceptual

3-Arabic Coach

From Yemen.

Arabic Coach will enable students to browse teachers’ video based portfolios and schedule virtual teaching sessions with the desired teachers. The online teaching sessions are fully interactive and each teacher can determine his own hourly rate, and Arabic Coach gets 15% of the teachers’ profits. The teachers will be provided with a suggested curriculum, lesson plans, and assessment tools, but they will have the freedom to use their own methods. All teachers will go through a screening session before their profile goes live on our system. Also, we will have a sophisticated teacher rating system to reward high quality teaching methods.

Team:
Amad Almsaodi, CEO
Mohamed Almussaabi, COO
Saeed Alfagieh, CTO

Stage: Conceptual

3-EG-Bioinformatics
from Egypt

EG-Bioinformatics provides software products and services for genomics data management and analysis. Its products include novel software programs for comparative genomics with applications in healthcare, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals. Its services include cloud-based data management and analysis, development of customized solutions on behalf of global customers, and conducting data analysis on behalf of regional customers. The business model is based on ‘pay-per-use’ basis, subscription, or licensing.

Moustafa Ghanem, Chairman & CEO
Mohamed Abouelhoda, CSO
Sameh El-Ansary, CTO
Mohamed El-Kaliouby,
Development Manager

Stage: Prototype ready

And here is the profiles of the 11 teams:

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.

Update: The event’s video is below to read the text details go here.

We are here live in Beirut Lebanon for a major announcement from Nokia, here is the live streaming:
updates:
Nokia launched Music store, it comes with with free unlimited Music for 12 months.
Nokia to bring unlimited Music to 12 Arab countries, with 4 million songs, Nokia did deals with Sony, Rotana, Universal and other Music producers.

Nokia X6 will be first to come with Nokia Music Edition.

Speaker from Rotana: from every dollar we make we lose 1 dollar from piracy.
more to come…

This is the 3rd funding/grant story covered by AC, BeryTech , an incubator that is based in Lebanon is awarding 100,000 Dollars  for technology projects in 2009.

Winners of the projects will be selected by a committee of experts who will select projects based on certain qualities; technological and scientific quality, creative aspect, economic sustainability and growth potential, job creation potential,target market and export potential. In addition the selected committee will be evaluating the motivation and implication of the candidate(s) and the quality of the team.

The Award obtained will allow entrepreneurs to take their idea from the initial project to company phase, while benefiting from many of BeryTech services among which; business hosting including office space and furniture, computer equipment, internet connection,coaching through out the project development phase, participation in communication and marketing events, consultancy from experts appointed by Berytech and Access to funding.

To submit an application entrepreneurs needs to download this app and send the form by November 30, 2009. Winners will be announced in December2009 and by January 2010 the winner will be able to start their operations inside the incubation. ( BeryTech website says January 2009??)

The award website does not specify whether entrepreneurs need to be from Lebanon or not, but it seems to me they need to relocate to the incubation facilities. In addition,  Berytech website says  they  reserves the right to distribute the Award to one or several projects, and the amount will depend on the merits and requirements of the projects.

Twitter logo

Update: (Sorry guys there was miss understanding, It is a source/s inside and outside Zain who confirmed that Zain is in talks with Twitter for SMS notifications deal across their branches in the region. As for Zain PR they wrote on an email, that SMS connections are under discussion with different social networking services and No date is set yet. Again other sources also tipped ArabCrunch that Twitter is in talks with other operators in the Arab region for SMS deals (more about this soon.) You might probably know that Twitter is publicly interested to get it 2-way SMS up and running on Iraq. (read Time magazine story about Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, last April visit to Iraq under the sponsorship of the US government.) Iraqi Mobile Operators AsiaCell  on their part declined to provide information to ArabCrunch when I asked them questions regarding any deal with Twitter, saying: “can’t provide you with such information for it is confidential.” You can draw your own conclusion out of this answer. AsiaCell  is one of 3 mobile operators in Iraq: Zain Iraq and Korek.)

Twitter ended last year  its free out bound SMS in bound notifications  to users worldwide excluding 3 countries because it costs them around 1000 USD per user/year. But now it is using the global media buzz they are getting to snap cheap or free deals with Mobile operators around the world, including the Arab world, ArabCrunch learned.

Kuwait based Zain the 3rd largest mobile operator in the world with a commercial presence in 24 countries, has confirmed (Update: a source/s inside Zain has confirmed) to ArabCrunch that they Zain is in talks with Twitter for SMS notifications deal across their branches in the region. Other source/s have also told ArabCrunch that Twitter is in trying to strike 2 ways SMS deals with more operators in the region . (I am following up on this  and will update you on AC.)

Update: It was Zain PR who said on a previous  email that no launch date is set yet, and that things are still under discussion (Update: with different social networking.) Zain refused to comment on the details of the discussions, however I expect the Twitter 2 way SMS deal if agreed on will include short local codes and will not cost Twitter a penny.

WatWet new Logo

On the other hand, WatWet the regional Microblogging and messaging startup that has more members than Twitter in the region, has very recently added new local numbers for receiving SMS notifications with more 7 regional operators  after Zain Jordan: Jawwal in Palestine, MTC Touch Lebanon, STC and Zain KSA in Saudi Arabia, Etisalat in Egypt, Etisalat and Du in United Arab Emirates. WatWet also now broke from Friending into the following methods with private profiles and “@” messages.

In the Arab world Zain operates in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq , Saudi Arabia and Sudan as Zain, and in Lebanon as mtc touch (under a management contract). And now in Palestine via Zain Jordan’s recent merger with Paltel. Paltel is the only Palestinian fixed and mobile (‘Jawwal’) operator ( Paltel has a base of 1.5 million active mobile customers and over 363,000 fixed line customers, as well as approx 78,000 ADSL customers as of March 31, 2009. Zain Jordan, has over 2.35 million active mobile customers. The merger is expected to generate over US$1 billion of revenues this year.)

Zain operates in 24 Arab and African countries with a workforce of over 15,000 providing a comprehensive range of mobile voice and data services to over 69.5 million. It operates in the following countries: Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In Lebanon, the company manages the network on behalf of the government operating as mtc-touch. In Morocco, Zain in a joint venture owns 31% of Wana Telecom.
Zaina achieved in its the half-year ending 30 June 2009: Consolidated Revenues of US$4.014 billion a 37% increase , and a Net Income US$533.5 million a 4.4% increase.

#You can follow ArabCrunch on Twitter: @ArabCrunch on WatWet: @ArabCrunch

MENA 100 Business Plan Competition, is organized by the MENA-OECD Enterprise Financing Network, in cooperation with the Islamic Development Bank and the MENA Center for Investment. and in partnership of MENA 100 regional Partners including QRCE.

The MENA 100 Competition addresses innovative entrepreneurs, from the 18 Arab countries participating in the MENA OECD Investment Program (Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen)

The primary objective of the MENA 100 business plan competition is to encourage existing and inspire potential entrepreneurs and connect the 100 best of them in the Middle East and North Africa region with potential sources of finance to generate business transactions.

The MENA 100 Business Plan Competition will recognize top performers with cash and in-kind services awards. In-kind services represent professional services donated by sponsors of the competition as well MENA business angels (BA) – venture capital funds (VC) for all participants

The 100 finalists will have the opportunity to present their projects at an event in Manama the capital of Bahrain.

There will be one winner per country and a selection of regional winners:

-The best three regional projects.

-Winners will be invited to participate in the MENA-OECD Business Day

-Networking opportunities in the region and worldwide.

-Possibility to share your ideas, develop them and enter new markets.

The MENA 100 is a competition for nationals from the 18 participating Arab countries in the MENA-OECD Investment Programme . At least one member of the applying team must be a national of one of these countries. Candidates from other nationalities are not eligible to participate .The competition is for new, independent ventures in seed (at the business plan first stage), start-up, or early growth stage. For more info about eligibility criteria go here.

Applications will be accepted until 31st August and MENA 100 event will be held in November 2009, for more information and to access the on-line application form which is available in French and English you can visit the competition website: www.mena100.org.

(Via Mohammed Khawaja)

In August 2008, Juniper Research forecasted that Service Provider revenues, derived from mobile money transfer services and remittances, will exceed $5bn globally by 2013. While the research firm Informa, predicts that by the same year, more than 424 million mobile users will be sending money to other mobile users in the same country via their mobile phone, and 73 million will be sending money internationally via their mobile phones. Africa and Middle East are predicted to be one of the top regions of the global international mobile money transfer gross transaction value.

Traditional money transfer and credit card companies are trying to be part of the mobile payment loop in order not to lose their business, while mobile operators and software vendors across the world are deploying different schemes to capitalize into this opportunity. Putting ideas into action, Kuwait based Zain, which is considered the fourth largest mobile network in the world in terms of geographic presence, with a footprint in 22 countries spread across the Middle East and Africa with over 60 million active customers, and Western Union, a global leader in money transfer, recently announced that they will work together to deliver mobile money transfer services in countries in Africa and the Middle East through Zain’s new Zap platform.

The Zap service provides Zain customers access to a wide range of transactional services from their mobile phones. Customers can interact with select bank accounts, top-up or transfer airtime, and move money to businesses, friends and family. The service allows customers to pay bills such as electricity, and can even be used to settle grocery bills in the supermarket. Zap has been operational in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda for several months, making mobile banking services available to more than 100 million people in East Africa. Zain has also announced plans to introduce Zap in 22 markets. (ArabCrunch will do a follow-up story about when Zain will launch Zap in Middle East, by next week, inshallah.)

As Zain’s Zap is only available for Zain Mobile subscribers, this agreement with Western Union will enable Zain’s Zap to reach far beyond its members; Because Western Union has a global agent network of more than 334,000 locations in 200 countries and territories.

When the service is launched, consumers will be able to send cash money transfers from participating Western Union locations around the globe in the same way they do today. Zap customers who are enrolled in the service in select countries will be able to choose whether they want to receive their money in cash at a Western Union Agent location or in accounts tied to their mobile phones (their “mobile wallets.”)

Money-transfer receivers who receive funds in their mobile wallets will be able to pay bills, buy airtime or cash out through the Zap service at more than 12,000 Zap agent locations in East Africa.

The service will be introduced in select countries when regulatory approval has been secured. The service with Zain will be operational in countries with significant international and intra-Africa remittance activity.

Dr Saad Al Barrak, Zain Group CEO, said in a press release,

“This service will enable the millions of people who are abroad to send money home swiftly to their friends and families not only in the cities but also directly to the villages across these countries.”

Western Union has established cross-border Mobile Money Transfer pilots in a variety of corridors around the globe. The Western Union service currently allows mobile subscribers in the Philippines to receive funds sent from select Western Union Agent locations directly into their mobile wallets. In the future, Western Union will also offer consumers the option to send funds directly from their mobile phones for pickup at Western Union Agent locations globally or directly to another mobile subscriber. Western Union is extending its global distribution network through alliances with mobile network operators.

Zain brand is wholly owned by Mobile Telecommunications Company KSC, which is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (Stock ticker: ZAIN). Zain is listed in the Financial Times’ Global 500 Index which ranks the world’s largest companies based on market capitalization.

In 2008 , Zain Group recorded all time high consolidated revenues of US$ 7.44 billion, an increase of 26% compared to 2007 and net profits of US$ 1.2 billion, an increase of 6% on 2007. Year on year customer growth across the two continents in which Zain operates was 50% with the Zain Group serving 63.54 million managed active customers at 31 December, 2008.

Zain operates in the following countries: Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Palestine (currently operating as Paltel Group), Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In Lebanon, the company manages ‘mtc-touch’ on behalf of the government. In Morocco, Zain owns 31% of Wana Telecom through a joint venture.

Seven service providers in six countries in the Arab World offer commercial IPTV services in May 2009, up from four service providers in three countries offering IPTV in August 2007. As broadband adoption increases in the region, several operators in the Arab World have plans to implement IPTV in the near future, according to a new report published by the Arab Advisors Group.

IPTV is in its initial stage of penetration in the Arab World, and is still developing. Seven service providers in six countries in the MENA region offer commercial IPTV services. These are: Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar and UAE. Reportedly, there are ongoing or planned projects by service providers and/or governments in seven other countries, which will, in the future, enable offering local IPTV services. These are: Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Tunisia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.  

Senior industry executives debated the IPTV issue at the Arab Advisors 6th annual media and telecoms convergence conference held in Amman on June 1 and 2, 2009. They pointed to the massive supply of FTA channels and the widespread piracy of DVDs and Pay TV as obstacles facing IPTV providers. They also noted that ongoing FTTH projects in some countries should enhance the fortunes of future IPTV uptake as media broadcasters leverage its interactivity. 

The new report, “An Overview of IPTV in the Arab World” was released to the Arab Advisors Group’s Media Strategic Research Service subscribers on May 13, 2009. The report provides an overview of IPTV in the Arab World. The report includes details of IPTV services that the above mentioned operators offer; furthermore, the report includes fiber optics projects of the other operators in the region that are preparing to launch the service in the future. 

“Internet Protocol TV also called TV over IP (IPTV); delivers scheduled TV programs and video-on-demand (VoD) via the IP protocol and digital streaming techniques used to watch video on the Internet.,” Faten Bader, Arab Advisors Senior Research Analyst wrote in the report. She aded “The IP-based platform offers significant advantages such as: Video on Demand (VoD), the advantage of triple play, the automatic archiving of the Video broadcast in Real Media format, making the TV viewing experience more interactive and personalized, the opportunity for integration and convergence, and it allows the operator to report statistics of programs/channels/adverts watched.” which also represents a significant privacy risk for the average user.  

#Photo by YLE Uudet.

Remember Aljazeera crowd-sourced mapping mashup “Mapping the War on Gaza” we reported last January 2009 ? the story ? that got ArabCrunch on Slashdot?

Well, the crowed sourcing news concept is hitting the region again, but this time it is about the Lebanese June 7th parliamentary election with sharek961.org.

Like Aljazeera’s “Mapping the War on Gaza” with Sharek961.org people across Lebanon can send in reports related to the election through SMS, Tiwtter, email, and the web and Sharek961 will anonymously publish these citizen reports alongside news reports, blog posts, photos, videos and tweets in one place, on an interactive map.

Sharek961 displays incidents on a map that are Mashedup with Google Map, you can click the dots on the map to view the reports. Incidents can be filtered into: reports, news, pictures and videos. While categories can be filtered into election related events such as: illegal campaigning, interruption of voting procedures.

In Sharek961 users can report incidents at any city or location in Lebanon, and anyone can subscribe to email alerts.

To Report an incident to “Sharek961 ” via Text Message (SMS) in Lebanon, you can send a text message to: 7118 9118, from outside Lebanon (+961) 7118 9118 , via Twitter,  email to report@sharek961.org  or via web here.

According to a press release sent by someone from Sharek961 “Sharek961 does not attempt to verify reports and makes no claims as to their accuracy, as a neutral platform it publishes all material reports without editorial or censorship.”

Sharek961 is based on an open-source project called Ushahidi. Early Ushahidi deployments include Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the 2007 war on Gaza , as well as Vote Report India.

The people behind Sharek961 describe themselves as volunteers including: Abdallah Chamas, David Munir Nabti, Katherine Maher, Mustapha Hamoui, and Sacha Tueni. Plus orginazations such as eMoksha and Sawt Ashabab.

Update: post has been edited.

During the 6th Media and Telecoms Convergence Conference in Amman, Jordan, we managed to stream a live video interview with Johan Lallerstedt Vice President-Marketing & communications Ericsson and Jeremy Foster Marketing Director, Marketing and strategy Middle East. The cool news is that Alfa  which is one of the two mobile operators in Lebanon, will launch a 3G network at 21 Mbps speed in Q4 2009 ( last 3 month of this year) thus solving the Internet bandwidth problem that Lebanese currently experience.

 Since there are 3G cards that can connect your PC/laptop to the  internet via 3G, users in Lebanon will be able to experience high  speed internet that was not possible before. The 3G network will be  using Ericsson’s  Evolved HSPA technology and will also bring  Video calls and broadband wireless data. We do not have information how much the  service will be priced to end users, but we hope the pricing will be at a level that can  be affordable to the average Lebanese to enjoy high speed Internet 24/7.

 Alfa currently uses EDGE technology at the speed of 100 KBs, so this upcoming  rollout will deliver a 100x increase in speed, Jeremy also told me that after the 3G  launch Ericsson will work to increase the speed to 42 Mbps. 

Here is the video interview I originally live streamed on ArabCrunch Qik Channel using my Mobile, in the interview Jeremy and Johan also talked about what Ericsson is doing to spread innovation in the region:

During the 1st day of the event Princess Sumaya bent El Hassan opened the conference with a speech where she called in Arabs to reengineer their economies by focusing more into productive industries and Entrepreneurship, which could be done via partnerships between the governments, NGOs and the private sector. She also cited El Hassan Scientific City( EHSC) as a model project for human development which seeks to help transfer Jordan into a knowledge based economy, “EHSC is seeking to contribute to the renaissance and progress of the Kingdom as a leading and sustainable academic and economic model in the region. A model which invests in technological developments and human dignity.” Princess Said.

In his part Eng. Bassem Rousan (Jordan’s Minister of ICT) said that Jordan is ranked 10 as worldwide out sourcing destination.

The conference brought together top regional and global media and telecom industry executives who discussed many topics but with more focus in Telecom issues.

I managed to stream a bet of a session titled” Navigating the Storm: the Impact of the Economic Crisis and Strategic Responses.” delivered by Jawad Shaikh, Vice President Capgemini Consulting.  He said that the global crisis combined with a decline in oil prices is severely impacting the GCC economies, and the Consumer and business confidence has fallen significantly across the region, but he noted that not all countries in the region are being impacted equally: Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia experienced lower impacts. Jawad offered tower sharing which is implemented in India, as an approach to lower the costs for mobile operators, which I doubt they will do in the Arab world.

Here is a video of some parts of Jawad’s speech and below is the full presentation:

Video:



Presentation slides:

Navigating the Storm: The Impact of the Economic Crisis and Strategic Responses, by Jawad Shaikh, Vice President Capgemini Consulting

You know facebook? Right? Well there are other types of social networks that have been popping up every now and then: These are vertical social networks, or social networks that specialize in a certain vertical or category. From Lebanon, HerSphere is the latest comer to the arena and it is for women.

HerSphere is owned by Women in IT (WIT) a Lebanese NGO founded in July 2005 with a mission to make women’s life better through ICT according to Salam Yamout, the founder and president of WIT and Secretary of the MIT Enterprise Forum for Entrepreneurship. (NGO: if you do not know is Non Government Organization, which means it is not for profit.)

According to Salam with HerSphere, WIT is trying to create a space where a woman can find hope, answers, challenges, and help in matters facing her in her daily life.

She explaind to ArabCrunch:

“Women are diverse creatures, whoever, we all face common challenges such as raising a family while working outside the home, adjusting to the workplace, finding the place of technology in our daily lives (we would have preferred to live without having to deal with it), hormones, motherhood, cooking, hair, nail polish, etc..  Sometimes, just the fact of reading similar problems or fears coming from a woman half way across the globe, makes us feel better already that we are not alone.  HerSphere will eventually become, I hope, a support and empowerment network”.

The platform is equipped with the typical social networking features: Profiles and message  which allows women to network and stay in touch with each other.  And the Activity log, keeps friends up-to-date with their peers activities across the network.

ThepPlatform comes with blogs and groups, where any user can start her blog and start blogging her thoughts, which in turn gets aggregated to the HerSphere homepage. And those who are familiar with wordpress, would not have any problem using the blogging platform, since it is built on wordpress MU, which provides the same wordpress features but for group blogging.

HereSphere also comes with groups, which are another interesting aspect of social networking, because they will allow women to discuss and share ideas in different topics. Any members can setup a group, that comes with similar features to facebook groups:  Privacy level can be public, private or hidden. And each group has Description, News, Members, Group Wire (like FB wall).

The platform is built using a self hosted WordPress MU and BuddyPress, however it needs some extra customization, such as: About Us page and User’s profile details, so people will know what they are coming across in here. Nevertheless I was told the developer is working in tweaking the platform further more and more tweaks and features are coming soon.

HerSphere is targeting all women across the world, as Salam told ArabCrunch. And as the platform is currently in English, Salam encourages women to blog in the language of their choice.

Building a community around a social network is a daunting task with the influx of social networks all over the web. So I suggest to MIT WIT to assign fulltime and part time community managers from different countries. Where they will be actively blogging in frequent bases, posting groups discussion entries, in order to create a lively content, which in turn will entice other woman to join in and generate more content.

Just a couple of days ago woopra, the real-time website tracking and Analytics application, released the final latest release candidate for 1.3  of its desktop tracking application before the forced mass upgrade from the 1.2 release. ArabCrunch has reviewed Woopra before here.

If you do not know the term release candidate (RC), it refers according to Wikipedia, to a version with potential to be a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs emerge. RC is generally used for testing purposes by private beta testers and is not ready for general release.

According to a blog post by Elie Khoury the founder of Woopra, the new 1.3 RC2  is much more stable than 1.3 RC1 and has a number of new features such as: a new theme editor which adds the ability to create your own themes, new Woopra Light Theme, and A new Quick Stats feature resides at the top. RC2 also comes with a number of User Interface enhancements and optimized code that decreased CPU consumption. Many bugs fixes have been also part of this release.

Next month Woopra will launch the final 1.3 version, which will come with a number of major changes. Such as: server side notifications,  which will give you the be the ability to get notified while you’re not connected by other means like SMS and email as Elie Khoury  has told me.