StartUpArabia

Mohamed Marwen Meddah | April 5, 2009 | View Comments

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My friend Hervé Cuviliez, Founder and Managing Director of Kuv Capital just wrote about a great and ambitious new project that they’re launching in Beirut, Lebanon: The creation of a Media City in Lebanon.

This stems out of their belief that Beirut has a window to become a Digital Middle East Hub, and that despite the weak broadband infrastructure, unreliable power grid and Lebanon’s inability to reform itself, it still is a country that offers a great opportunity to entrepreneurs with all the necessary ingredients to create a startup and have a low burn rate.

Creating a company is cheap and easy (limited liability company starts at 3500 USD) and so are office space and expenses. There’s a great pool of talent available, at lower costs than the GCC countries for example.

The idea is to find old warehouses or factories, rehabilitate them into offices with decent broadband and electricity, free spaces for students who want to work on innovative projects, showrooms for high tech companies …etc.

They’ve already started working on the project; they’ve spotted three places around Beirut, talked to investors, convinced six digital related companies and a media group to move in, and they’re still reaching out to more.

The hope is that by doing this, and grouping all these innovative companies and people in one place over time, they will be able to replicate to a certain extent the creation and growth of Silicon Valley.

If you want to be involved in any way or help in growing this project, you can contact Kuv Capital at: info@kuvcapital.com

Updated: Kuv Capital released more details on the project on their official blog.
They’re in the process of setting up a company  that will run this project, and will be creating a strategic committee to advise the company on what needs to be done in the Media City.
The timeframe is currently:

• April-May(-June if needed) will be dedicated to identify potential locations and initiate discussions with landlords.
• May: First community meeting to brainstorm on services that should be found in the media city.
• June: second community meeting, presentation and business model finalization.
• July-september: meetings with investors.
• October: Go / No Go decision.