Archive for the ‘News’ Category
MBC Group & CDC Games Partner On Arabic Online Gaming Portal
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 29, 2008 – 12:25 pm |
3 Comments
MBC Group recently partnered with CDC Games, a global market leader in online gaming and distribution based in China, to develop and launch an Arabic online gaming web portal which will include a portfolio of massive multi-player online games (MMPOG/MMPORG), in both English and Arabic.
MBC Group aims to reproduce the success of the online multi-player game genre in the Arab world, through launching games that are customized for the region’s audience and that appeal to the numbers of Arab gamers that have been pretty limited in their choices up to now.
Online gaming has become a huge global industry with an estimated value expected to reach $13 - $15 billion by 2012. This progressive trend is clearly what incited MBC Group to develop this venture for the Arab market.
This is yet another online project by MBC Group, that is part of their strong online strategy push recently, which has produced projects such as MBC iMatter, a social networking site for Arab women, and MBC2 Movies In Motion, a video sharing and social networking service; and which Sam Barnett, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of MBC Group, describes as their “overall strategy of leading the region towards digital and media convergence.”
# More: Zawya
ICANN Approves Big Changes To Internet Addressing System
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 28, 2008 – 12:26 pm | 2 Comments
A couple of days ago, the Board of ICANN approved a recommendation that could see a whole range of new names introduced to the Internet’s addressing system.
Presently, users have a limited range of 21 top level domains to choose from — names that we’ve all come to know well like .com, .org, .info; in addition to the country-specific TLDs (.uk, .tn, .ae, …etc).
The approved proposal allows applicants for new names to self-select their domain name so that choices are most appropriate for their customers or potentially the most marketable. It is expected that applicants will apply for targeted community strings such as (the existing) .travel for the travel industry and .cat for the Catalan community (as well as generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere). There are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based top level domains, like .nyc (for New York City), .berlin and .paris.
The expanding system is also being planned to support extensions in the languages of the world, enabling web addresses to be typed in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts. The present system only supports 37 Roman characters.
Upon approval of the implementation plan, it is planned that applications for new names will be available in the second quarter of 2009.
# Source: ICANN
Middle East & Africa Online Ad Spending Will Grow 29.8% By 2011
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 26, 2008 – 6:34 pm | No Comments
IDC: Global Online Ad Spending to Hit $106B in 2011
Marketers worldwide will increase their spending in online ads at a 15 percent to 20 percent clip in the coming years, a growth rate that is “phenomenal,” IDC said Wednesday.
This year, global spending in online ads will reach US$65.2 billion, or about 10 percent of the total advertising market.
In 2011, online ad spending will hit $106.6 billion, accounting for almost 14 percent of the total advertising market, according to IDC.
[…]
The U.S. will lead the global market in online ad spending with $45 billion in 2011. But the fastest growing regions will be Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa, with average annual growth rates of 42.1% and 29.8%, respectively.
[…]
Today’s leading categories of online ads, adult content and gambling, information, electronics, and computing, will still be the top ones in 2011, IDC said.
# Source: ComputerWorld
Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation & PICTI Sign MoU
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 24, 2008 – 5:26 pm | 3 Comments
Dubai’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and the Palestine Information and Communications Technology Incubator (PICTI) have signed a memorandum of understanding to work together on projects and opportunities for economic development.
Under the MoU, the two organizations will be co-operating on initiatives aiming to encourage young entrepreneurs in the region and across the Arab world and identifying promising technology projects for incubation.
PICTI will also support the Foundation’s aims of establishing an Arab Incubators’ Network, which will provide an online resource and collaboration for new businesses and other interested organizations; as well as establishing integrated resources for promoting entrepreneurial activity across the Arab world.
The Palestine Information and Communications Technology Incubator (PICTI), is an independent Palestinian organization that has been created through the initiative and support of the Palestinian Information Technology Community. PICTI and its partner organizations have as their mission the revitalization and the sustainable growth of the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector in Palestine, through an incubation model that will offer professional business services to Palestinian entrepreneurs who have mature concepts for unique and innovative ICT products assessed to have strong market potential.
# More: ITP
Microsoft & ABAN Partnership To Promote Entrepreneurship In MENA Region
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 22, 2008 – 10:17 pm | 2 Comments
Microsoft signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today with Arab Business Angels Network (ABAN) covering the Middle East and North Africa region.
The partnership aims to increase the success rate of new entrepreneurial ventures in the region, by encouraging innovative business ideas and providing seed funding. Under the agreement, ABAN will work with Microsoft to identify and foster innovative technology ventures in the region.
During the launch event, ABAN and Microsoft gathered four budding entrepreneurs who presented their business ideas to over 70 potential investors. These business projects were:
- Dia Diwan, an online portal that offers the latest news on lifestyle and entertainment in the region, including an ecommerce shopping facility for fashion items.
- WeNear, a mobile platform for location-based services and applications.
- Cash Trash, an innovation aimed at recycling to reduce pollution problems.
- PolluMap, an automatic pollution mapping system to track city pollution levels.
This initiative like others before it aims to address the problem early stage startups and businesses face in the Arab world when it comes to financing.
Arab Business Angels Network (ABAN) was launched by the Young Arab Leaders and Dubai Holding, with Dubai International Capital as its founder and lead institutional investor, back in 2005. It invests through its Angels’ network and manages two funds: a US$ 10 Million seed capital fund and US$ 5 Million fund for women-led ventures.
ABAN recently announced its first three investments in the Middle East, and has been leveraging its global partnerships and high-profile connections to optimize its investments and reach out to more promising entrepreneurs.
From Microsoft’s side, this partnership follows their Unlimited Potential and Local Software Economies initiatives that aim to create social and economic opportunity through programs and products that transform education, foster local innovation and enable jobs and opportunities worldwide.
# Press release: Zawya
Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation Launches ‘Sawaed’ Challenge Fund Programme
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 21, 2008 – 10:21 am | 2 Comments
The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation announced recently the launch of ‘Sawaed’, a new programme that aims to challenge the private sector to develop innovative business concepts to drive the development of the Arab world.
Operating as a ‘challenge fund’, ‘Sawaed’ will encourage businesses to compete for funding in response to a specific regional development goal. Each year, the programme will promote a regional challenge and invite businesses to submit competitive project concepts dedicated to addressing the challenge.
A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and the Young Arab Leaders (YAL).
According to the signed MoU, YAL, an independent, not-for-profit organization with a strong membership base across the Arab region, will leverage the experience of 30 active members who will serve as mentors and support eligible businesses across the region throughout the process of applying to the fund.
As the first initiative under the Foundation’s Entrepreneurship and Employment sector, ‘Sawaed’ seeks to promote business excellence, empower young Arabs to innovate, while facilitating job creation in the region. The program will award non-refundable grants of between AED100,000 to AED1 million (US$27,000 to US$270,000) to projects implemented by private sector entities that aim to increase the amount of high quality Arabic online content, develop and improve access to education, knowledge, and information on ICT platforms to promote Arab capabilities.
Application for Sawaed programme will open on the website starting September 1st, 2008. Interested applicants can download and fill electronic forms of “Concept Note Proposals” and submit them online before October 12th, 2008. Winners will be announced towards the end of March 2009.
Launched with an endowment of AED37 billion (US$10 billion), the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation aims to develop future leaders and create a knowledge-based society in the Arab world through the key components of knowledge creation, culture, as well as entrepreneurship and employment generation.
# Sawaed
Young Arab Leaders Launches Entrepreneurship Initiative
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 14, 2008 – 4:32 pm | No Comments
Young Arab Leaders (YAL), the region’s foremost development platform for business, public sector and civil society leaders, recently announced the launch of the ‘Entrepreneurship Initiative’ for 2008-2009.
The Initiative is sponsored by The Dow Chemical Company through its charitable arm, The Dow Chemical Company Foundation, as part of its support for the ‘Arab and American Dialogue Programme’ for 2008 and 2009.
The ‘Entrepreneurship Initiative’ aims to nurture innovation among young, small and medium entrepreneurs in the region and provide them opportunities for training mentoring and networking. Through the programme, they will learn from the experiences of other start-up and early-stage companies in the region and receive mentorship from YAL members.
It will serve as a primary platform whereby small and medium entrepreneurs will be identified, their business plans assessed for capacity building training through a process of mentoring and adopting by more established companies in the region.
Applications for the programme will be invited through an Online Portal, Chapter Announcements and Member and Task Force Nominations. These will be assessed via a selection committee chaired by YAL that will include representatives from ABAN, DIFC Centre of Excellence and Larta, in addition to other members nominated to the Committee by the YAL Regional Office. Selected applicants will then go through the capacity building or the training component of the programme.
New Monthly Arabic Entrepreneur Magazine In MENA Region
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 4, 2008 – 10:24 am | No Comments
The first issue of the Arabic edition of the well known monthly magazine Entrepreneur is going to be published the beginning of June for the MENA region.
The original English language Entrepreneur magazine celebrated its 31st anniversary in May 2008.
The magazine’s focus on the entrepreneurial market has made it one of the leading resources for starting and growing businesses.
The new Arabic edition is published under license from Entrepreneur Media Inc. by Sawahel Al-Jazeera ltd. a publishing and advertising agency based in Riyadh, KSA, and will be distributed in all Arabic language countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
Johara Aletaishan, Chairperson of the new magazine, said:
“The aim of our new magazine is to promote the entrepreneurship culture among youth in the MENA region.
We want it to be an interactive magazine which links not only the editors to the readers but also reader to reader in the region to promote business activities.
The New Magazine “Entrepreneur –MENA” will cover all the topics which may be of interest to the entrepreneurs.”
Neil Perlman, President of Entrepreneur Media Inc. – said :
“Entrepreneurial leaders drive economic success for themselves and their respective communities, and we’re pleased the first issue of Entrepreneur – MENA will carry this message to the region’s Arabic language countries. It’s invaluable for us to have the magazine’s message translated by Sawahel Al-Jazeera Ltd. to support young leaders in their entrepreneurial pursuits.”
From the titles shown on the cover of the first edition, it looks like it will be bringing some really useful content to entrepreneurs in the Arab region; with some local content, and some translated material; one thing I hope they’ve taken into consideration though is to not just translate some of the business articles as is, but to take the Arab business environment and context into consideration, and try to adapt these articles to the region.
Cisco, World Bank Support Silatech To Help Arab Entrepreneurs
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 3, 2008 – 1:19 pm | 1 Comment
Silatech is an initiative that was launched by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned of Qatar, to develop employment and business opportunities for young people in the Arab region.
Global networking heavy-weight Cisco, which is one of the founding members of Silatech and its global strategic technology provider, has just announced that it is extending its support for the social and economic development initiative, through working to deliver a technology platform for young entrepreneurs and businesses, primarily in the Arab world, to help them to drive programs for economic growth.
They will be developing a collaboration platform including services such as video conferencing and blogging, that will help individuals, businesses and other concerned organizations to collaborate on projects. They also aim to deploy a mix of traditional and social networking tools to connect today’s youth with other entrepreneurs and established businesses across the region.
The two companies also plan to co-operate on the establishment of entrepreneur centers for young people in the region, which will offer training courses on building and growing business and using IT to enable business success.
On the other hand, the World Bank Global Partnership for Youth Investment announced that they would support Silatech through two of its strategic pillars - Thought Leadership and Investment.
They will be offering financial products and business development service support to encourage financial intermediaries to invest in the youth micro enterprise market across the region; in other words, the aim is to establish a scheme, which would see young people with new business ideas helped when seeking loans from commercial banks.
The Global Partnership will also assist Silatech to reach across the World Bank Group to support youth investment across the Arab World and participate in country-level missions and strategy development that could lead to co-financed and scaled projects and knowledge products based on global best practices.
New Deal To Launch Free Arabic Encyclopedia Online
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 3, 2008 – 8:45 am | 3 Comments
Emirates Internet Group has signed a cooperation agreement with Abu Ghazaleh Group to establish a free Arabic encyclopedia on the Internet.
The encyclopedia will cover a lot of applied science, and the human, economic and technology aspects will be addressed to the Arabic user, to enrich the electronic content of the Arabic language and to build a scientific referenced academic site with high quality.
A specialized committee of academics and scientists will insure the control of articles, and monitor and evaluate them from the perspective of academic and research centers. The enrichment of the encyclopedia will depend on the participation of knowledge specialists in specific fields, as the participants can correct and discuss and also to add more information in the encyclopedia, without violating the rights of the author or any other rights .
Two thoughts cross my mind in response to this piece of news: one is a very positive one; it’s great to see these Arab groups investing in knowledge and working to create more Arab content online.
On the other hand, I’m not too sure about the approach; instead of launching a whole new encyclopedia from scratch, with all the difficulties and costs that will entail, why not support the little groups of people from all over the Arab world who are passionately working on growing the Arabic version of Wikipedia?
I mean the platform already exists, it’s open, it’s easy to use, and it already has a head start, the teams are there already inputting information, and many people already trust it and use it, so why not just use that?
Is it so that it can be labeled as an Arab project? But isn’t the goal what’s most important? To share knowledge and get more Arab content out there?
I personally think this project would have more chances of success if it were to go with enriching the Arabic version of Wikipedia instead of creating a whole new encyclopedia, and I fear that if they don’t it’ll only end up like every other previous Arab initiative.
# Source: BI-ME
