Video: The Question Company Presents SMS Based Q&A Service At DemoCamp Dubai

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The Question CompanyThe Question Company is a UAE based company that provides a question and answer sms-based service, that enables users in the UAE to sms any question to them and get an answer back in a few minutes time.

The guidelines to use the service are really simple, you basically just think of a question, text it to the number 4644 and then wait for them to send you the reply back. The target on their side is to have replies sent out in less than 10 minutes, and they say their current average is 6.55 minutes.

The service is available for both Etisalat and Du subscribers and costs 3 Dirhams per question, answering all types of questions, but refraining from providing any legal, financial or medical advice.

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Video: O-Minds Presents FlashFirebug At DemoCamp Dubai

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O-MindsO-Minds is a Jordan-based IT company with a focus on open source and web development. They’re active participants in the Drupal community, and work on advanced Adobe Flash development.

Ashraf Amayreh from O-Minds was the first startup person to present at the DemoCamp Dubai event that was held on June 23rd at Dubai Knowledge Village’s Auditorium, and the main focus of the demo and presentation was a tool called FlashFirebug that the company built to help Web and Flash developers.

FlashFirebug is inspired from the highly popular Firebug add-on for Firefox that enables developers to go under the hood of their web pages and debug them straight from the browser; However Firebug hits a wall when it comes to Flash, and that’s where FlashFirebug comes in.

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DemoCamp Dubai – A Quick Review Of The Event

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DemoCamp DubaiThe second DemoCamp Dubai event to be organised by Dubai Internet City took place at the Dubai Knowledge Village Auditorium a few hours ago, and I have to say the reaction I had and the one I saw and felt from the people in the auditorium was a lot better than it was at the previous one; the presenting startups were interesting, and the setup felt a bit less formal, which was a good thing.

If there’s one thing I still think needs to be addressed in future editions it’s that the presenters should spend more of their time on stage showing us how their projects work instead of taking us through powerpoint slides.

The event kicked off with a non-startup presentation by Marwan bin Haider, the CIO of DEWA (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority), who talked about DEWA’s iPhone, BlackBerry and iPad apps as well as the process of building such mobile apps and how developers could go about creating apps themselves.

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Revisiting Arabic Social Bookmarking And Content Discovery

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Social BookmarkingA bit over two years ago, I wrote a post about the Arab social bookmarking services out there, listing the existing options, how good they looked and how well they seemed to be doing, identifying the top ones at that time.

If anyone were to pull up that same list today and go check on each one of the sites, they’d find that some have shut down, others have become useless and spam ridden, some others have become pretty much inactive, and only one or two are still holding on. What’s clear though is that these social bookmarking services never caught on with Arab web users, and never achieved their founders’ initial dreams for them.

However there are some new kids on the block, who are here to take another stab at social bookmarking and facilitating content discovery for users in the Arab world.

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Jeddah Food, The Online Restaurant Guide Launches iPhone App

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Jeddah FoodJeddah Food, the English language online restaurant guide to restaurants in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, recently announced the launch of their new iPhone mobile application.

The application enables visitors to Jeddah, as well as locals, quickly find restaurants around the city, based on your current location, while on the go. It provides a search functionality to look for specific restaurants and cafes around Jeddah, as well as quick categories that enables users to click through directly and locate places by type of cuisine (e.g. Lebanese, Japanese, Burgers etc.)

For each venue, the application provides the venue details, phone numbers, website details, photo galleries, and maps.

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MENA ICT Forum – October 10-11, 2010 – Amman (Jordan)

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MENA ICT ForumThe MENA ICT Forum is an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Information and Communications Technology Enabled Services (ICTES) industry event for the MENA region, that is held in Jordan on a bi-annual basis. The event was previously known as Jordan ICT Forum in it’s previous incarnations.

This year’s event is scheduled for October 10-11, 2010; and expands to focus on the whole region’s ICT and ICTES success stories, trends, opportunities, and future outlook and plans.

The MENA ICT Forum 2010 will be held at the King Hussein Business Park in Amman, a modern and high-tech business park dedicated to the ICT and ICTES industry.

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ITIDA And Vodafone Egypt Launch MobileAppsAcademy For Egyptian Mobile Developers

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MobileAppsAcademyEgypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) is partnering up with Vodafone Egypt to launch MobileAppsAcademy, a contest and a program for sponsoring developers of mobile programs and applications in Egypt.

The initiative aims at preparing a generation of talented developers and helping them generate innovative ideas conforming to the needs of the Egyptian and Middle Eastern market.

Another purpose of this initiative is to highlight Egypt as a regional hub for projects and ideas and to encourage the creation of high-quality mobile applications. It aims to work on raising the local production through encouraging and sponsoring the skills of local developers, offering opportunities for talented Egyptians and turning their ideas into real projects that can contribute to the development of the ICT sector.

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Event: U.S. Delegation On Entrepreneurship – June 28th 2010 (Amman, Jordan)

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Barack ObamaLater this month, the U.S. Department of State will be leading a delegation consisting of venture capital investors, entrepreneurs and pioneers in startup acceleration to Jordan, as part of the ongoing push to foster entrepreneurship in the region by the US Government.

The event will be held on Monday 28th of June, 2010; at the Friendship Auditorium of the Princess Sumaya University for Technology, from 6:00pm – 7:30pm.

It will offer a chance for attendees to hear from and engage with members of the delegation, as well as other entrepreneurs, investors, educators and government officials.

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Mdinar, A Tunisian Mobile Payment & M-Wallet Service

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mdinarMdinar is a new mobile payment and m-wallet service that was recently launched in beta in Tunisia through a partnership between the BIAT Bank (Banque Internationale Arabe de Tunisie), Tunisiana (Mobile phone operator), ENDA (a microfinance institution) and Viamobile (a service provider); powered by Creova’s mobile payment technology.

The Mdinar service offers P2P, top-up, and loan payment services directly from a user’s mobile phone. It also offers multiple features, including the ability to view account balances, history of transactions, and the possibility to save and use the list of people frequently receiving payments from the user. It also allows the user to send a request for money to another person.

Using the service requires a subscription that translates into the opening of a BIAT Light bank account. To open an Mdinar account, the user must have a Tunisian ID card and a Tunisiana mobile line, and they can either register online (option not launched yet) or at any of the affiliate branches that display the Mdinar sign. Registration should be quick and the user’s account is activated immediately. Once registered, the user receives a notification by sms with their PIN.

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DemoCamp Dubai – June 23rd 2010 – DKV Auditorium

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DemoCamp DubaiDubai Internet City has announced another edition of DemoCamp Dubai, the event enabling tech entrepreneurs, students, professionals and engineers to showcase and launch their new products in front of the tech community.

The event will be taking place June 23rd at the Dubai Knowledge Village Auditorium from 6:00PM to 9:00PM.

From web to mobile applications, English to Arabic content, reaching either the local or regional markets, DemoCamp Dubai offers individuals the opportunity to share their ideas and be ready to receive valuable feedback from a keen audience.

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