Month: November 2008

Young Arab Leaders & Microsoft Join Hands On Youth Empowerment and Development Programs (YED)

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Microsoft - YAL SigningYoung Arab Leaders (YAL), the region’s foremost development platform for business, public sector and civil society leaders, signed a strategic partnership agreement with Microsoft Gulf to develop the Youth Empowerment and Development (YED) initiative.

The agreement was signed by Assem O. Kabesh, Chief Executive Officer, YAL, and Charbel Fakhoury, General Manager, Microsoft Gulf in the presence of Pamela Passman, Global Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Microsoft Corp. and Dr. Zaki Khoury, Gulf Citizenship Lead.

The partnership aims to foster the development of future Arab leaders and empower youth with the skills they need to compete in the global economy. In addition, YAL and Microsoft will work towards developing a set of guidelines that will address pressing issues across sectors such as education, employability and entrepreneurship to increase economic and social prosperity.

Commenting on the partnership, Pamela Passman, Corporate Vice President, Global Corporate Affairs, Microsoft said, “As the Middle East continues to emerge as a dynamic region, we are committed to working closely with organisations such as YAL to further support the development of the individuals and communities in which we operate. We are delighted to join hands with YAL to develop a program that will allow young men and women in the region to gain insight into the rich, diverse and evolving business environment while gaining the skills they need to compete in today’s knowledge economy. Microsoft remains committed to helping countries in the region harness the power of technology for economic and social prosperity.”

Assem O. Kabesh, Chief Executive Officer, YAL, said, “With the Youth Empowerment and Development, YED, initiative, YAL and Microsoft seek to help Arab youth develop the knowledge and skills necessary for the 21st century workplace. One of the means by which we will achieve this is by facilitating access to the Microsoft Education & Technology platform. This initiative will offer support to participants of all of YAL’s related programs and projects over the next three years. Through our initiatives, YAL aims to develop a new generation of Arab youth who can lead the region to greater progress and prosperity. We are confident that our partnership with Microsoft will support us in the task of empowering and equipping young leaders who can drive productivity and competitiveness in the Arab world.”

The partnership with YAL is in line with Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential initiatives that create social and economic opportunity through programs and products that transform education, foster local innovation and enable jobs and opportunities worldwide.

Mrrha, A New Arabic File Mirroring Service

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MrrhaMrrha is a new simple Arabic service that was just launched a few minutes ago from Egypt, and that aims to make the process of uploading files to the internet for sharing purposes and mirroring them on the most famous file uploading services a lot easier and faster.

The service allows users to upload a file and mirror it directly to five popular uploading sites of choice, from a list of twelve most famous ones, saving them time and effort, and cutting down by five the necessary time to upload the file to all these services.

Mrrha depends on a parallel uploading mechanism to make this possible, which means that the file will be uploaded to Mrrha and sent to the other uploading sites at the same time, meaning that the user won’t have to wait until it’s uploaded to each site.

Mrrha

The name is basically, an adaptation of the English word “Mirror” to Arabic, making it into a verb form; and so “Mrrha” basically means “Mirror it”, which refers to the process of re-uploading the file to other services.

The service is in Arabic only for the time being, and is mainly targeted at the Arabic market. An English version will be released soon though.

# Mrrha 

Muxlim Pal To Be First Online Muslim Virtual World

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MuxlimMuxlim, the online Muslim social media community service, plans to launch “Muxlim Pal”, a Muslim-oriented virtual world pretty similar in principle to Second Life, complete with its own currency and culture.

The virtual world should be launched in a few weeks time and will allow, in addition to all the regular things that can be done in other virtual worlds, the opportunity to wear a hijab, and go to prayer rooms for example.

The service’s revenue model will be VIP accounts, virtual gifts, virtual furniture/clothes, themes/styles, profile applications, advertising, branded communities and physical merchandise like t-shirts.

Muxlim hopes that by launching a social networking sandbox tailored to the more than one billion Muslims throughout the world large companies such as Coca-Cola can be convinced to spend some of their vast marketing cash on advertising to this vast, yet nearly untapped cultural segment.

Muxlim Pal is meant to create an open community for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, enabling people from all over the world to explore Muslim culture. And while there will be religious spaces (as there are in Second Life), Muxlim Pal isn’t really designed to be a religious platform, it will be open to people who are religious and not religious.

Launched in December 2006 in Finland, Muxlim attracts 1.5 million unique visitors per month.

# Muxlim

Report: Private Equity in the MENA Region (October 2008)

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Global Investment HouseAccording to a report by Kuwait-based Global Investment House, titled “Private Equity in the MENA Region”, the spending power of the region’s growing middle class is influencing a shift in investment focus away from oil & gas to service-based and consumer-oriented businesses.

During the period from 2007 till H1-2008, investments made were highest in the Basic Materials sector with a total of US$1,422mn worth investments. It was followed by Healthcare sector (11% of all investments) followed by Financial Services (11%), Transport (8%), Oil and Gas (7%) and Services (5%) sectors.
Basic materials sector was again influenced by the US$1.4bn investment in Egyptian Fertilizers Company.

As the economies and population of the region will grow, social infrastructure needs in healthcare and education will increase and these will be the sectors that private equity players would look for.

The Telecoms and IT sector got only 1% of all investments in the period from 2007 till H1-2008, of which I’m sure only a tiny fraction made it to internet and technology startups.

Mobile Subscribers Sector In Saudi Arabia To Expand By 27%

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Saudi ArabiaThe mobile subscribers sector in Saudi Arabia will expand by over 27 per cent in 2008, lifting the official mobile penetration rate to 144 per cent, according to Business Monitor International (BMI).

The launch of commercial services by new entrant Saudi Zain is expected to further stimulate the market.

The BMI report, made available to Khaleej Times, noted that according to the Saudi regulator, the number of mobile users in the kingdom had reached 28.4 million at the end of 2007. This was after having grown by over 44 per cent during the year. Mobile penetration at the end of 2007 stood at just over 116 per cent. By the end of March 2008, the number of Saudi mobile subscribers had estimatedly grown to 30.7 million.

“Growth in 2007 was actually stronger than in 2006, and this leads us to believe that much of the sector’s recent growth has been based on the addition of new prepaid users,” it explained.

Meanwhile, regulatory figures indicate that Saudi Arabia had 4 million operational fixed lines at the end of 2007. This is slightly less than the previous estimate of 4.129 million lines. According to the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), the fixed line sector as a whole saw very little growth during 2007; combined with an expanding population, this meant that Saudi Arabia’s fixed-line penetration rate decreased from 16.8 per cent at the end of 2006 to 16.4 per cent by the end of 2007.

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Maktoob Unveils ‘Khan Wars’ A Free Online Strategy Game

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Khan WarsMaktoob.com, the world’s largest Arabic online community with over 12 million unique users, has unveiled ‘Khan Wars‘, a free, strategy-based online game played directly through the Web browser. The Arabic-language game was launched at the first Dubai World Game Expo, which opened yesterday at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre.

Available exclusively on Maktoob.com, ‘Khan Wars’ is designed to recreate medieval times, bringing to life epic battles of an ancient era by leveraging war simulation technologies. ‘Khan Wars’ can be played from any computer with just a Web browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, and doesn’t necessitate downloads. Gamers can register for the free, browser-based game by logging on to http://khanwars.maktoob.com.

With the launch of ‘Khan Wars’, Maktoob.com becomes one of the pioneers to bring Arabic-language online gaming to a mass Arab audience through its extensive online consumer reach, which includes hundreds of thousands of tech-savvy young gamers in the 13-24 age group.

“We are confident that Maktoob.com’s substantial youth demographic, combined with the non-stop action experience that ‘Khan Wars’ offers gamers, will make Khan Wars a sure winner with the burgeoning gaming community in the Arab world,” said Sohaib Thiab, Product Manager, Maktoob.com Games.

‘Khan Wars’ is designed to offer gaming aficionados a fast-paced, non-stop action experience that far exceeds the excitement of casual gaming by appealing to the players’ imagination and challenging their tactical acumen. The game requires players to rely on tactics and positioning, think up new strategies and maneuver artfully.

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