Month: October 2009

Tiba3a, Enabling A Wider Range Of Arabic Fonts Online

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Tiba3aOne of the problems that all web designers face is the limitation of what fonts they can use online, and having to use only the default system fonts that are available with all operating systems.

Arabic is yet another language where web developers suffer from the same problem, even more so because of the beauty of the Arabic script which displays the very artistic side of typography, and because designers are limited to just a few very uninteresting Arabic fonts online.

Tiba3a is a new project that aims to solve the problem of displaying varied and beautiful Arabic fonts online, in an easy and consistent way across all browsers and operating systems, regardless of what fonts are installed on the end user’s system. The fonts are hosted on Tiba3a’s platform and anyone can link to them and use them in an easy and fast way.

The new service is inspired by Typekit, a project that was launched a few months ago to tackle the same issue for Latin fonts.

On a technical level, the service will depend on the new generation of browsers (Safari 3.2.+ – IE 6.0+ – Firefox 3.2 +), that enable designers to link to an external font file. These files will be securely hosted on Tiba3a’s servers with a licensing scheme for websites that want to use them, also protecting the rights of type owners and designers.

Tiba3a is a project of CloudAppers, the Dubai based company that brought us services like UAE Tweets, Twtlens, Txtget and others in the past.

They are currently talking to some of the Arabic type foundries to try and get them on board the project with their fonts, before they roll it out for usage by Arab web designers.

Mobile Monday Morocco, Casablanca, November 3rd 2009

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The 5th edition of Mobile Monday Morocco has been announced and will be taking place this coming “Tuesday”, November 3rd 2009, which would make it more of a Mobile Tuesday, but that doesn’t sound as cool, I guess.

Mobile Monday MarocThe event will be taking place at l’Office des Changes in Casablanca, from 6:30PM to 8:30PM.

The program of the event will be as follows:

  • 6:45PM : Presentation of Mobile Monday
  • 7:00PM : 4 presentations, 4 visions of the present and future of mobility:
    • MobileWorks 3D : Search and content accessibility on mobile devices (Christine Maxwell)
    • Online Advertising : Online advertising « from web to mobile »
    • Lemon Way (France) : Mobile Banking solution
    • WebyPass : Social networks through mobile
    • ART UP : Mobile Film Festival Morocco
  • 7:45PM : Networking, free discussions, partner connections.

This edition of Mobile Monday is happening on the sides of the Moroccan leg of the regional IT trade show Med-IT which is taking place in Casablanca, Morocco, from the 3rd to the 5th of November 2009.

For more information on Mobile Monday in Morocco and to sign up for the event, you can visit the official site: Mobile Monday Maroc.

Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority To Launch Global Technology Fund

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Dubai Silicon Oasis AuthorityDubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA), the region’s largest integrated technology park, is planning to launch a global technology fund middle of next year.

“Some of the investments will be from ourselves, some from local and regional investors and also international investors,” said Ray Milhem, the new chief technology officer of technology investment at DSOA.

He said, it will largely target companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as global companies. The fund’s amount has not been finalised yet.

The fund is another means to attract research and development and manufacturing companies to set up a base in Dubai Silicon Oasis. And they are already talking to a number of companies to establish manufacturing in Dubai Silicon Oasis, with a concentration on start-ups.

Even though the focus is on the Middle East and North Africa, there are some start-ups in Europe and North America that they are looking at for potential investments, in order to get them to open higher-engineering offices in Dubai Silicon Oasis.

Earlier, the authority announced a budget of Dh25 billion set aside for investment in the coming years at DSOA. The whole project has already attracted foreign investments worth Dh1.4 billion. It has set aside about Dh500 million to invest in start-ups that will be spent over the next five years.

Additionally, private investment into real estate at DSOA is Dh13 billion, while Dh10 billion is budgeted for the third phase of the project’s development.

According to Milhem, the authority is in talks with several companies and should be making some decisions and announcing some deals soon.

[Source: Gulf News]

Twofour54 Ibtikar Launches Creative Lab Media Industry Grant Fund For Young Arabs

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twofour54twofour54 ibtikar, the media industry funding and support pillar of twofour54 Abu Dhabi, has launched twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab, a grant funding scheme aimed at engaging with young Arabs and stimulating creativity in order to build a long term sustainable media industry in the Arab world.

twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab offers grant funding and business support to talented Arab individuals from the UAE and across the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region, helping great media and entertainment ideas that would benefit from seed funding, development guidance and planning to get off the ground.

It offers funds ranging from US$1,000 to US$50,000 for creative and original ideas across all media platforms including television, radio, film, publishing, online, mobile, music, gaming and animation.

twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab and young Arab funding recipients will engage in regular brainstorming sessions to develop ideas into fully fledged creative projects. A key part of this collaborative process will include budget creation and training in project execution and support throughout.

Tarek Ghattas, twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab manager, added: “We want people to come forward with their media and entertainment ideas. We are looking for passion and originality and there is no such thing as a bad idea. This is an opportunity for young Arabs to unleash their inner creativity and have a go at turning vision into reality – coming to us means never having to look back and wonder what you could have been.”

twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab expands twofour54 ibtikar’s funding portfolio, which also includes ibtikar ventures, an investment fund that focuses on start-up and early stage media and entertainment initiatives.

Qanawati, Check Flight Details & Availability Using SMS

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QanawatiQanawati (‘My Channels’ in Arabic) is a new mobile based service that was just launched from Saudi Arabia by Remal IT, allowing you to check for flight reservation availability via SMS.

The service enables you to check for the availability of seats to be reserved specifically for the following airlines: Saudi Airlines, Nas air and Sama; as well as for all airlines using IATA data.

Other than that, the service also makes it possible to check the details and status of a specific flight by entering the flight number, and if needed the specific date for it.

Another available option is  to check the arrival/departure activity in Saudi airports to see what planes are coming in or leaving on that day and the details of the flights.

Qanawati

The service is based on premium rated sms messages, and currently works with Mobily and Zain, with STC support on the way.

Third Edition Of MIT Arab Business Plan Competition Launched

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MIT Arab Business Plan CompetitionThe MIT Arab Business Plan Competition is a competition designed to encourage all entrepreneurs in the Arab world to start their own company and, ultimately, create a nest of leading firms in the Arab world. It also brings to the Arab world all the MIT expertise in entrepreneurship and in running such competitions.

The equivalent of the MIT Arab Business Plan Competition in Boston is called the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition and has created a number of leading firms and thousands of jobs.

The Launching Ceremony for the 3rd MIT Arab Business Plan Competition is taking place tonight (October 12th) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at the Four Seasons Hotel. The event will include an address from Mr. Hussein Shobokshi (President, Shobokshi Development & Trading; Managing Director, Okaz Printing and Publishing), in addition to testimonials from last year’s winning teams.

The website is open now for registration by interested candidates. They are required to fill the online application form consisting of a series of questions that summarize their business idea and the means of implementing it.

The deadline for submitting applications is Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 23:59 GMT.

The competition is open to all Arab nationals with a business idea, with the only requirement being to be part of a team, with each team comprising of minimum 3 individuals, of which at least 2 should be citizens of the Arab world. The business concept put forward by the team should also be implemented in a country within the Arab world.

Thirty teams will qualify for the second round of the competition, and invited to Beirut to attend a one-day workshop lead by Ken Morse, Managing Director of MIT Entrepreneurship Center in Cambridge, MA; and designated a mentor who can help with developing their business plan.

After they submit their full business plans, only 9 make it to the final round and invited to Cairo to give oral presentations of their business plans; with 3 winning teams to be selected and announced during the awards ceremony.

All entrepreneurs interested can go to the competition’s website and Apply Now.

# MIT Arab Business Plan Competition

Woopra Real-Time Web Analytics Tool Officially Comes Out Of Beta

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WoopraWoopra, the innovative and real-time web analytics tool, has just officially come out of beta, with the company announcing the beginning of Woopra’s general availability.

With this launch, Woopra have introduced a whole paid plans structure, with registration now open to everyone opting for one of the paid plans, that range from $4.95 per month for sites with up to 100,000 monthly page views, all the way to $99.95 per month for sites with up to 4 Million monthly page views.

Free ad-supported plans, with a monthly page view limit of 30,000, will be made available via invitations that will be sent out by existing users, as soon as they get the whole invitation system up and running.

All current beta accounts will be automatically transformed into free accounts, but their users can choose to upgrade to any of the paid plans.

The different plans bring different levels of service as well as the page view limits, with differences in the number of users they can create for their account, the number of months that data is stored for, SSL support, email reports, and whether they have full or limited access to some of the more advanced features.

For more details on this launch, you can check out the official blog post here: Woopra officially exits beta.

Arab Technology Business Plan Competition 2009 Semi-Finalists

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The Arab Technology Business Plan CompetitionThe Arab Technology Business Plan Competition, which is a regional Technology investment competition organized by Arab Science and Technology Foundation (ASTF) in cooperation with Intel Corporation, has just announced the list of semi-finalists for this year’s edition of the competition.

The list of 12 semi-finalists includes, in no particular order:

  • AqarMap (Yemen): An online real estate marketplace.
  • Telephone line powered lamp (Palestine): A solution to the frequent power outages in Gaza.
  • EDOM (Jordan): A system to produce green energy.
  • m-CASH (Palestine): A mobile payments solution.
  • Human Heater (Jordan): A new innovative heating product.
  • Therapeutic Vaccines (UAE): Vaccines to help treat chronic inflammation and cancer.
  • NovelMed (Egypt): New medical device.
  • Eye Controlled Typing (Palestine): Technology to help people with physical disabilities use computers.
  • Collapse Analysis (Egypt): Software applications to analyse building structures.
  • Wiphone (Egypt): Technology to convert earth frequency into wifi frequency and vice versa.
  • Blue Soft/Blue Phone (Egypt): Solution to minimize train accidents.
  • HFF (Egypt): Technology to  extract hydrogen from water and use it to generate green energy.

The competition provides the Arab entrepreneurs with a number of needed tools and skills through training and mentoring, in order to turn their Technological innovation into business opportunities.

The top 3 winners will get cash prizes of $10k, $6k and $4k respectively; and will have the opportunity to show their business plans in front of venture capitals, angel fund and investors in the ASTF Investment in Technology Forum.

The top 2 winners will also get to represent the Arab World in the world wide finals of the Intel + UC Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge (USA).

Nakhweh, A Volunteer Matching Portal For Jordan

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Nakhweh

Nakhweh is a new portal that was recently launched in Jordan, aimed at being a tool to foster and develop voluntary work in the community, through bridging the gap between available programs and volunteers.

The site tries to achieve its goal by offering a number of online features to support the networking of leaders and volunteers in the community.

The portal is the brainchild of Kamel Al-Asmar and Hadi Nasereddin of Ideation Box from Jordan.

The following is a little Q&A we got to do with Kamel to know more about Nakhweh, how things have been going so far and their plans for the future. A big thanks to him for taking the time to answer our questions and offer some insight into Nakhweh.

Tell us more about Nakhweh and your goals for it in your own words.

Nakhweh.com is basically a website that aims to help in the matching process between the volunteers who are passionate about serving their communities and the organizations that need the help of those volunteers.
Nakhweh has been launched on the 19th of August with the least options that make the website usable and functioning in a way that serves volunteers and organizations simply yet effectively. That decision of launching the project at its early stages has been taken for two main reasons, which are: The Holy Month of Ramadan and to be the first in taking such an initiative before anybody else.

Our vision for Nakhweh is to make it the official volunteering platform for Jordan in a short time, to help other social entrepreneurs and to plan events every while and then to support a cause.

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