Month: January 2010

Altibbi, An Online Arabic Medical & Health Resource

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AltibbiAltibbi is an online Arabic medical and health resource, that aims to be a one stop destination for Arab users who are interested in researching and finding more about certain medical and health terms and conditions.

The portal provides a medical dictionary, medical articles and news, as well as question and answer features. It currently includes over 60,000 concise definitions of medical and health terms, and provides detailed descriptions of medical conditions, medications, conventional medical and healing practices, anatomical and physiological terms, illnesses and disorders, drugs, tests and procedures, noted medical personalities, and more.

All the content on the site is Arabized and clearly explained in Arabic, also matching each word with its official synonym term in English.

Altibbi

The goal of Altibbi is to contribute to raising awareness around health related issues among the general population, and removing any mystery surrounding illnesses and diseases. It can also be a handy resource for Arab medical students.

Something the site makes sure to clear up though is that the information on it should not be used in place of visiting and getting the advice of a medical professional, just as a resource to find information and to help understand certain medical details better.

Fora9, A New Online Job Service For Women

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Fora9Fora9 (read ‘Foras’, which means ‘Opportunities’ in Arabic) is a new free online job service out of Kuwait, created for women in the Middle East and North Africa, to make it easier for them to find job opportunities.

The idea came to life when the developing company was looking to build a team and faced difficulties getting to qualified women for certain positions even though they know they were obviously out there.

The design is simplistic and presents job opportunities under four different types which are part time jobs, full time jobs, telework, and volunteer work; and under several categories from IT jobs, to sales and marketing, to teaching and accounting, and more. Featured open job positions are also highlighted on the front page of the site.

The service also attempts to make it as simple as possible for companies and organizations to post their job openings that are tailored for women on the site, and reach a more targeted and qualified audience.

fora9

Fora9 is a product of Wasm Media, a Kuwait based company founded by Abdulmohsen Alajmi. It currently is available in Arabic only.

This isn’t the first time an Arab startup tries to tackle the women employment and jobs area; we previously covered Sudanese startup Twffaha that focused on the same point, which seems to have abandoned the effort at some point along the way.

Kngine, A New Semantic Web Search Engine

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KngineKngine is a new semantic web search engine and question answering engine that was launched from Egypt, aiming to provide more meaningful search results to users.

Unlike other regular search engines that focus more on the ranking of pages to serve search results to users, Kngine attempts to understand what the user is searching for exactly or what question they are asking, and then tries to come up with the best information, answers and results it can find.

This is done by analyzing the entered keywords to discover the relationships between them, linking the different found data together and then displaying united sets of related information from around the web.

The kinds of information and details provided by the search engine, along with the search results listings, are: Semantic information about the keywords/concepts, direct answers to the entered questions, comparisons between entered keywords/concepts, and possible links between different types of data such as movies, subtitles, photos, store prices, user reviews and more.

Kngine

Kngine, which stands for Knowledge Engine, currently contains over 1 billion of pieces of data, and features about more than 7 million concepts; 70,000+ companies, 700,000+ movies, 1,100,000+ personalties, 450,000+ locations, 150,000+ books, and more. The interface is currently only available in English.

Even though the product is still in beta, it already shows promise in the way it searches, analyzes and returns relevant results; and we expect it to get even better with time as more work is put into its engine.

The search engine was launched from Cairo, Egypt, and founded by Haytham A. Abd ElFadeel, a Computer Science researcher, focused mainly on the semantic web and search, as well as parallel and distributed computing.

According to the founder, the long-term goal for Kngine is to make all human beings systematic knowledge and experience accessible to everyone; collecting and organizing all objective data, and making it easily accessible to everyone.

Global Technology Forum 2010 – March 18th 2010

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TechWadi, the leading networking association for Arab American professionals in the Technology industry, has announced a new conference under the title ‘Global Technology Forum 2010‘, which is a conference on entrepreneurship, venture capital, and a new initiative to accelerate the growth of both – in the Middle East as well as other emerging markets.

The event’s tagline is ‘Silicon Valley and the Middle East: Building a Successful Entrepreneurial Ecosystem,’ and will be held on Thursday March 18th 2010, at PlugandPlayTechCenter (440 N. Wolfe Rd. – Sunnyvale, CA 94085).

During his 2009 speech at Cairo University, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries. As the next step in bringing that vision to reality, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) announced the creation of the Global Technology and Innovation Fund (GTIF).
TechWadi’s Global Technology Forum will focus on when and how GTIF will benefit the MENA countries, as well as highlight the rich business prospects the region offers investors.

A series of prominent panelists will provide insight into the current VC and entrepreneurial landscape while leading Arab American executives will share success stories showcasing the region’s talent. Other speakers will include successful local entrepreneurs who will address the region’s dire need for venture capital as well as prominent local investors who will speak to current initiatives and opportunities for expansion.

The Forum will be followed by a networking reception where participants may develop their own contacts and find new opportunities for advancement both in the United States and in the Middle East.

If you’re interested in attending the event, you can register here. Registration is $100 for TechWadi members and $150 for non-members.

Arab World Is A Step Closer To .Arab Domain Names

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The recent Arab Top Level Domain Names Steering Committee Meetings held in Damascus, Syria, saw the appointment of Mr. Ahmed Al Doseri, the representative of Bahrain’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) as president of the Committee that comprises representatives from the Kingdom of Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen.

This Committee is tasked by the League of Arab States with the direct supervision and follow-up on the League’s application for the domains (.arab) and the equivalent in Arabic (.عرب).

TRA’s ICT Manager Mr. Ahmed Al Doseri, who chaired the steering committee meeting, commented, “The creation and use of a “.arab” or Arabic equivalent domain will ensure greater regional identity and over time will help to bridge the digital divide by encouraging Arabic content development and ease of navigation for those people who only read and write in Arabic.”

The international body that oversees internet names, Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN), announced in November 2009 that it will accept applications for non-Latin alphabet domains. This will bring the Internet much closer to the diversified locales of the world’s varied cultures.

Mr. Aldoseri also said “Bahrain will soon enjoy an Arabic domain (.البحرين), which will further contribute to overall Internet penetration in the Kingdom, and support the creation of local digital content.”

Egypt was the first Arab country to apply to get its own Arabic domain name (.مصر), followed by the UAE for (.امارات).

The steering committee is next scheduled to meet in Egypt during the period from the 24 to 28 January 2010 to follow-up on the agreed action points of its last meeting, and report on the progress of the League of Arab State’s application for Arabic domains.

Yallakora Launches Mobile Version of Yallakora TV

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YallakoraYallakora, one of the popular sports portals in the region has announced the launch of a mobile version of Yallakora TV, giving users the possibility to access sports news and information, as well as watch match commentary and analysis directly from their mobile phones, while on the go.

Yallakora, which is owned and run by LINKonLINE (a subsidiary of Orascom Telecom Holding), is available in both English and Arabic, providing full coverage to different sports with a bigger focus on Football, through publishing various details and news regarding Football leagues and championships in the Middle East, North Africa and others. This includes team news, player information and statistics, match results as well as analysis for Football matches

Yallakora’s new effort isn’t through an application that has to be downloaded and installed, all users have to do is point their mobile phone browsers to yallakora.com to access the mobile version of the site, and access the information and news on the site, as well as mobile phone compatible video streaming of interviews, match analysis and the contents of Yallakora’s video library.

A number of Arab entrepreneurs and startups are currently looking more and more to the mobile phone as a practical way to provide their services, especially with the high and growing mobile penetration around the region. We can surely expect a number of other announcements revolving around mobile in the coming year.

Dubai Tech Nights – February 9th – RIT University (DSO)

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Dubai Tech NightsA new tech-oriented initiative is seeing the light in Dubai in the form of meetups under the name of “Dubai Tech Nights” that are planned to be held every month on the second Tuesday of the month.

The goal of the event is to get as many techies as possible together in one place to talk about different technology issues, and the possible ways to fuel entrepreneurship and innovation in this part of the world.

The first of these meetups will be held on February 9th, 6PM at the RIT University in Dubai Silicon Oasis.

The event is being organized by Mohamed Alzubi, Tariq Al Asiri and Omar Al-Mahmoud.

If you’re a techie, will be in Dubai at that time and want to attend, just go to the Dubai Tech Nights meetup page to sign up and RSVP.

Taya IT Launches Beta Of Yajeel Content Discovery Portal

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YajeelTaya IT, a regional specialist in Enterprise and internet search applications, has announced the beta launch of Yajeel, a new content discovery portal which aims to play the role of an independent gateway to some of the best online content from Arabia.

The portal is in Arabic only, and uses Taya IT’s advanced search technologies to provide Arabic internet users with a new tool to easily discover and share Arabic content online,

Through the Yajeel homepage, users will be able to find the highlights from Arabic content around the web, search through content, as well as navigate through content specific web channels that serve as dedicated portals to the most popular topics available from third-party web publishers. With the beta launch, the only channel available now is a football news service containing the latest news and fixtures from Middle Eastern and international football.

The service also integrates a ranking tool, that allows users to rate the content they view and push it up or down in the listing of “most popular” pages.

Yajeel

The technology behind Yajeel intelligently classifies Arabic internet content, giving users access to a continuously updated stream of relevant web pages categorized according to topics of interest. Users can then customize the stream controlling what they see and how they see it, as well as share content from all web channels with their friends.

The official release is expected to be sometime in February 2010, with a number of new extra features and additional web channels products.

# Yajeel

ArabNet 2010: Trends and Opportunities in Arab Web Business

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ArabNetIBAG, International Business Alliance Group, presents the first edition of a new international conference for the Arab internet industry, ArabNet 2010, under the tagline of “Trends and Opportunities in Arab Web Business.”

The conference will be held in Beirut on March 25-26, 2010 with the support of Endeavor Jordan, the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, the Syrian Young Entrepreneurs Association and YallaStartup!.

ArabNet aims to bring the internet community together to network and help launch the hottest startups from across the region. Top investors, internet executives and leaders from Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, AdMob and Intel will address subjects that are critical to the Arab Web Industry including: e-commerce, gaming, mobile, content, online advertising, social networking, new media, and start-up fundraising.

Key to the conference are pitch sessions: Ideathon & Startup Demo.  This is the place to match talent with opportunity.

The Ideathon is looking for 10 select entrepreneurs to introduce their fresh startup ideas to eager investors in a rapid-fire pitch session.  Similarly, the Demo will select startups with innovative products to pitch and exhibit their companies for the duration of the conference.

Applications are currently being accepted from entrepreneurs and startups from all over the region with strong ideas and products.

For more details about the conference as well as how to apply, you can visit the official website: ArabNet.me.

[StartUpArabia is an official media partner of ArabNet 2010.]