Month: October 2010

Win Free Incorporation & Online Advertising With Falcons’ Lair Business Competition

MMM 1 Comment

Virtuzone, a virtual UAE-based free zone, in partnership with Dubizzle, the UAE’s leading online classifieds service, have launched a new business competition under the name of ‘The Falcons’ Lair’, offering entrepreneurs an opportunity to make their business dreams a reality.

Entrepreneurs whose ideas are chosen at the end will get an offer from Virtuzone to set up their company for free, including all the costs for the first year of incorporation; and they’ll get the equivalent value of that in online advertising on Dubizzle for free. The competition’s official site claims this amounts to an accumulated value of over AED 100,000.

Read More

Free Booths For Startups At TiE GITEX 2010 Start-up Showcase

MMM 4 Comments

Dubai’s yearly GITEX Technology Week is just around the corner, taking place from October 17th to 21st in the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Plans for this year’s event are even bigger than previous years, and include a new really interesting track titled ‘GITEX Mobile Apps & Content World‘, which is focused on the sector of mobile applications and content, and aims to provide a high profile, dynamic framework for the mobile applications and entertainment market.

With a market worth an estimated US$30 billion, opportunities are immense, and there’s so much going on in this space as mobile operators and manufacturers scramble to open up their own apps stores as popular demand for apps to buy and download increases.

Read More

US-Lebanon ICT Forum And ArabNet Beirut Startup Workshop

MMM

The American Embassy in Lebanon and the American-Lebanese Chamber of Commerce are hosting the first annual US-Lebanon ICT Forum on Oct 14-15 at BIEL Center in Beirut, Lebanon.

The event is also being supported by the Union of Arab ICT Associations (IJMA3) and the National U.S. Arab Chamber of Commerce.

The forum will showcase 60 companies active in the ICT sector and their latest products, and will feature a series of seminars about trends in the technology and communications sector. The goal is to help Lebanese and American businesses capitalize on the growing bilateral commercial relations.

As part of the forum, ArabNet is organizing a free entrepreneurship workshop on October 14th from 6pm to 8pm, titled ‘Speed Up Your Startup‘.

Read More

Berytech Fund Invests In Panoramic Imaging Startup Dermandar

MMM

Berytech Fund, the Beirut-based seed capital fund, just announced a new investment in Dermandar, a Lebanon based technology startup focused on online digital image processing; acquiring a 35% stake of the company through the deal.

Dermandar (Arabic for all around), is a company that has developed online software that automatically creates panoramic pictures in a fast and simple way.

It enables users to take photos with any normal camera, create a panorama out of them using their online tool really quickly and then share it with the world. Basically what the tool does is it takes the photos the user took, looks at the edges of the photos for matching parts and then uses those to stitch the photos together into a bigger panoramic image.

Read More

Msrofi: An Arabic Personal Finance Tool To Track Your Budget

MMM

Msrofi is a an Arabic personal finance tool that was created to help users keep an eye on their budgets and cash-flow; to be able to track their income and where they’re spending their money.

In a region where users are still weary of buying online, let alone sharing private information such as their finances, it is quite a challenge for a service like this from the get go; but still Hala Deeb and Mohammed Zaher Ghaibeh from Syrian web company Creative Web Group seem to have taken on that challenge head on by building and launching Msrofi.

The product is simply designed, and should be pretty straightforward for users to create their different categories and record their sources of income as well as their spending under those categories in multiple currencies. Everything has to be added manually at this stage, and that is obviously because of limitations with the banks and banking systems, as well as due to the lack of resources.

Read More

Cloud Computing Session Announced For MENA ICT Forum 2010

MMM

MENA ICT ForumAdding to the list of interesting sessions taking place during the MENA ICT Forum 2010, which will be taking place in Amman next week (October 10th – 11th, 2010), a new session has been announced called “Reality and the Cloud”, which as the name suggests is about cloud computing as an emerging technology to be harnessed in the region.

The session will have two parts, and through them the ‘cloudiness’ of the MENA region will be examined, as regional broadband and access initiatives have made online technologies available to large and small business alike, cutting the burden of large IT expenses.

Challenges faced by companies who are not adopting this trend will be discussed, in addition to privacy and confidentiality concerns. The dominant theme of web hosting and servicing will also be tackled, and the hurdles faced by the region to capture vital market share in an ever-expanding industry of web-hosting.

Read More

Yamli Transliteration Application Launched For iPhone And iPad

MMM 4 Comments

YamliYamli, the startup that specializes in smart transliteration technologies for the Arabic Web, just unveiled its new official iOS application for the iPhone and the iPad, bringing their technology to their users while on the move on their mobile phones and tablets.

The app is priced at $2.99, works mostly offline, and is pretty straight-forward in how it works. Once a user clicks on the purple Yamli logo, a text area opens up for the user to type in the text they want transliterated into Arabic; this text can then be sent as an SMS or an email message.

Using the app too, users can perform web searches, as well as specific searches on YouTube, iTunes and Maps. Obviously the search options would require an internet connection to work. Read More

Tasree3 Expand Their Food Delivery Search Engine To Riyadh

MMM 2 Comments

Tasree3 is a simple and straightforward search engine that enables its users to search for and find the delivery numbers and menus for the different restaurants around town.

The design of the site is very simplistic, centered around a search box that enables users to search for the restaurant they want. There also is a Random button that randomly picks and suggests a restaurant for you, which should come in handy at times when you’re having a hard time picking what to have.

Suggestions are shown as you type your search query, and when you submit your search the results appear directly under the search box without loading another page, showing you the delivery number and providing a link for you to view the menu if you need to. The menu pops up as a layer on the page for you to browse through.

Read More