Kuwait – StartUpArabia

Sikkaa: A Social Network For Amateur Football Players And Teams

April 6, 2011April 6, 2011 MMM 13 Comments

Sikkaa is a new social network type site launched from Kuwait and that targets amateur football (soccer) players and teams, helping them to promote themselves and organize matches and tournaments between them.

The word “Sikkaa” is an Arabic word that means “road”; which has been used in Kuwait for some time to describe the alleys and streets where children gather to play football, one of the most popular sports in Kuwait and around the region.

Sikkaa enables users to create their profiles as football players, upload photos and videos showing their skills at the game, create or join teams with their friends, challenge other teams, as well as participate in tournaments and events organized around them.

YallaWain: A New Kuwaiti Social Dining Out Service

September 23, 2010September 23, 2010 MMM 1 Comment

YallaWain is a new social networking service that was launched in Kuwait, and that revolves around the experience of dining out; helping people pick what places to go to and what to have.

The service describes itself as a new way for people to mix and tip-off each other about the finest restaurants and top dishes in Kuwait; which sums it up quite nicely.

Basically, the site is built around user reviews and ratings of the different restaurants and eateries in the country, their ratings of the different dishes those places serve on their menus, and tips they leave for other fellow diners.

The service also integrates a social aspect that enables users to follow their friends and contacts on the service, in order to get a more personal touch and receive their different tips and reviews, as well as what restaurants are their favorite ones.

Fora9, A New Online Job Service For Women

January 19, 2010January 19, 2010 MMM 1 Comment

Fora9 (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 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.

KuWeet, Your Window To Kuwaiti Tweets

May 3, 2009May 3, 2009 MMM 3 Comments

One of the biggest factors of Twitter’s success and popularity is the wealth of third party tools and solutions built around it and using its API.

Just recently, I came across an interesting little project built around Twitter that aims to open a window on tweets coming out of Kuwait, and about Kuwait, by the name of KuWeet.

The way it was built is really simple: an account @kuweet was created for twitter users in Kuwait to follow, and then what happens is that all followers of this account are collected and placed in a list. All tweets originating from people on this list are then aggregated into a a public timeline of Twitter users from and about Kuwait.

According to its developer, it’s based on an integration of Twitter2html into WordPress, with a theme that is pretty much identical to the Twitter interface.

New tweets are fetched every 10 minutes through a planned cron process.

KuWeet is a project by well-known Kuwaiti blogger and tweeter @nibaq.

Viva To Launch Mobile Payment Solution In Kuwait

February 18, 2009February 18, 2009 MMM

STC’s Kuwaiti subsidiary Viva announced that it will be launching a new mobile payment solution in Kuwait, using a platform provided by Irish firm Macalla.

Viva, the third mobile operator in Kuwait, which launched services in December of last year, will provide payment services in Arabic and English directly to Viva subscribers and also via its dealer and agent network.

Rollout of the project will be done through a number of phases, and service channels will include mobile, kiosks and online, with supporting payments done by mobile wallet, cash, debit or credit card.

STC operates telecom networks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, South Africa and Malaysia, and will launch a mobile network in Bahrain, but has not stated yet whether it will extend the same mobile commerce service to its other subsidiaries.

[Source: Comm.]

Bayt.com To Host First Virtual Job Fair In Kuwait

January 3, 2009January 3, 2009 MMM 5 Comments

Bayt.com the leading job site in the Middle East just announced that they’ll be holding another one of their virtual job fairs; this time in Kuwait.

This is the fourth such event in the region, with previous ones held in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The event will be hosted on the virutal job fair section of Bayt’s website and will run from the 18th to the 22nd of January.

The aim of these events that Bayt is holding is to offer employers and job seekers alike a chance to conveniently and effectively connect and interact online; thereby providing qualified job seeking candidates with interesting career opportunities; and giving local, regional and international employers access to professionals from around the region; pushing the online recruitment concept even further.

The virtual job fair will feature 3D booths of exhibiting companies, where they will be able to display company information and job vacancies. Visitors to the online fair will be able to leave CVs at the stands and apply for specific jobs. Companies can then connect to candidates through either video or online chat.

# Bayt.com Virtual Job Fair

FotoArabia, Arab Stock Photography & Image Service

May 20, 2008May 20, 2008 MMM 4 Comments

FotoArabia is a new Arab stock photography service dedicated to the Arab community of photographers and artists; that was just launched a few days ago from Kuwait.

The service aims to provide an online place for Arab photographers and artists around the world to submit their high-quality material and put it up for sale. On the other hand, FotoArabia will work on attracting interested buyers from the photo and graphic design market segments from around the world; such as newspapers, magazines, web publishers, and others to search for and buy photographs, illustrations and other artistic material through the website.

Buyers can purchase Download Credits from the FotoArabia store, with credits starting as low as $1 each, with a minimum purchase of $13; these credits are valid for one full year from the date of purchase and become less expensive when bought in bulk. Buyers can use these credits to download images for 1, 3, 5, or 10 credits, for x-small, small, medium, and large files respectively. Even larger resolution images are available, for 15 and 20 credits and video clips are available for 10 to 50 credits.

All uploaded files are inspected for quality and legal integrity before becoming available for sale; and the revenue generated from the sales is divided between the contributor and FotoArabia.

FotoArabia have a limited time introductory offer for the first 50 photographers and contributors. These first 50 contributors will be making 80% of the sale of their photos and/or art work for their first year, after that the earned royalties will be 50%.

The service was developed by Generation Four Company LLC, a Kuwaiti technology company.

# FotoArabia

Talabia, Free Online Food Home Delivery Service

May 13, 2008May 13, 2008 MMM 6 Comments

Talabia is a new home delivery company that was launched in Kuwait in December 2007, initially using offline call center services, with the objective of providing a free home delivery service for the leading food products in Kuwait, making it more convenient for consumers to order fresh and frozen food products from the comfort of their own homes and have them delivered to their doorstep.

In April 2008, they took their service online, through a site available in both Arabic and English, bringing their home shopping experience to all connected households in Kuwait.

The site is very well designed, simple and easy to use; it incorporates a well organized and categorized product catalog, making it straightforward to find the products you’re looking for, add them to your shopping cart and place your order; also giving you the possibility to specify your preferred delivery time.

Talabia currently delivers products from leading food brands including Sadia, Hilal, Lamb Weston, Gulfa, Hana and Hayat; and they plan to continue adding more quality brands and products to cover more of the consumers’ needs.

The Talabia website was developed by Olive Interactive.

# Talabia