Tag: development

Arabize, slap an Arabic funky name on it n’ you got yourself a new startup

dotone 9 Comments

So if you skipped the class where your math teacher introduced Equivalence, you haven’t missed much. You can easily learn it while checking up some of the Arabia’s start-ups with some of the online services that you usually use. Mind you some will confuse you with Equality.

While this could be a degrading statement, there are very functional and online industry evolutionary reasons behind that. Simply it’s not our copycat genes that make us race for developing an Arabic version of the next big thing. Facebook? hah, we can make one in Arabic. Twitter? now that’s easy to make, let’s do that.

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Al Jazeera Labs Launched To Showcase New Media Group’s Innovative Developments

MMM 5 Comments

Al JazeeraAl Jazeera recently launched Al Jazeera Labs, a website that showcases some of the most innovative developments coming out of Al Jazeera’s New Media group; including new ways of interaction, and the possibility to get the news anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

From the Al Jazeera iPhone and facebook applications, to their podcasts and YouTube channel, to the twitter accounts they’ve set up for easier reception of news and interaction with presenters; Al Jazeera Labs will be the central point to follow and keep up with all these interesting projects and ideas.

Al Jazeera Labs screenshot

Some of the published projects will be fully functional, while others might still be in Beta; Al Jazeera plans to build on user feedback to improve the different tools and applications offered through Al Jazeera Labs.

# Al Jazeera Labs

Next: The Simple, Intuitive And Limited To-Do List Application

MMM 2 Comments

NextA couple of days ago, as covered here, the teams from SpinBits and CloudAppers launched a really interesting and exciting experiment called Zero2Beta, focused on intense design and development of a useful web application from concept to launch in a couple of days, and releasing it to the public.

The first application in this experiment, code-named “App1″, was named “Next“; The idea behind developing Next was to attempt to approach the old-and-tried to-do list web app in a simpler, more intuitive and limited way; to address short-term task management to handle usual day-to-day stuff.

After 2 days of hard design and development work at the SpinBits offices, sticking to the bare basics, and killing some features: Next was launched moments ago.

The interface is very clean, simple, and usable; and the idea is very straightforward: 1 task at any time, 140 characters per task, 20 tasks maximum; you can set priorities by dragging and dropping tasks into order; and you just start getting things done.

Next screenshots

A very good result for something that was built in only a couple of days time.

You can all play around with Next here: movetonext.com

Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation Launches ‘Sawaed’ Challenge Fund Programme

MMM 6 Comments

Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum FoundationThe Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation announced recently the launch of ‘Sawaed’, a new programme that aims to challenge the private sector to develop innovative business concepts to drive the development of the Arab world.

Operating as a ‘challenge fund’, ‘Sawaed’ will encourage businesses to compete for funding in response to a specific regional development goal. Each year, the programme will promote a regional challenge and invite businesses to submit competitive project concepts dedicated to addressing the challenge.

A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and the Young Arab Leaders (YAL).

According to the signed MoU, YAL, an independent, not-for-profit organization with a strong membership base across the Arab region, will leverage the experience of 30 active members who will serve as mentors and support eligible businesses across the region throughout the process of applying to the fund.

As the first initiative under the Foundation’s Entrepreneurship and Employment sector, ‘Sawaed’ seeks to promote business excellence, empower young Arabs to innovate, while facilitating job creation in the region. The program will award non-refundable grants of between AED100,000 to AED1 million (US$27,000 to US$270,000) to projects implemented by private sector entities that aim to increase the amount of high quality Arabic online content, develop and improve access to education, knowledge, and information on ICT platforms to promote Arab capabilities.

Application for Sawaed programme will open on the website starting September 1st, 2008. Interested applicants can download and fill electronic forms of “Concept Note Proposals” and submit them online before October 12th, 2008. Winners will be announced towards the end of March 2009.

Launched with an endowment of AED37 billion (US$10 billion), the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation aims to develop future leaders and create a knowledge-based society in the Arab world through the key components of knowledge creation, culture, as well as entrepreneurship and employment generation.

# Sawaed