Tag: Rabea Ataya

4SITE Forum (Sustainability, Innovation, Technology & Entrepreneurship) – Beirut – November 17-18th 2009

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4SITE Forum4SITE Forum (Investing in Sustainability, Innovation, Technology & Entrepeneurship) is an event being held in Beirut, Lebanon, bringing together over 200 investors, innovators, and entrepreneurs in Lebanon and the Middle East region. The goal of the event is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship towards sustainable economic development and social impact.

The event is organized by RootSpace and Baraka Group in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week (a yearly event taking place in November in over 80 countries worldwide), and will be held over two days, full of participatory panels, keynotes, workshops, demonstrations, and networking.

The event will be taking place at Bayt El-Tabib Conference Center in Beirut, Lebanon, on November 17-18th. The plan is for this event to be the first in a series of other 4SITE Forums to take place around the region.

The keynote speakers at the event include Joi Ito, the CEO of Creative Commons, John Wilbanks, the CEO of Science Commons, and Rabea Ataya, the CEO of Bayt.com.

Besides the fixed program, there are some slots in the schedule that are planned for Barcamp-style presentations and demos by the participants.

The full program schedule for the event can be viewed online at the official website here: 4SITE Forum Schedule. Tickets to the event can be bought here.

Along with the event, 4SITE Forum and Hibr are also hosting the Global Innovation Tournament (GIT), an initiative of Global Entrepreneurship Week, in Lebanon, with this year’s challenge being to come up with a way to make saving money fun, in light of the current global recession.

Bayt Launches Intilaq, Gets Into Early Stage Funding For Internet Startups In The Arab World

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IntilaqBayt.com, the leading job portal in the Arab world, is launching a new and very interesting initiative called Intilaq, that aims to fund, mentor and support aspiring entrepreneurs with early-stage technology startups.

Intilaq is interested in funding and supporting startups based in the Arab world, or who are interested in relocating to the region, that drive regional internet adoption, usage and functionality.

Intilaq is not an incubation program, nor a competition, what they’ll be doing is evaluating ideas and people on an on-going basis, looking for the right fit, and funding chosen projects in exchange for equity in the company. Depending on how much progress the entrepreneurs have made, the funding could be at a seed round or at a follow-up round.
There is also no defined amount with which they are seeding the fund, choosing to remain flexible and acting on a case by case basis.

Intilaq is interested in hearing from both technology geeks, who have technical talent and a great innovative idea looking to start a company, as well as business people, who have great business aptitude (e.g., operations, sales, marketing, business development, finance) and who want to work with technical people to build a great company.

By doing this, Bayt is looking to invest some of the experience and money it has gained over the years, building their own success, into new startups in return for equity, or the benefit of a strategic acquisition, or even to just help grow regional Internet usage and winning by growing the online employment market for Bayt.com.

Besides funding, experience and mentorship; Bayt also offers to help with invaluable industry contacts from around the region, and even workspace in some cases whether at their offices in Dubai Internet City or one of their other offices around the Arab world.

The Intilaq team is made up of Rabea Ataya, the CEO of Bayt.com, and Dan Stuart, the Head of Strategic Initiatives at Bayt.com; both as managing partners, with Dan running the day-to-day operations.

# Intilaq