http://www.wamda.com/ Wamda: inspiring, empowering and connecting entrepreneurs Since Turkish entrepreneur Mehmet Ecevit launched a 40-minute demo of the third-person fighter action and adventure game on Friday, it has seen 21,500 downloads, 4,200 of which are from the MENA region, and it is currently ranked 20th among free iPhone and iPad apps in Saudi Arabia.  
"We weren't expecting this number of downloads," he says. "Especially not from 60 countries; nor did we expect to rank in Saudi Arabia, as we didn't spend anything on advertisement." 
Yet targeting the MENA market was a conscious decision that led Ecevit to found new mobile gaming company Meta Games in January of this year, along with Arda Kutsal, the founder of leading Turkish tech blog Webrazzi, and a 3D modeler and illustrator who previously worked alongside him at Sanalika. 
While working as the CEO and Managing Partner at Sanalika from its launch in 2008 to 2011, Ecevit helped its virtual world of multiplayer games attract a community of over 12 million users. Last year, however, Ecevit decided that his future lay in mobile, and in looking outside of Turkish-language game development, towards the MENA region and Europe.
"I believe that future of gaming is in mobile," he says. "My partners at Sanalika  and I had a different vision, so I sold my shares and started Meta Games to focus on mobile. While Europe is our first target, I'm also focusing on the MENA region, because our cultures are similar," he says. Bhalamir is, pointedly, not a Turkish game, but rather developed in English to appeal broadly.
While his team of three developed the demo in only 4 months, they plan to release the full version later this year after incorporating feedback. "We thought that if we created a game in a very short time and released it on the app store, we would get feedback. Our goal in the future is to develop longer games for the iPhone."
Meta Games also plans to release a second arcade title, in which players try to rescue rabbits from an evil lab. After the initial success of Bhalamir, the company is currently in the process of securing funding. 
A quick look at the game reveals the reasons for its initial success: the 3D graphics set the game apart, creating a complete, movie-like feel as the view zooms around lushly rendered scenes. And an easy-to-use, intuitive navigation button that operates like a joystick for the touch screen makes navigation simpler than when using compass-style buttons. The players speak with a Turkish accent, which helps establish the game's setting. 
The only criticism I have is that while the game involves a little skill exploring its world, the actions themselves, murdering guards with a sword, are relatively simple, and the omniscient viewpoint from above makes it slightly difficult to gauge the proximity of the foes that Bhalamir must fight to save his love's father.
But this demo will undoubtedly whet user's appetites for the full version later this year. 
Screenshots below. Bhalamir is available for iPhone and iPad in the Apple store. 




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Nina [nine-uh] is the Editor-in-Chief at Wamda. You can reach her through Wamda, on Twitter @9aa, on Facebook, Google+ or at nina [AT] wamda.com. ]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/turkish-gaming-entrepreneur-pivots-into-mobile-in-mena-with-bhalamirThu, 17 May 2012 10:12:00 +0000 Tweeshirt: Won EGP 50,000 ($8,000) grand prize, and retail space on Souq.com. Muhammad Bassyouny, Ali El Azhary, Kamal El Soueni “Wear What You Think”. Select tweet(s), t-shirt colour and size, and tweeshirt will print the tweets onto the shirt and deliver it to your door.  In the future they plan to add mugs and other stuff to the product line. New for Egypt, expect more of these custom printing start-ups to pop up, as this is an easy to copy idea.
Farila: Won Judges’ Prize of Souq.com incubation. Farida Abd El-Nabi and Fadila Abd-Elaal A lady’s shoe with a retractable heel. Catering for ladies who like the high heel look but also want a comfortable shoe, without carrying around an extra pair of “flats.” I’ll be interested to see if they can get around the structural problems, because the angles of the front and back of high-heeled shoe are different from angles of a flat show.  But what do I know about ladies shoes!
Cardisdale: Won the most votes during the final ceremony, but those votes only counted for 20% of the total votes Habiba Bakir, Lobna Mohsen, Ola El Adly, Yasmeen Khamis Part cardigan, part “isdal” (prayer dress). This customizable garment allows women to wear a casual top that transforms into a full-body covering garment at prayer time, saving women the hassle of carrying an extra garment. I have reservations about this, simply because women who pray normally leave home wearing clothes that are suitable for praying anyway. But again, what do I know about woman's clothing, perhaps there’s a big market I’m not aware of.
Stone Bag: Ahmed , Saleh 80% of marble production is waste.  This waste can be used to make bags, hence Stone Bag.  A clever and environmentally friendly idea. The key to success here will be how much the bag costs to produce, as the average unenvironmentally friendly consumer (the majority locally) won’t be tempted to buy if the bags cost a lot more than the alternatives.
BobArt: Yara Galal, Mostafa Sedky, Lamis Galal The “Bob” is “Pop” bronounced ze Arabic way. A series of customised lamp-shades with stencils of pop art images, from Western and Eastern culture, carved out of the lamp sides.  Demand is rising for modern furniture like this, but the idea is easy to copy so the team have to create a strong brand and price themselves at the top end, or flood the market at the low end.
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Omar Aysha is a former video-game developer, turned IT entrepreneur, turned writer, who now has a few media projects in development.]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/meet-the-final-5-teams-in-auc-s-product-innovation-show-the-hitThu, 17 May 2012 08:00:00 +0000 These types of competitions are becoming very commonplace in Egypt, so what was new about this one?  The most obvious difference was that the grand winner here was voted for by the public. “We’ve done business plan competitions before, but we realised that entrepreneurship can’t really be taught in a classroom or on paper, so we wanted participants to do something tangible and practical,” explained Youssef El-Sammaa, ES upper board member. He continued, “we were inspired by The Apprentice (the TV show) and wanted to do something similar. We knew Omar (Soudodi, General Manager of Souq) from the work he was doing with the AUC.  We spoke to him, and found he was already thinking of running a competition so we decided to team up.”
Omar takes up the story, “entrepreneurship is part of our DNA so we were glad to get involved.”  I told Omar that my impression of Souq was that it was mainly a vehicle for larger established retail stores. He replied, “Actually 30% of our sellers are 24 yrs old or younger. There was also a recent Gallup poll among Egyptian university students, and 24% said they wanted to launch a start-up in the next 12 months. In a similar poll in the US only 1% shared that vision.  It’s plain there’s going to be an explosion of startups and innovation, so now is the time for competitions like this to foster that energy.”
Nesma El-Far, another ES upper board member, joined in, “Omar and Souq have been much more than sponsors. They’ve been heavily involved throughout the whole process, mentoring the teams and us, and getting us a producer for the TV show. It’s been a fantastic experience for everyone involved, and for me it’s wonderful to be see The Hit start for a simple idea, to be standing here now with everything that’s been created.” 
I asked them whether the AUC population as a whole had taken the competition to heart during the two months it’s been on. “Many times around campus I’d overhear students discussing the teams and ideas, and arguing which they thought were better,“ Youssef responded.  Impressive, considering the AUC student body is more associated with less serious pursuits. Not only that, but the website started off ranked around 22,000 in Egypt and rose to 4000. Their first voting stage got around 2,000 votes, and the final vote got over 4,000.
Back at the ceremony, the finalists were all backstage waiting for the final result. The teams were all filled with nervous energy, and there was a definite sense of camaraderie.  The shared experience had obviously created a bond between them.  The night progressed with speeches, videos, student bands, and a voting opportunity for the crowd.  The tension built as the votes were tallied, and when the grand winner, tweeshirt, was finally announced, there was an explosion of noise from their supporters. 
The winning team jumped up and down on stage, fists pumping, over-size check for EGP 50,000 (~US$ 8,000) waived high in the air. They were mobbed by ar=1; PPLState=1; RPSTAuth=EwDgARAnAAAUDNyoPUQbnUfY4iXyVq63PSybAlKAAMvOZfd5J/QZE56cWWeSDkuW2YtPRwXkcYjeWkqsoGxmxvVKhs+6+oKyMq7XcYPs3vmNFdoYEQ/M3NrHj8mUEwB4AEAVz+4hCIUh9LV3ToQ/d2WX9xdziUeXNMDrgbyKsRu60/tcwGcUAOjCxn6wIs59axP2Xgi21wBtuAZtbWonA2YAAAg9JDBAkiqP+zABpwFEXt+OXqVInscCSFhq6N3eijXrCM01Cq+LMtAvEP0D4YbjJWPiMUsstWI+ZkTfRdJave to get traction outside their own community. But it would be churlish to deny them their moment of glory, they should savor it.  And so should the ES team, the whole competition captured the imagination, and has undoubtedly spurred many students into considering entrepreneurship as a legitimate career option. In footballing language, that’s a result.
N.B. Please see the related article for a detailed list of the final teams and their ideas.
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Omar Aysha is a former video-game developer, turned IT entrepreneur, turned writer, who now has a few media projects in development.]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/the-final-showdown-at-auc-s-product-innovation-tv-show-the-hitThu, 17 May 2012 07:00:00 +0000 With an online retail market estimated at over $3.5 billion today, according to a study by Visa released last year, online retail in the Middle East is booming.
With solutions like ShopGo, aggregate online store sites like Dokkankom, in some ways, it has never been easier to go online in the Middle East. Even the somewhat crowded daily deals market seems far from tapped out.
Yet for startups building new businesses, challenges abound. While the region is linguistically monolithic, it's anything but cohesive when it comes to shipment and logistics. The process of shipment is hindered by customs formalities, paperwork, and various duty rates.
At Aramex, says Chief Operating Officer Iyad Kamal, "we're doing what we can to make it simpler," especially for startups. Aramex has, in the past year, built e-commerce solution REDe and begun offering discounted services to startups that include reduced shipping and warehousing rates. 
Aramex's vision for developing the ecosystem includes providing startups with advice to help them address the major elements of e-commerce. Startups need to consider 12 primary questions, says Kamal.
1) Why should I go online?
Well, the region is shopping online. Around around 46% of men and 32% of women who are online are buying products, according to a survey conducted by OneCard. 
Online retail is also growing faster than offline. Offline retail has grown 4% annually the last two years, while online spending has increased by over 10% annually, according to a recent study. 
Especially within the region, the growth potential is apparent. Regional online spending- with an estimated total market value of $3.5 billion a year- currently represents around 5% of total retail spending in the region, according to Aramex. Compare this to e-commerce comprising 15% of total retail in Europe and 17% in the U.S.; the MENA region has room to grow.
By going online, you offer availability to a bigger market, with better bargains and better variety, says Kamal. "There is no way to achieve the same level of variety in a brick-and-mortar store." 
2) What should I sell? 
The top 7 types of items purchased, according to data from Aramex's international Shop & Ship service, collected in late 2011, are: 

Apparel
Electronics
Books
DVD/CD
Shoes
Bag/Case
Mail & Magazines 

Where electronics places on the list is heavily contingent on iPad and iPhone demand, notes Kamal; this data happened to be collected around the time that the iPhone 4S came out this past fall.
3) Where should I sell?
Aramex's Shop & Ship data reveals that most e-commerce orders are shipped to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, followed by the UAE and the rest of the Gulf countries, and then the Levant. This hierarchy is unsurprising given that higher per-capita income in the Gulf boosts demand while lower import duties lower cost.
"There is a direct association between e-commerce spending and per capita income," says Kamal.
Customs policies in the Gulf, where typically a 5% tax is levied for items over a given amount, around $270, work well for online retail, which tends towards individual shipments of under $100. Traditional commerce, on the other hand, is characterized by concentrated bulk orders of over $1000.
Thus the Gulf might be a good place to start. Yet to be successful, your target market should be regional, says Kamal. To achieve the scale that will make an e-commerce business profitable, it's crucial that companies take on investment and expand quickly, Entrepreneur of the Week Dan Stuart of LivingSocial recently pointed out.
4) Where should I stock?
The decision to ship directly from a source on each order, stock in a free zone, or stock in a non-free zone depends upon several factors, says Kamal. 
First, a company must assess the amount of volume it is handling. For many e-commerce companies, it will make sense to store locally in a Free Zone, to avoid dealing with customs formalities on independent orders, and to reduce the shipment distance for returns.
Those looking to stock their goods in a Free Zone can stock with Aramex if they prefer not to go through the formalities of registering or storing in a given Free Zone. Currently, the logistics company has a presence in Free Zones in Amman, Bahrain, Beirut, and Dubai. "Bahrain is a good location to store in for feeding the Bahraini and Saudi markets," says Kamal.
Another option for those looking to rent their own warehouses while minimizing customs formalities is stocking in Dubai and paying a 5% tax that allows a company to stock items already custom-paid.
5) How should I handle customs duties? 
When it comes to customs duties, the region is uneven. In the Gulf countries, as mentioned above, customs are generally free for items below a certain value, typically $270, and 5% for those above. In Jordan and Lebanon, duties are higher, depending on the commodity, reaching up to 40% and more. Duties in Egypt range from 15-30% depending on the commodity.
As companies decide where to ship and how to include fees in their prices based on customs duties, Aramex can help by handling the customs clearance process.
6) Should I offer Cash-On-Delivery?
For a typical online retail e-commerce company, says Kamal, 70% of orders are cash-on-delivery (COD). This squares with casual figures that Wamda has heard from major online retailers in the region; up to 80%-90% of orders in markets like Saudi Arabia and Egypt can be COD, although the percentage is lower in markets with higher credit card penetration like the UAE.
Why do customers prefer COD? It's partly a factor of not having bank accounts or credit cards, and it's also primarily a factor of trust. Clients often like to see the goods delivered to their doorstep before they say yes, Kamal notes. They also simply may not trust a site's payment gateway.
COD circumvents trust issues, and yet, it's a headache. It can be potentially ruinous for companies that encounter high levels of returns and don’t stock inventory locally. Aside from offering warehousing to alleviate the cost of COD returns, Aramex can also manage the COD retrieval process, picking up the cash from customers in order to approach a more seamless delivery experience. 
7) How should I determine shipping rates?
Shipping rates will depend on a company's choice of logistics solution. To help keep rates down, Aramex offers a Startup Kit, which provides startups with a bundle of Aramex services, including REDe, access to APIs, shipping rates, and warehousing, at reduced rates.
8) How should I offer customer service? Should I be on social media?
"Your customer service has to be online, on all mediums," says Kamal. A company may want to have call centers, send emails, offer live chat support, and provide status updates and tracking on Twitter and Facebook.
Any e-commerce company founder should know this, but Kamal reiterates that social media is especially crucial for responding to realtime customer feedback. 
9) What should my return policy be?
If you're selling goods, your site must have a return policy. To reduce the fees involved when shipping return items, e-commerce companies can take advantage of Aramex's warehousing network to optimize where returned items go. For instance, an item shipped to Saudi Arabia from Dubai could then be stored locally in Saudi for future shipment, to conserve the aleady-paid import duties. 
10) How Should I Package Goods? 
It's very important to ensure that packages are well packed for cross border shipping, to avoid lost merchandise or, again, the cost of a return, says Kamal.
11) How do I track my inventory?
If companies store with Aramex, they can have live, realtime view of their inventory through REDe and can leverage APIs to connect directly with their backend system.
12) Should I offer customization?
Finally, deciding how to bundle products or offer customized packages is important for enticing customers who are accustomed to having control over their orders. 
So what do clients ultimately want? A "perfect order," says Kamal, with fast delivery, the ability to track it online, flexible return policies, and great customer service.
Yet making it easy for e-commerce companies to achieve that perfect order will necessitate going a step beyond these 12 questions. It's clear that greater dialogue between the region's e-commerce stakeholders is needed in order to evoke change in the ecosystem. That's one element that Aramex is also working to facilitate, says Kamal.
Better internet connections, more internet availability, lower cost of internet services, and lowered import duties are in the region's future. Yet if the sector's players can unite to address universal issues and push for change together, it may happen even more swiftly.
In time, the barriers to entrance will lower. Until then, Aramex is working to build the right stepstool.
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Nina [nine-uh] is the Editor-in-Chief at Wamda. You can reach her through Wamda, on Twitter @9aa, on Facebook, Google+ or at nina [AT] wamda.com. ]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/demystifying-e-commerce-12-questions-every-e-commerce-startup-should-answerWed, 16 May 2012 12:51:00 +0000 For those startups explicitly targeting a global market, Sinbad will forgo typical discussion rounds and assessment of valuation, offering US $500,000 for a 25% stake across the board. No formal business plans are involved. "It's up to the founders to decide how long this amount will last," says the website. 
Pitching rounds will take a similarly fast-paced approach: interested startups can submit 5 minute videos about their existing startup (not idea). If accepted, they will be invited for a full day pitching round, and awarded a term sheet at the end of the day if they fit Sinbad's criteria. 
The environment will be "semi-accelerator;" startups will have monthly follow-up meetings, with milestones and KPIs set. Sinbad will also, true to its name, take startups from the Arab World on a tour of Silicon Valley to receive mentorship, connect with peers, and pitch at a demo day. 
The goal is to focus exclusively on startups addressing a global market, says Takatkah. "A lot of startups are working in Arabic and addressing a local market. Plenty of investors are invested in them because they are considered low hanging fruit. But those trying to compete on a global level are not welcomed by the region's investors becuase they come with higher risk. We are focused on those trying to create a global strategy."
When asked if Sinbad will help take regionally-focused startups global, Takatkah says, "Yes, if they have a clear strategy. If their main focus is to serve the Arabic user, then no." Takatkah also points out that Sinbad will focus on not just consumer web but enterprise web companies, essentially specifying that both B2C and B2B companies are welcome. 
Takatkah is insistent that Sinbad will be filling a open gap in the VC space. "A lot of VCs are focusing on localization. If startups know that there is a VC focusing on going global, they will aim for that." He cites companies like Vimov, which garnered international attention for its Weather HD iPad app two years ago, as the kind of global-facing company that Sinbad is looking for. "Half a million will not be enough to take a company global," he says, "But we aim to put companies on the map and help them get funding from international VCs."
While it's beneficial to startups to have more funding vehicles in the early stage space, this approach- focusing on global startups- is hardly unique. Just to name a few recent deals with global startups, IV Holdings has invested in translation platform Dakwak, international publishing platform Content Syndicate, and global financial information company IdealRatings, Accelerator Communications Holdings has invested in data center solution company SmartCube, and Middle East Venture Partners has invested in optical communication and infrastructure testing company Multilane and global cash management and auditing platform B.A.S. The Wamda Capital Fund as well has invested in Qordoba, Woopra, Social Wire, Marginize/ Nextly, all of which address global markets. 
A cookie cutter approach to early stage funding also has yet to be proven successful. For Y Combinator-style accelerators like Oasis500, SeedStartup, Flat6Labs, and Tahrir2, investing at the seed stage in a standardized manner (taking, say 10% equity for $10,000 or $15,000) works well, as the goal is often more to develop the team and get off the ground than scale a company with specific existing assets into specific markets.  
Sinbad Ventures is not open for investment yet, as they are still fundraising towards a $10 million target. Yet with a limited partner already on board, they are soliciting applications currently, hoping to begin investing in early 2013 at the latest. They plan to invest in 7 startups a year, also offering mentoring services, boosted by Takatkah's membership in entrepreneurship support organization Kauffman Foundation.
When asked whether the image of Sinbad presents a potentially clichéd or anachronistic vision of the Arab World to Silicon Valley investors, Takatkah resists that interpretation. "We're trying to get back to the roots of the story, and we wanted a name that would stick in the minds of investors and create buzz. Part of our goal is to change the stereotype about Arabia." 
It's also not all about Silicon Valley; the fund will also connect startups to investors and opportunities in Europe, Turkey, and other global markets. 
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Nina [nine-uh] is the Editor-in-Chief at Wamda. You can reach her through Wamda, on Twitter @9aa, on Facebook, Google+ or at nina [AT] wamda.com. ]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/new-vc-sinbad-ventures-to-focus-on-early-stage-global-web-and-mobile-companiesWed, 16 May 2012 10:54:00 +0000 Before jumping to conclusions, let me make these points clear: The organization of the whole competition was top-notch.  The message of entrepreneurship was taken to most corners of Egypt.  All of the competition finalists were good prospects, and many were very innovative. The 10 minute final presentations the teams made to the judges were mostly polished affairs, vastly superior to the presentations we’ve seen at similar smaller competitions.
The final ceremony itself was a beautifully lavish affair in Fairmont Nile City hotel, atop the roof garden, great food and super company overlooking the beautiful Cairo skyline.  Those attending mingled freely in the relaxing atmosphere, and laughter was heard frequently.  Even the expectant finalists joked with each other while anxiously waiting the final decision.  
There were rousing speeches by Wael Fakharany (Google's regional manager for the Middle East & North Africa, and the driving force behind the competition), Mohammed Gawdat (Wael’s boss’s boss and Google’s business manager for emerging markets), Hisham Wahby (Chief Executive Officer of Innoventures, the venture capital (VC) firm that organised the competition), and Essam Sharaf (former prime minister of Egypt and current president of Egyptian non-governmental organization Science Age Society, a key competition partner and rumored to be a big source of competition funds).  All extolled the virtues of entrepreneurship, telling the audience that it is the small & medium enterprise sector that will “fix” and “grow” Egypt, and they were at pains to enforce the idea that all of the finalists were winners. That last statement was indeed true; all the teams received great publicity and mentorship, and grew considerably because of the process. Investors are, in fact, lined up for most of the teams.  Khalid Ismail, managing director of Intel Mobile Communications and one of the judges, revealed that he would be personally investing in 3 or 4 teams.  Sahar Al Sallab, another judge and possibly Egypt’s top female financier, announced that she was close to launching 3 VC startup funds.
It was a night packed with highs, a night that brought to light tantalizing possibilities. Furthermore, the winning idea, bey2ollak, had a solid product,  great prospects, an excellent team, and huge potential for growth.  Judges’ decisions are always subjective, so why the overwhelmingly adverse reaction to the judges’ choice?
Put simply, the competition was called Start With Google.  Bey2ollak did not “start” with Google; they started in 2010.  They were already a well functioning company, with a big user base, and Vodafone as a partner. The Twitterati were quick with the mockery and jokes, one favourite was that Omar Effendi would enter the next “start” competition. Omar Effendi is one of Egypt’s oldest department stores.
The organisers were asked repeatedly why relatively established companies were allowed in the competition at all, let alone chosen to reach the final.  The answer we got was that this was business; you had to compete with whatever competition was around, that “life was not fair!” Yet reading between the lines, it became clear why this winner was chosen.  They wanted a winner that would put Egypt on the entrepreneurial map, so they minimised their risk and chose the team with the most existing traction, as it was still “technically” a start-up.
So for all the revolutionary speeches, the one revolutionary idea missed was transparency.  If the competition had been called “Grow” with Google, and the judging criteria and honest goal had been stated clearly beforehand, everyone would have respected the choice of winner, even if they didn’t agree with it.
Cold hard statistics show that Facebook and Twitter benefitted far more from the Egyptian revolution than the other way around.  And one can’t help but think that Google wanted to benefit from this competition far more than Egypt’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.  As it stands, many in Egypt’s entrepreneurial ecosystem are left with a slightly bitter taste of Google.
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Omar Aysha is a former video-game developer, turned IT entrepreneur, turned writer, who now has a few media projects in development.]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/google-s-ebda2-competition-in-egypt-ends-with-controversyWed, 16 May 2012 07:53:48 +0000 The company, which founder Hamza Aboulfeth initially launched in 2007, is, according to him, the only web hosting and domain name registration company in North Africa that is registered with ICANN, and banks its product on being more affordable than most hosting services in the U.S. Europe, while having better customer service and security than its local competitors. 
Aboulfeth, who dropped out of college at the end of 2008 to continue running the startup, began a freelance hosting service for friends and acquaintances at the age of 15. "I charged my first client $5 a month," he recalls. 
After saving up money from initial hosting jobs, he founded Genious Communications on his own in 2007, at the age of 21, with only $10,000. He brought his brother on board to run the headquarters in Marrakech, and has since grown the company to a team of 20 people with three satellite offices, two in Casablanca and one in Rabat.
This week, the company has re-launched not just their interface, but their fundamental offerings, adding connectivity to a content delivery network (CDN) as well as cloud hosting services through OnApp. "Nobody else is offering cloud services in Morocco right now," says Aboulfeth. With cloud services, the company has been able to cut current prices by 30% as well, and 150 clients are now taking advantage of the service, which helps increase site loading speed. 
The site has also launched a "Genious Kit," which provides users with a customizable web template in English or French, and soon in Arabic, with domain name and hosting included. Critically for scalability, all of the site's services, including the Genious Kit, are now automated.  
When asked why a website owner in the Arab World would host through Genious Communications instead of one of his well-known global competitors, Aboulfeth points to his native customer service. "Our customer service is more localized. We speak the language and we know our customers. A site like GoDaddy or HostGator has millions of clients; we have thousands, and we know them well. We'll maintain this quality of service as we scale." 
Scaling is next on the horizon for the budding startup. "We want to go international," says Aboulfeth. "To Beirut, Algeria, Tunisia, and the region, offering the best products and support for the Arabic language." He plans to open an office In Dubai by 2013.  
The fact that it took five years for Genious Communications to scale speaks both to Aboulfeth's bootstrapped approach as well as the challenges of launching a web-based startup in Morocco. "We have a serious problem with the internet in Morocco," Aboulfeth admits. It's very slow and not stable." It's also difficult to register .ma sites, as these are managed by Maroc Telecom, and the price is fixed. "It can take 3 days to register," he says. A lack of support from banks and a generally nascent ecosystem keeps startups small, he says.  
Yet Genious has been able to scale because of a single factor: customer satisfaction. Its products are by no means globally unique. To compete in a bigger pool, it will likely have to ensure that customers continue to receive the good care they have grown used to. 
If the company can manage that, it may just fulfill Aboulfeth's dream of becoming the biggest Arabic web host worldwide.
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Nina [nine-uh] is the Editor-in-Chief at Wamda. You can reach her through Wamda, on Twitter @9aa, on Facebook, Google+ or at nina [AT] wamda.com. ]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/moroccan-entrepreneur-finds-opportunity-in-web-hostingTue, 15 May 2012 15:23:00 +0000 "I started thinking about the idea back in 1994 when I got my first internet connection and just fell in love with the World Wide Web, but I only launched in 2000 because I waited for the number of internet users in Morocco to increase," says Filali.Filali refused to take on any funding for his business over the past 12 years, but looking at the rising competition, especially with e-commerce and daily deals websites like Soukaffaires, Dubizzle, MyDeal, Hmizate, SuperDeal and others in the Moroccan online market, he is starting to flirt with the idea. "Some competitors like Soukaffaires started with investments and are spending a lot of money on marketing, so they will definitely get visitors," says Filali.Maroc Annonces also never spent any money on marketing during its 12 years. The only commodity spent intensely was time, says Filali. "16 hours of work per day and no vacation!", he recalls. When asked about his challenges, he hesitated. "Some excepted difficulties, not real challenges, were monitoring the listed ads and keeping the site clean from scams, other than this, I can't think of any challenges," says Filali.The website has been self-sustaining for a long time now, insuring a regular revenue stream from advertisement and premium ads. Being widely spread all over Morocco, Maroc Annonces has managed to build up a large degree of trust with his clients over the years. Even with more than 150 classified ads companies (online and offline) in the country, Filali doesn't feel threatened at all, but more motivated to rise to the challenge by working on a soon-to-be-launched mobile application, introducing online payments and payment vouchers, and heading further into online retail. "I am working on an e-commerce website now, still in its very early stages," says Filali. The company's maturity reflects the evolution of the Moroccan ecosystem. As one of four countries in the world who go by internet laws, along with France and the US, and ranking third in Africa after Nigeria and Egypt with a 49% internet penetration rate, reaching 16 million users, according to the latest reports of the Internet World Stats, Morocco is slowly but surely developing a startup-friendly ecosystem that is encouraging young entrepreneurs to start an online business.
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Maya works as the managing editor at Wamda. She is also founder of Jaridtak.com and a big believer in the power of citizen journalism. She is a multimedia journalist and a digital media trainer and instructor. She holds a masters degree in digital media production from the University of Toulon, France. You can reach her at maya[AT] wamda.com, find her on Twitter @RahalMaya or connect with her on LinkedIn.
]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/maroc-annonces-pioneering-online-classified-ads-in-moroccoTue, 15 May 2012 14:10:00 +0000 They've been growing the company in terms of revenue 10 times every 5 years, Shady says, lately benefitting from assistance from entrepreneurship support organization Endeavor since T.A. Telecom was selected as an Endeavor entrepreneur in 2011. He advises young entrepreneurs to test, test, test, and be open to feedback. 
"It's important not to [simply] take someone's opinion on an idea. If you believe in a service, you need to really test. We've learned to double down once it's generating cash and it's a scalable project," says Shady.
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You can find Endeavor, an organization that helps promising entrepreneurs unleash their potential, on Facebook and Twitter @endeavor_global.]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/secrets-for-scaling-a-mobile-services-company-to-success-amr-shady-of-t-a-telecomTue, 15 May 2012 13:14:00 +0000 Sarah is co-founder of Snook, a Scottish service design agency. She started her entrepreneurial life when she won a Social Innovation Camp startup competition in 2009, with a feedback tool between public and police, called MyPolice. The success of the tool led to government agencies asking Sarah to redesign their services to better serve their customers. She refocuses service on the customer, as more often than not the customer’s experience is the last thing on an organisation’s mind.
Many of us have heard of being customer-centric before, and designing a user experience that delights.  This holds true whether your service is delivered through a mobile app, or face to face.  Yet traditional methods of service design can be long-winded. We’ve all seen the complicated flow-charts, mind-maps, customer surveys, and guesswork that can be involved. Sarah’s method was different.
The workshop was more like an improvisational acting class; there wasn’t a paper or pen in sight.  Role-play was the name of the game.  Get people to act as the customers, the employees, and even the objects they use.  In this instance we were told to act out the scene in an Egyptian driver licensing office.  One person became the desk, one the government employee, and everyone else wanted to get their license done and rushed the desk together. No one can deny that this is a familiar scene in Egypt. Of course none of the customers were happy.  So Sarah told everyone to re-design the experience, not to discuss the changes, just act them out so that others could get the drift. 
The group went through around a dozen iterations, the service evolving every time, until they all reached a system that appeared to please all.  One person was a ticket machine, every customer got a number, and waited their turn.  When their turn came they went to the desk and spent a short time filling in the “paperwork”.  Perfect ... until one customer went to the desk but only spent a second there.  When asked why she was so quick, she said it was because she’d “bribed” the employee to rush her application through!  So another re-design was in order, one that took bribery out of the equation.
This simple role-playing exercise was fun, effective, and surprisingly efficient.  The team had achieved in 30 minutes what an expensive business process analyst might have taken 2 months to do. It also engaged whole the team, so everyone bought into the final service. 
Literally put yourself into your customer’s experience, and you’re bound to design a service that your customer will be happy to use, and recommend. And a consistently happy and growing customer base means a bright future for your company.
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Omar Aysha is a former video-game developer, turned IT entrepreneur, turned writer, who now has a few media projects in development.]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/how-to-design-better-customer-service-by-actingTue, 15 May 2012 11:30:00 +0000 The Arab physician's network now allows any doctor to sign up an answer questions on AlTibbi, while giving users the ability to can "follow" doctors and view recent answers and responses in a news feed upon sign-in. Through this network, users can get opinions from verified physicians from around the region and communicate directly with them on the site. 
It's a big step forward in terms of opening up the physician community on AlTibbi, says Amman-based founder and CEO Jalil Allabadi. "Before, several of these elements- patient's questions, doctor's posts, and patient feedback- were siloed on AlTibbi. Now they are completely connected, and doctors can open their networks to provide services to a broader community of patients." 
The system is designed so that only doctors can vet each other's comments by clicking an "Agree" button; replies with the most "Agrees" rise to the top of the discussion. Patients can also now click a "Thank" button to thank doctors, and access them directly for follow-up, all through the automated site. With 100 physicians joining AlTibbi daily, it promises to become the largest medical-focused social network in the region.  
As we reported in February, AlTibbi already answers 150-200 questions a day on its site, and has taken strides to build from an Arabic medical dictionary of 65,000 medical terms to a 1.2 million-page site that also boasts over 105 interactive education videos in Arabic.
But its biggest coup may be launching the first fully Arabic symptom checker, under the name "مشخص الطبي". This now allows patients to quickly diagnose their symptoms through an automated series of questions, or browse related conditions, with the caveat that they should always seek out a doctor for confirmation rather than take an online diagnosis as final.  
While symptom checkers are prolific on other sites, none have been released in Arabic thus far. The process was far from simple, says Allabadi. While AlTibbi considered buying a symptom-checker from established U.S.-based medical portals, the team realized that building one to suit the Arab World would involve far more than simply translating a set of terms into Arabic. 
"Symptoms are related to cultures," Allabadi points out. "We wanted to target the top 100 conditions that people suffer from the most in our culture, not simply import another culture's conditions." 
To accurately capture the region's ailments, AlTibbi used its own data to connect the 100 most frequent symptoms with 10,000 related conditions, working with doctors and programmers for 5 months to build a fully functional diagnosis tool. While several other startups in the region have pitched the idea of creating one, no one has built a diagnosis platform that's completely native. "Another startup founder recently asked me how much we paid for our platform, because that's the default assumption," Allabadi says. "I had to explain that we actually built it ourselves."
In future iterations, AlTibbi will add specializations for sexes and ages, and more specific and rarer conditions. For now, the platform continues to be a trailblazer. The site already has iOS and Android apps; next up, hopefully we will see the apps incorporating the symptom checker to boost on-the-go accessibility. 
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Nina [nine-uh] is the Editor-in-Chief at Wamda. You can reach her through Wamda, on Twitter @9aa, on Facebook, Google+ or at nina [AT] wamda.com. ]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/arabic-medical-portal-altibbi-launches-symptom-checkerTue, 15 May 2012 09:21:00 +0000 "Whatever you start, whatever idea you're getting, or doing, have a passion about it. Believe in it," she says." And please, do not think about failing before you start. It's an option that you keep in the back of your mind, but it should never be in front of you. Always think, 'I'll make it work."]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/facing-down-the-challenges-to-entrepreneurship-in-egypt-shereen-allam-of-awtadMon, 14 May 2012 15:34:00 +0000 Once you've specified your goals, it's also important to be willing to adapt and be flexible in enacting that vision; the path to reaching it may not be what you thought it was (in fact, it's rarely exactly what you plan out). You might have to erase, re-draw, pivot, and re-form in order to get there. But staying focused on a final vision of what you want will keep you- and your team- motivated. It will also help you stay balanced as you keep the broader picture in mind. 
Try it now. What are the top 5 things that you'd like to manifest this year?
]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/define-what-you-want-in-life-pic-of-the-weekMon, 14 May 2012 14:35:00 +0000 In the late 1980’s, Japanese engineer and birdwatcher Eiji Nakatsu studied the splashless water entry of kingfishers and the noise-reduction property of owl wings, and applied this knowledge in the design of the Shinkansen train. The new biomimetic design was not only 10% faster than previous models, it also consumed 15% less electricity and produced much less noise (residents near the tracks were delighted!).
One of the most prominent characteristics of innovators is a discovery-driven spirit that is constantly scrutinizing the world for new ideas. Many people think breakthrough innovations are the result of isolated, sophisticated thinking and research, but this is rarely the case.
History’s leading innovators and creative minds have always researched outside of the lab. When design firm IDEO was asked to renovate the computer science building at the University of California, what the faculty staff had in mind were high-tech classrooms and laboratories, futuristic fanciness and whatnot.
“When we looked at the way learning was happening we found that a good deal of it took place in the hallways, in between spaces, not in the classrooms at all” explains IDEO creative director Jane Fulton-Suri. This observation led to an entirely different model of the new buildings. Rather than focusing solely on classrooms and laboratories, more emphasis was put on circulation spaces to further encourage impromptu gatherings and collaborative learning.
This human-centered approach dates back to the rule of Umar ibn al-Khatab when he noticed that people engaged in a lot of chit-chat and arguments in the mosque. Instead of suppressing the chatter altogether, he provided people with an alternative by designating a space for discussion – just outside the mosque – known as al butayha’.
Innovation also happens when seemingly unrelated ideas and concepts are juxtaposed. When Digital Domain started working on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, they realized there was “a giant chasm” between the technology of the day and where they needed it to be to achieve high-resolution computer-generated facial expressions. So the producers started looking in other fields and combined findings from medical imaging technology, the games industry, and psychology.
This peripheral vision was crucial to the success of Digital Domain. Had they not observed and borrowed ideas from neighbouring disciplines, they may never have been able to produce such high quality production and transcend the limits of technology.
Sustainable and elegant solutions are more likely to emerge when problem-solvers leave their ivory towers and watch people in their natural habitats, collaborate across disciplines or simply examine nature. “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”
Here are few tips that you can apply to turn observation into a natural practice in your organization:

Train your eye to pick up solutions for the problems you’re trying to solve. To master this skill you must really cultivate your mind and inform yourself. One of Fadi Ghandour’s rules for being an entrepreneur is “Listen. An entrepreneur has to have the ability to listen more than he talks. Across industries as well.” Make sure you thoroughly examine other disciplines and industries, get ideas from insightful platforms (TED, StumbleUpon, etc.), and talk to all kinds of experts. Take regular walks in urban and natural environments, and read a lot – it’ll expand your horizons.  
Hire “anthropologists”. If you want fresh and insightful observations, you have to dedicate a few members of your team to camp out in schools, hospitals, malls, and bookstores, and watch how people behave in different environments and with various objects. Look for the subtleties and pay attention to details. How can you make their experience more pleasant? Anthropologists help your organization “develop a deep understanding of how people interact physically and emotionally with products, services, and spaces,” to quote Tom Kelly of IDEO. 
Hire cross-pollinators. While anthropologists bring depth of understanding, cross-pollinators enjoy a breadth of knowledge in many fields. Cross-pollinators help tackle issues from different perspectives and specialize in finding solutions in other industries. Let cross-pollinators in your organization give weekly one-hour presentations of “what’s out there.” This will help your team switch cognitive gears and approach problems from a new angle. Cross-pollinators open windows to the world outside the four walls of your organization. Stephen Johnson’s motto is: “Chance favours the connected mind." 
Document everything. Keep a database of all your personal and collective discoveries, and visit your entries every once in a while. It doesn’t have to be all text; you can arm your anthropologists with video cameras and label the recordings for future reference. Find the easiest way to store and organize the knowledge you collect in a way that suits your organization – you may want to hire a curator.

Observation is an essential skill that can greatly benefit entrepreneurs, researchers, students, and potentially anyone looking for answers to challenging questions. In the previous article I mentioned the importance of observing people’s behavior (away from artificial settings) when trying to develop a solution to their needs. The truth is, it is unlikely for an innovation to have a social impact if it is not guided by an empathetic understanding of people’s needs.
To conclude, I’d like to quote Tom Kelly again (because he’s awesome): “People who adopt the learning roles are humble enough to question their own worldview, and in doing so they remain open to new insights every day.”
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Oubai is a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering at McGill University. He is interested in crowd-driven innovation and multidisciplinary collaborations. His main passion is human-design interaction and the role design plays in shaping society and culture. Oubai is also the cofounder of the Arab Development Initiative. You can reach him @obeikurdy.]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/4-ways-to-create-a-culture-of-observation-at-your-startupMon, 14 May 2012 10:13:26 +0000 She advised people looking for investment should think of their presentation in two halves:
Content: What are you going to say?

What’s the problem you want to solve? Clearly define it, and be specific.
 
What’s your solution? Explain the idea, how it links to the problem, what you’ll provide, how you’ll provide it, and how you’ll operate. 
What market research have you done? Who are the paying customers & competitors? How do you there’s a gap in the market? What’s the pricing strategy? 
What’s the impact? Who benefits, and how do they benefit? Is there any impact on the environment? What’s the economic impact? 
What are your timescales? List the key activities in the first 3, 6, and 12 months. 
How will you use the investment? How much do you need? Why do you need it? Prove that you’re not wasting money. How far will this money take you? Can you get support by bartering? 
How will you sustain your idea? What skills & experience are in your team, who’s leading? Who’s missing and how will you get them? Where’s the money coming from.

Style: How are you going to say it?

Be passionate: show your drive & motivation, because people buy people. 
Be clear, and use simple language: don’t be tortuously Byzantine in your explicatory verbosity. 
Be concise: too long is too bad. 
Repeat the key message: tell them what you’ll say, say it, then tell them that you said it. 
Structure your message: have a clear beginning, middle, and end. 
Practice: practice, practice, then practice your delivery some more.  
Be honest: investors can tell, so if you don’t know, just say you’re “looking into it.” 
Listen: critical comments or tough questions can help you see blind spots, or be buying signals. 

In closing, Karen summarized her advice in the following top tips.
Karen’s Top Tips

Show your motivation, drive, and passion.
Prepare & practice your presentation.
Take calculated risks and innovate.
Learn from failures.
Be ambitious, think big and aim high, but start small.

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Omar Aysha is a former video-game developer, turned IT entrepreneur, turned writer, who now has a few media projects in development. ]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/15-tips-for-pitching-to-investors-from-culture-shift-in-cairoMon, 14 May 2012 08:13:00 +0000 "It's very important and beneficial to everybody that young people get to know about entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship at such an early stage of their life, so that they know their full potential, and how they can be, one, impacting the society, and second, making their dreams come true," says Daher. ]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/the-importance-of-social-entrepreneurship-for-the-arab-world-rama-chakaki-and-roland-daherSun, 13 May 2012 14:12:00 +0000 In a chat this winter, Houry and El-Fadl revealed to Wamda some upcoming changes on the platform, which they plan to launch within the next year: along with a new interface, tasmeemME will launch ratings and reviews to enhance feedback, and tutorials to teach creative job seekers about their rights in the business, in terms of intellectual property, copyrights, and even negotiating fees. 
“When I started in the business as a graphic designer, I had no idea what my rights were,” said CEO El-Fadl. “We want to educate creatives and become a one-stop-shop for anything you need in the creative sector; the Craigslist of creative work." 
Part of that vision includes taking an active role in leading design competitions. This month, tasmeemME has launched a global competition, in partnership with Palestinian NGO Welfare Association, to design a new logo for the upcoming Palestinian Museum based in Birzeit. 
The Palestinian museum, which aims to become a global hub for Palestinian culture worldwide, is committed to strengthening links among Palestinian communities and reinforcing their connections to the land of Historic Palestine, through the museum's branches and global exhibitions. 
The competition is encouraging designers to create a logo that can represent the multi-faceted institution on a global stage. “We have decided to reach out to talented designers around the world to get a design that we can truly adopt as the ‘face’ of the museum,” says Dr. Faris Nimry, Director of the Palestinian Museum. “It is the first thematic museum of its kind in Palestine bridging the old and the new, giving it a fresh and international feel that will encourage youth to get involved.” 
First place will be awarded $1,500, second place  $1,000, and third place $750.
“We are very excited to be managing this competition and to be part of this one-of-a-kind initiative for such a great cause,” El-Fadl said, in a statement. “Having had the chance to come across the incredible caliber of creativity in our region, we are really looking forward to seeing really great designs!”
Participants can submit as many designs as they wish until the deadline, which is May 20th- only one week is left. The competition is open to anyone aged 18 years and over who is not acting on behalf of any company or organization. Apply now on the tasmeemME competition site (and check out the technical specifications and competition guidelines, or email competition@tasmeemme.com for more information).
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Nina [nine-uh] is the Editor-in-Chief at Wamda. You can reach her through Wamda, on Twitter @9aa, on Facebook, Google+ or at nina [AT] wamda.com. ]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/tasmeemme-announces-palestinian-museum-logo-design-competitionSun, 13 May 2012 13:07:00 +0000 Competing Teams

Meshabbek (“connected”): Won 1st prize of EGP 30,000  A web-based match-making service designed to connect people from the arts together to collaborate and share knowledge, and also connect them with the producers and suppliers that are, at present, hard to locate. 
Torathna (“our heritage”): Won joint 2nd prize of EGP 10,000 A web-based book-club designed to encourage Arabs to read and share Arabic books.  Also includes an offline book-scanner to allow the digitisation and sharing of rare and out-of-print books.  The book-scanner hardware and software are based on open-source technology, and can be built for a fraction of the price of similar commercial systems. 
Tour Story: Won joint 2nd prize of EGP 10,000 A mobile app tour guide.  Using either QR codes or image recognition (e.g. from Google Goggles), the user’s phone recognises the building, monument, or location, and presents the user with relevant facts and links. 
ididi: Won a month’s mentorship from Gemiza Geolocation-based web/mobile app to connect creatives so that they can help each other achieve their goals by motivating each other and sharing knowledge. 
Quest.ly: A mobile app that provides “the next level in tourism.”  The user is given “quests” of increasing difficulty to fulfil e.g. "eat koshary," "travel on the metro," "haggle with a shopkeeper."  Challenges are crowsourced from locals. Points are awarded for completing these challenges, and the user attains higher levels of local expertise, going from “foreigner” all the way up to “local.”  A very interesting idea, it gamifies the travel experience, giving the user an experience outside the ordinary, in a safe and fun way. 
7eita w Zeita (“wall and hullabaloo”): A geo-location based web and mobile app designed to document, encourage, and monetise revolutionary street art.  Graffiti artists can upload geo-tagged photos of their graffiti. People can then view graffiti they normally wouldn’t be able to see, and an archive is built up of the art before it’s lost.  People can also ask artists to decorate their walls and have a street party at the same time, with musicians and other artists.  Graffiti artists can also have their designs sold on apparel.

Judges

Moataz Nasr El-Din: Artist and founder of Darb 1718, the Egyptian contemporary art & culture center Particularly liked the “7eita wi Zeita” idea as it addressed the problem graffiti had of “how can I legitimately make money from my art?” 
Karen McGregor: Social investor with FirstPort in Scotland Really liked “Torathna” as it touched the “hearts and minds” of the society. 
Tarek Naga: Architect and founder of Naga Studio In love with the Egypt centric clever wording of “Meshabbek”, and how the team provided a “practical & realistic solution.” 
Hesham Wahby: VC, founder & CEO of innoventures

Local partners

Kijamii: The social media marketing agency that organised things locally.  Set up the agency after their success founding TEDxCairo.  Definitely ones to watch. 
Eventtus: The company all about events. 2 of the 3 founders are female.  They have a mobile app coming out that promises something new. 
Cairo Hacker Space:  These guys build things, from food, to electronics, to carpentry, to software. 
Start Up Weekend Cairo & TEDxCairo: No introductions needed.
]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/cairo-culture-shift-teamsSun, 13 May 2012 10:12:00 +0000 Events in Egypt of this type have been increasing steadily for over a year, but what made this different was that it focused on culture, or to be more precise, startups that aim to dramatically change the culture and solve current cultural challenges. 
The overall format of the weekend was very similar to Startup Weekend, i.e. people propose ideas for startups, form teams, spend the weekend developing the business, then present their prototypes and business plans at the end of weekend for a panel of judges to decide the winners.  The cultural context, however, manifested itself in various ways.
Firstly, this event was not developer-led. Developers usually start with a definite solution in mind, whereas the teams here started by focusing on the problem they wanted to solve.  Teams went through many iterations of possible solutions, even on the final day, before agreeing on a business model.  This meant that by the end of the weekend there were no functioning prototypes.  The services or products that resulted were also lacking in definition, but what was interesting was that the overall impact on the target community was very clearly defined.
Although one team handbuilt the frame of a book scanner, unsurprisingly all the teams came up with business models that relied heavily on mobile or web apps. Graffiti was the focus of one team; artists were the target for 2 teams; and book readers the focus of a third. Half of the the teams decided that they preferred a not-for-profit model.
The organisers decided to only allow 6 ideas to be developed, which meant the teams were larger than normal.  The smallest team had 6 members, the largest had 14!  This meant there was an inevitable clash of egos, organisational challenges, and the teams were forced to fuse two or three ideas into one.  Some teams managed this, some didn’t. However, it appeared to me that this was all part of the plan, a sort of controlled chaos. It certainly put most participants out of their comfort zone, and to be fair most of them thrived in the atmosphere.
A few people privately wondered whether using Fairmont Towers as the venue was the best choice, as the money saved using another venue could have easily doubled the prize money.  Saying that, the food was very good, and the attendees were able to focus on the job in hand in a relaxed yet industrious manner.
When it was time for the final presentations, a couple of the teams got creative.  One team performed a costume comedy skit to illustrate the problem they were solving, and one performed a song and dressed in matching spray-painted t-shirts.  The presentations were memorable for another reason. One participant, Sarmady founder Con O’Donnell, noted during his presentation that, because he was a capitalist, he didn’t believe in solutions that “rely on handouts to survive.” It was a bit of bravado, and it backfired, as the team ended up winning nothing. This proves that even experienced entrepreneurs can get caught up in the moment and misjudge their audience.  Still, I’m pretty sure that their chances of success are unaffected, and he’ll forge ahead with the project regardless.
The artistic flair and energy didn’t end with the presentations. While the judges deliberated, the organisers treated everyone else to a noisy communal drumming session. Everyone joined in the fun, and some of us had very sore hands by the end! 
When the time came, sore hands didn’t stop everyone from genuinely applauding the overall winner, Meshabbek.  There was general consensus amongst judges and attendees alike that their plan to connect artists with each other and with producers was well-needed and well thought out.  And as they had the biggest team, there was also appreciation of how they all worked together effectively.
It was a refreshing event all around.  Many new faces were introduced to the start-up community, and the start-up community was introduced to a new way of creating start-ups.  The key is creativity, in all its guises.
To learn more about the teams that pitched at the Culture Shift event, read our complete list.]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/creating-a-cairo-culture-shiftSun, 13 May 2012 09:23:00 +0000 Al Zahhar shares that writing the business model was one of the hardest part of the process. "Putting your ideas on paper and making sure your message is coming through was one of my biggest challenges," he says.]]>http://www.wamda.com/2012/05/ana-academy-turning-talent-into-entrepreneurshipSun, 13 May 2012 07:12:00 +0000