Mariam Atoui recently founded Wasselni, a startup specialized in developing mobile and web applications tackling traffic and transport problems across the Arab world. Currently, the startup operated from the Business and Technology Incubator (BTI) in Gaza. 

The service helps people find others to carpool with to decrease traffic in congested cities across the region. Wasselni plans to first launch in Cairo and Amman "where the traffic is intense and the market is open to these types of services and applications," Atoui. 

The Egyptian capital seems to be attracting a lot of these kinds of apps. Interestingly, there is an Egyptian application with the same exact name doing similar work in Cairo already; Wasalny automatically crowdsources traffic data through mobile phones' GPS modules.

Atoui doesn’t consider Wasalny a competitor, however, she insists that it’s just "a coincidence of choosing the same name, since the applications offer different services." Check out this interview with Atoui to learn more about starting Wasselni from Gaza.