Arabic Digital Content Conference Content Arabia on the 7th of this month in Amman, Jordan

The first regional conference about Arabic digital content ContentArabia.me will be held in Amman Jordan in the 7th of November 2012 under the patronage of price Hassan Bin Talal and with the attendance of many official and non governmental organizations in addition to many parties involved in the production of Arabic digital content.

The event will bring 28 speakers who have different background in Internet technologies, electronic publishing, culture and media from a number of Arab countries.

This conference comes from the need to bring experts from all Arab countries to meet and discus ways to innovate and also to shed the light on successful stories that would help bring progress in Arabic content production and its quality in order to spread knowledge in the wider Arab world.

The sessions of the conference will include discussion of real examples and analysis of the obstacles that faces the industry.

To register to the event go here.

PS: ArabCrunch is a media partner to the event.

Former NASA Astronaut Marsh Ivins in Jordan to Hold a Number of Lectures and Workshops

The U.S. Embassy in Amman is hosting former NASA astronaut Marsha Ivins from March 21-26, 2012, for a number of lectures and workshops in Aqaba, Ma’an, Tafeeleh, Irbid, Mafraq and Amman, to meet and inspire Jordanian youth and share through presentations her experience as a pioneer woman astronaut in space exploration and space research.
Ivins, who is a veteran of five space flights, has recently retired from NASA, the U.S. Space Agency in 2010. Marsha Ivins spent over 1318 hours in space to perform a study in the field of space engineering.

Marsha Ivins graduated from the University of Colorado in aerospace engineering and holds a multi-engine Airline Transport Pilot License, and she has logged over 7,000 hours in civilian and NASA aircraft.
Her speaking program will share the experience of space exploration to develop interest in science among the young people of Jordan.

We will try to get the schedule and location of her workshops and update here at AC.

Eid Al Adha Mubarak 2011 عيد اضحى مبارك

As an estimated three million pilgrims have gathered yesterday on the plains of Arafat in Mecca for a key rite of Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage. Worldwide, around two billion Muslims are celebrating the holiday known as Eid Al Adha.

In this occasion ArabCrunch greets every Muslims worldwide: Eid Mubarak and may God bless you. And for our readers who are not Muslim, we say: Happy Saturated and may God guide you and us to the best.

You’ll find interesting information about the holiday of Eid-ul-Adha and about the Hajj at the following links.

-Eid-ul-Adha (the Festival of Sacrifice) is celebrated throughout the Muslim world as a commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim’s (PBUH) willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Eid-ul-Adha is celebrated on the tenth day of the month of Zul-Hijja.

-The Hajj, or pilgrimage to Makkah is a central duty of Islam whose origins date back to the time of Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH). It brings together Muslims of all races and tongues for one of life’s most moving spiritual experiences. For 14 centuries, countless millions of Muslims, men and women from all over the world, have made the pilgrimage to Makkah, the birthplace of Islam. In carrying out this obligation, they fulfill one of the five “pillars” of Islam, or central religious duties of the believer.
(source:�Ummah 2.o)

For more detailed explanations of the rich history and traditions of Islam, feel free to visit the following sites:

Islam Guide.

Islam Web

Islamic Tube

Just Quran

Best Islamic Sites

Sisters Magazine

#pic from Aljazeera English.

Former director of the CIA and NSA is the keynote speaker at Black Hat Abu Dhabi 2011

General  Michael Hayden, United States Air Force (USAF), Retired, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Deputy Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) is the keynote speaker at Black Hat Abu Dhabi.  He will share his insights on “cyber security and cyber threats in a changing world”.

lack Hat, the world’s leading information security conference, will take place from the 12th to 15th December 2011 at Emirates Palace.  The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) represented by the UAE Computer Emergency Response Team (aeCERT), in cooperation with Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research (KUSTAR) with UBM are responsible for bringing Black Hat to the Middle East for the second year in a row.

Mohammed Al Nasser Al Ghanim, Director General, TRA, and aeCERT said, “We are extremely pleased to have General Hayden as the keynote speaker for Black Hat Abu Dhabi 2011; as security continues to be at the top of the list of priorities for enterprises and governments in the region, his experience in running two of the most well respected security agencies in the world will provide invaluable insight to CIOs in the region.”

General Michael Hayden, Ret. served as director of the CIA (2006-2009) and deputy director of National Intelligence (2005-2006) when world events were changing at an accelerated rate.  He was also appointed to the post of director of the NSA from 1999-2005 by President Clinton.

Black Hat Abu Dhabi will offer a full range of sessions, including ten training programmes, followed by three briefing sessions running simultaneously to the exhibition.  The two days of briefings will discuss and demonstrate the latest and most important security issues facing the market today.

TedXRamallah April 16, 2011 In Bethlehem, Beirut, Amman and Around the World

In the spirit of spreading positive, inspiring stories from Palestine, a group of young volunteers started TEDxRamallah, the first TEDx event in Palestine and Jordan to be held in April 16, 2011.  TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-LIKE experience.

TEDxRamallah will take place in Bethlehem on April 16^th with simultaneous events in Beirut and Amman. Over 20 cities will also simulcast the event, reaching areas as far as Shanghai, Montreal and Reykjavik and as near as Damascus, Dubai and Riyadh.

Some of TEDxRamallah, the speakers include, Gisel Kordestani director of New Business Development at Google for Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Suad Amiry a Palestinian architect, author of “Sharon and my Mother in-Law: Ramallah Diaries”, Fadi Ghandour founder and CEO of Aramex, a global logistics and transportation solutions provider, Rim Banna Palestinian singer, lyricist and composer. Julia Bacha an award-winning filmmaker who has worked on films exhibited at the Sundance, Berlin, Jerusalem, and Dubai International Film Festivals, and broadcast on Al Arabiya television among other channels, Mohammad Khatib is a Palestinian refugee who grew up in Arroub Camp originally from a village called Qastina. co-founder Bazinga! a startup catalyst and a tech hub in Ramallah, Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is the godfather of Arab accounting, also credited for promoting the significance of Intellectual Property in the Arab region. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon appointed Abu-Ghazaleh, as vice chair of the UN Global Compact at the UN headquarters in New York. He was born in 1938 in Jaffa, Palestine. Wael Attili  co-founder and chief creative officer of Kharabeesh Network and many more.

If you want to attend You can register here deadline is  13th of April, you can support the event by adding a twibbon to your Twitter or Facebook profile, or follow the event page on Facebook or Twitter pages.

Disclosure: ArabCrunch is a media partner to TedXRamallah.

Social Media & Email Marketing Summit Cairo- 20-21 December 2010

Markedu is brining its top trainer and speaker Michael Leander to train Egyptian marketers in latest methods of social media and email marketing during its Social Media & Email Marketing Summit which will be held in Semiramis Intercontinental hotel in cairo 20th and the 21st of this month.

Michael Leander who is chairman of the Federation of European Direct Marketing’s Interactive Committee will be showcasing topics such as: 5 step action plan, How the social media content concept for communities, social networks and blogs can help you multiply your success, How to manage your social media message streams effectively.

Other speakers of the event include: Dr. Hayk Hakobyan who will be speaking “ignite your audience to start sharing and never stop” and Fady Ramzy “Social Media Marketing in Egypt – key trends and what you can expect to happen in the very near future”

Disclosure: ArabCrunch is a media partner to this event.

Live Video Streaming #ArabCrunchStart First Event in USA!

We announced around a month ago ArabCrunch Ambassadors and ArabCrunchStart initiative, today I am happy to announce the soft launch of the event in Seattle USA, on May 26,2010.

Thanks to Rony Ferzli and Amir Kabbara ArabCrunch Ammbasadors in USA.

ArabCrunchStart global events aim to help, at the grassroots level, entrepreneurs to begin their startup journey and to help tech professionals innovate and excel in their careers.

Here is the live streaming:

http://www.ustream.tv/flash/live/1/4316393Live Videos by Ustream

In our first US event, our guest speaker, Amad Almsaodi, will be sharing his entrepreneurial journey and experience.

Guest speaker: Amad Almsaodi

Date: Wednesday May 26, 2010

Time: 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm

Location: 10400 NE 2nd St, Bellevue, WA 98004

Meeting Agenda:

6:30 – 6:45 pm: Socializing and refreshments

6:45 – 7:00 pm: Quick introduction to ArabCrunch

7:00 – 7:30 pm: Guest speaker talk

7:30 – 8:00 pm: Idea pitching and discussion

Guest speaker: Amad Almsaodi

Bringing Arab and US Communications Experts: #Amandla Forum Will Start Today

Under the them, “communications empowerment” the Amandla forum has lineup some of the top-notch minds to train the regions’ communications professionals in the latest trends in the industry. They include renowned brand transformation strategist, Marty Neumeier, author of bestsellers such as BRAND GAP and ZAG and thomas Gensemer, the CEO of blue stat digital, the company that helped organize president Obama’s campaign, as well s many more.

The forum features hands-on practical training sessions and panelists from the top Internet and media companies in the region such Bayt, Yahoo! Middle East, Flip Media and ArabCrunch.

In the press conference today Thomas highlighted how did the online campaign of president Obama made a success in raising 600 million USD: personal touch, old school door to door campaigning.. the internet just scaled it!

PS: Follow us on ArabCrunch for live blogging from the event and some live video streaming.

Here is the full program:

Day 1:

• 8:00
• Registration
• 9:00
• Opening Ceremony & Amandla Surprise
• 10:00
• Plenary Speaker 1-Thomas Gensemer, Online Strategies
• “Mobilizing Online Communities that Drive Meaningful Results”
• 10:45 Plenary Speaker 2-Marty Neumeier,Brand Strategies  &  Innovation “Are You Zagging Or Lagging?

• 11:30
• Networking Coffee Break              Sunny FM
• 12:00
• Plenary Speaker 3-Bill Orme,  Press and Media Development
• 12:45
• Plenary Speaker 4-Abdel-Rahman Ghandour, Advocacy in the Arab World
• 13:30
• Lunch
• 14:30
• Plenary Speaker 5- Bob Walsh, Public Relations and Advocacy 
                                 “A Conversation with Bob-Public Relations for Public Diplomacy:
                                  “Empowering people to Change the World”
• 15:15
• Networking Coffee Break
• 15:30
• Workshops
• Brand Strategies                                                 Marty Neumeier                            
    “The Zag Workshop”
• Government Communications                          Ed Salazar
    ” Overcoming barriers to communication with Governments “
• Basic Press and Media (Arabic)                        Abdelhamid Abdeljaber
   “Effective Communication Strategies”
• 17:30
• End of First Day
• 20:00
• Gala Dinner

Day 2: 6th May

• ime
• 9:00
• Workshops
• Storytelling                                                PennyLegate                                                              
”The Power Of Storytelling”
• Brand Strategy                                         Marty Neumeier
    “The Zag Workshop”
• Online Strategy                                         Thomas Gensemer & David Nassar
    “How to Develop an Effective Online Communication Strategy”
• Citizen Journalism and New Media     7iber
• 11:00
• Networking Coffee Break
• 11:30
• Sponsor Speech
• 12:00
• Panel -Communications in the Arab World -Moderator Rania Atalla
• • Ahmed Nassef – MD / VP of Yahoo! Middle East
• Anis Salem – Development Works
• Isam Bayazidi – Ikoo
• Laith Zraikat – Jeeran
• Nadine Toukan – UrdunMubdi3 
• Rabea Ataya – Bayt.com
• Saad Abdul Hadi – Al Nasher PR & Advertising
• Yousef Tuqan – Flip Media
• Zeid Nasser- Media Me
• 13:30
• Lunch
• 14:30
• Plenary 6 – David Nassar,Online Strategy Arab World (Embracing the power of Online Communication in the Arab World)
• 15:15
• Coffee Break
• 15:30
• Workshops
• Press and Media Development-                              Bill Orme
”Transparency vs. Thought Control”
• CSR-“Corporate Social Responsibility                   David Nassar
      in The Internet Age”
• Effective Use of Social Networking (Arabic)         Gaith Saqer/ArabCrunch
• 17:30
• Closing Ceremony

( Disclosure: ArabCrunch is a media partner to the event.)

Breaking: Demo Palestine Joins ArabCrunchStart Family, Now Called #ArabCrunchStart #Palestine

Amman, Jordan; Nablus, West Bank – No one denies the hardship that Palestinian brothers are facing in West Bank, starting from the suffering caused by the occupation and the high number of unemployment among Palestinian youth.

A couple of Palestinian youth wanted to do soemthing to start a change, the idea came in one of the meetings of Amr Tamimi, Ayman Awartani, Omar Abu Safieh and Mohammad Asmar. First, they thought of a video community for technologist in Nablus, Palestine. Later, they decided to make it such an event from time to time.

Amr started with his friends with a small event hosted at his dad’s office in Nablus. They called it DEMO.PS It quickly moved to An-Najah National University with more than 80 attendees. The theme of the event was to share experiences and educate the public about Palestinian startup companies and how to make them successful.

Demo.ps organized a series of sessions that talk about many topics, such as:
Startups and innovations
Web applications, and development
E-marketing and solutions for making business
Mobile development
New Technologies
Programming Language
And more …

Today, we are proud to announce that Amr Tamimi is the ArabCrunchStart Ambassador in the West Bank. Amr Numan Tamimi is a very talented student at An-Najah National University, and a well known web developer specializing in Ruby on Rails.

Well, We at ArabCrunch have a clear mission of helping Arabs, Muslims and people in the emerging world to just innovate.

We started 2 years ago with this English blog with only 2 USD investment, then successfully concluded ArabCrunch DEMO, the launchpad event for Arab technologies last year.

At the end of 2009 we launched ArabCrunch in Arabic to bring our vision to everyone we can reach in the Arab world. And in less than a month launched ArabCrunch.NET as the first social platform to connect and empower Arab tech professionals with mentorship and startup Q&A  along with the ecosystem social profiles . Thanks to the backing of Bassel Ojjeh Former Vice President Yahoo!

About one week ago we announced here ArabCrunchStart a global events initiative from ArabCrunch and run in collaboration with AC’s global Ambassadors program, a program which aims to help at the grass root level, entrepreneurs  to start their startups and to help geeks innovate and be come top-notch engineers.

Today, DEMO.PS moves in to its next level, I am glad to announce that DEMO.PS is now part of ArabCrunchStart program and now called ArabCrunchStart #Palestine.

With this announcement ArabCrunch continues playing one of its important roles since day one of its inception, which is bringing the fragmented, emerging and young Arab technology and startup sector together, from Silicon Valley, to Bahrain.

Under this announcement ArabCrunch ambassadors will work closely with private and non – government entities in the West Bank of Palestine promoting entrepreneurship and offer free mentorship to Palestinian youth via ArabCrunch.NET mentorship match making program.

ArabCrunchStartPalestine will work in 2 tracks: startuping and technology advancement, and will host a series of events featuring top notch local and global speakers, startups and highly skilled engineers.

ArabCrunchStartPalestine will also work closely with the Palestinians startup and tech community and help them in any way possible.

DEMO.ps will redirect to ArabCrunchStartPalestine profile on ArabCrunch.NET/StartPalestine and all events will be managed via ArabCrunch.NET upcoming events application.

Quotes:
Gaith Saqer, ArabCrunch Founder.

” At ArabCrunch we started small, using a very old PC. Our brothers at DEMO.PS are young and also started small with almost nothing, but like AC they are growing day by day, and this is what startups are all about,”

” Palestine is in the heart of every Muslim and Arab, serving our Palestinian brothers should be a top priority to anyone. As the only completely independent entity with a full time staff that is focused in helping Arab entrepreneurs, tech professionals and geeks, ArabCrunch is very proud to serve the youth in Palestine”

Amr Tamimi from Demo.ps team:
“ I ‘ve been following ArabCrunch since its inception, I saw its growth day after day, I am honored to be an ArabCrunch Ammbsador in the West Bank and 48 territories. Now by becoming a part of the ArabCrunchStart team DEMO.PS will grow to its next level in helping Palestine youth to innovate at a grass root level”

“Uniting DEMO.PS with ArabCrunchStrat should be a model for all Arab tech professionals. We need unity.”

“Uniting DEMO.PS with ArabCrunchStrat should be a modle for all Arab tech professionals, we need: unity.”

Day Two of the Obama's #eSummit on Entrepreneurship

The opening session featured Larry Summers, Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. He highlighted the fact that growth rates recently have been phenomenal compared to the Industrial Revolution – not by a factor of 2 or 5, but by hundreds. And mainly concentrated in emerging markets. This story will be written by entrepreneurs. Larry shared his belief that Entrepreneurship isn’t just new technologies, it’s new ways of doing business, new perspectives, new organizational methods. Economic growth is “better recipes”, and the path for permanent and continuing change is “the path of innovation”.

The morning session was called “Promoting entrepreneurship and enabling business”, with Karen Mills, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration; Kemal Dervis, Vice President of The Brookings Institution; Obiageli Ezekwesili, Vice President for Africa at the World Bank; Sheikha Hanadi bint Nasser bin Khalid Al Thani, founder and CEO of Amwal; and Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, Founder of Celtel International.

The audience brought up the issue of “culture” several times. Why is the Arab world so failure-averse? Sheikha Hanadi disagreed that it is a problem of culture: it takes 3-4 years to start up a business in the Arab world, and so “failure” means much more than in Silicon Valley, where businesses can restart in a matter of months. This is a key point, suggesting that policy changes are in order to make the economy more fluid and flexible.

Another recurring theme: a network of Angels to fund companies in the $5000-$500,000 range. Typically, it is previously successful entrepreneurs that fund smaller ventures and take a risk; as more and more success stories emerge from the region, this network will be created. Sheikha Hanada weighed in: not only is capital important, but angels need to put in their experience, their knowledge, and their mentorship. Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim is an angel, but he is focused in his home country of Sudan; he cannot spread his energy to the entirety of Africa or the Muslim world – others are needed.

Sheikha Hanada highlighted one major problem: 50% of unemployed in the Arab world are first-time job seekers.

Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim weighed in on the use of the “China model” for the Arab world: first, China is a huge country with sufficient scale and market to develop independently of the rest of the world. Second, for years China operated on severe oppression: shooting mayors, officials, etc for “treason”. Most importantly, even the Chinese one-party President steps down every 8 years: what of the Arab leaders? If you want the Chinese model, implement it in all its ways.

The after-lunch session was titled “Unleashing the Power of Women Entrepreneurs” and featured: Valerie Jarrett, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor, with an introduction from Farah Pandith, Special Representative for Muslim Communities, U.S. Department of State; Tamara Abed, Director of Aarong; Faridah Nambi Kigongo, Founder and Managing Director of Nambi Children Initiatives; Dina Powell, Global Head for Corporate Engagement at Goldman Sachs; and Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank. I could not attend the whole session because, as press, we had to undergo early security check for Hilary Clinton’s speech, but I caught the beginning:

Dr. Mohamed Yunus, Nobel laureate and founder of Grameen Bank –with 8 million borrowers and over $8 billion distributed spoke first. Dr. Yunus discussed the beginning of his micro-finance plans: the banks only lent to people who already had money, and less than 1% of all borrowers in Bangladesh were women. So Yunus gave himself as a guarantor, and made a commitment that 50% of borrowers should be women. They saw that money funelled to a family through women had a greater effect than the same money through men, and now out of Grameen’s 8 million borrowers, 97% are women. Yunus discussed every person’s choice: you can be a job seeker, or a job giver. Everyone can be an entrepreneur.