The Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation,  today announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Syrian Computer Society’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Incubator.

Established to build the information society in Syria and nurture entrepreneurial ideas, the ICT Incubator currently provides a variety of services and training to projects that are commercially viable.

This announcement came during the fourteenth annual Information and Communication Technology exhibit which was held at Exhibition City in the Syrian capital Damascus. The MoU was signed by Sultan Lootah, Vice President of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation - Entrepreneurship and Employment sector, and Dr. Rakan Razouk, Chairman of the ICT Incubator, Syrian Computer Society, in the presence of senior Foundation officials and key Syrian officials from the private sector, public sector and academia.

The agreement marks a new milestone in the Foundation’s Entrepreneurship and Employment sector, which seeks to develop cooperative programmes to advance the creative talents of Arab entrepreneurs and create new job opportunities, as well as enhance research methodologies and information exchange.

The agreement mandates the creation of an extensive online network for regional incubators to encourage interaction, share experiences, discuss best-practices and exchange information between entrepreneurs and incubators throughout the Arab World.

The Foundation aims to build the Arab incubator network into a framework that fosters fruitful relationships between corporations and academic institutions to ensure that new companies being incubated receive appropriate industry know-how and financial support. The network will also contribute to developing research methodologies and related studies that will be shared with relevant organizations.

Sultan Lootah said the MoU would serve as a pivotal element to achieve the ultimate goals of the Foundation, which seek to spread knowledge, encourage creativity and innovation, and develop human resources.

He said:  “The Foundation is inspired by the strategic vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, which recognizes the importance of empowering Arab entrepreneurs to effectively lead the development process in the region.”

“Our research outcomes indicated entrepreneurship is on the rise among the Syrian youth. Based on this, we are confident our cooperation with the Syrian Computer Society will prove highly beneficial and guarantee strong economic growth,’ he added.

Dr. Rakan Razouk said: “The Syrian Computer Society is committed to cooperating with the Foundation and supporting its efforts to promote entrepreneurship and create more job opportunities in Syria and the Arab world.”

“The Society will work to hosting the network’s workshops and forums, as well as competitions, while actively sourcing investments for seed ventures. It will also provide the human resources needed to implement best-practices that can compete on a global level, besides working with the Foundation to enhance the online platform for regional incubators,” he added.

In its efforts to empower the Arab youth to better contribute to the region’s overall growth, the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation has, to-date, launched collaborative ventures with Morocco, Lebanon and Bahrain.

Earlier this year, the Foundation today signed an agreement with the Palestine Information and Communications Technology Incubator (PICTI) to initiate joint efforts for encouraging and stimulating entrepreneurial activity within Palestine and across the Arab world.

Last week, search engine Onkosh distributed prizes to the winners of the Soduko competition held during Ramadan on www.onkosh.com.

Sudoko Winners:
Soduko relies on logical mathematical analysis and has recently gained popularity amongst young and old. Ten thousand three hundred and fifty-one players (10,351) from 90 countries, 20 of which were Arab countries, took part in the competition with first place going to Bassem Ibrahim who won a Nintendo Wii game console. The second prize went to Taha Alaa who won a Sony Cybershot digital camera while Rana Mustapha came in third place winning an LCD monitor.

Participants in the competition had to solve 81,924 soduko puzzles at the rate of 26 puzzles per participant. The puzzles were divided into three levels of complexity to accommodate all players.  The first level attracted many participants solving 54,901 soduko puzzles while players in the second level solved 14,196 puzzles and players in the third and most advanced level solved 12,827 puzzles. Winners received their prizes at the company’s headquarters in the presence of the technical team responsible for the development of Onkosh.com.

Onkush Competition:

Launched at GITEX 2007, Onkosh.com provides a host of search capabilities to Arab users who can search for sites, photos, forums, files and blogs as well as news services available on the website. In its Arabic search product, Onkush competes with Araby from Maktoob, Ayna.com Google, Yahoo and (MSN) Live.com.

Onkosh.com also was one of the first to invent transliteration of Arabic Language, that allows users to search in Arabic by writing Arabic words using Latin Alphabet without having to install Arabic support on the device. In this front Onkush competes with Yamli, though it does not have an editor, an API facebook application and iGoogle Gadget like Yamli. A quick test between the 2 services reveled that Yamli is more accurate and faster, take “waladu” for example and test them in both sites.

The other Arabic transliteration product which launch caused allot of criticism is Ta3reeb from Google, I have reviewed Ta3reeb here.

Onkush is Orascom Telecom subsidiary. A telecom, mobile, ISP, web hosting and online media and emarketing giant in the Arab world. Where they have a number of online properties including MSN Arabia in partnership with Microsoft, which is the Middle East version of MSN. Which makes you wonder why Onkush is not integrated with msn Arabia search?

Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) announced the launch of its SalikRecharge Facility  via the bank’s Al Islami

onlinebanking service. Launched in  cooperation with the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) this new service allows DIB customers to make bill payments, enquire about their Salikaccount balance and recharge their Salik account. This service, which offers real-time payment solutions, is available in both Arabic and English.

Salik is a free flow tolling system without toll booths, barriers, or gates, which allows traffic to move freely

through the tolling point at highway speeds, the system uss Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, where vehicles are identified to the system through communication with the small, thin Salik sticker tag affixed to the vehicles’ windshield. (Salik system is a good way for Oil-less Dubai to make money.)

In order to utilise the new service there is a minimum paymentamount per transaction of AED 50 and a maximum payment amount per transaction of AED 5,000. All payment must be made in multiples of AED 50.

Dr. Adnan Chilwan, Chief of Retail and Business Banking, DIB, said: “As part of DIB’s commitment to providing high-quality and convenient customer service, we are pleased to introduce this new facility,which allows our customers to manage their Salik accounts online simply and conveniently. This service makes Salik account management as trouble-free and transparent as possible.”

He added that DIB customers are already able to pay credit card bills, utility bills, make Etisalat bill payments, Al Wasl line recharge, charity payments, funds transfers and other services through the bank’s electronic banking services - these include ATM machines and Al Islami phone banking among
others. “The new online Salik Recharge service comes in line with the bank’s continued commitment to assist the RTA in its efforts to further develop the traffic system in Dubai,” he said.

Mr. Musabah Al Qaizi, Head of Electronic Banking Service Department, DIB, said: “In light of the rapid growth of DIB and the Islamic banking industry as a whole, we continue to deliver new and innovative ways to better serve our customer base. This new concept in customer convenience is one of many that we will offer in the months ahead.”

The launch of DIB’s online Salik Recharge Facility follows the bank’s earlier announcement in October 2007 of a telephone Salik recharge facility an IVR system.

TechWadi the organization of  Arab technology professionals in Silicon Valley and around the world, will be hosting its next networking event on Thursday Nov. 20, 2008.  you can join the event to network with your peers and to learn new professional skills from TechWadi’s distinguished speaker.

Communication is a cornerstone of all businesses and integral in the development of corporate and personal relationships.  However, while some messages resonate well with audiences, others seem to miss their target completely.  How can we deliver consistently clear, concise and culturally tailored messages?

This event at TechWadi event will try to help you to find out.  The event’s expert panel will be lead by Dr. Dina Ibrahim, Assistant Professor of Broadcasting at San Francisco State University.  through out the even you will learn how to:
* Articulate messages that resonate with your target market
* Encourage editors and reporters to talk about your business or invention
* Effectively communicate with colleagues, higher management and clients
* Overcome cultural and business obstacles to business success with companies based in the U.S. and in the MENA region.

Event location:

San Jose, CA, USA.

Cisco, Building 1, Mt Rainier Conference Room
3850 Zanker Road
San Jose, California 95134
Date & Time: Thursday Nov. 20, 2008

Registration and Networking at 6:00 PM
Program starts at 7:00 PM

Registration:

- Free for paid members: Click here to register.

- $20 for non-paid members: Click here to register

The announcement of the winners came few days ago, as this year competition was open for Jordanian entrepreneurs only, next year it might be open to all Arab entrepreneurs.

Last  Thursday, Princess Sumaya  said the Kingdom’s large pool of graduates “represents a tremendous value that Jordan creates every year”.

In her address at a ceremony to honour winners of the third annual Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Competition (QRNEC), the Princess said that the participants in this year’s competition represent “job makers rather than job seekers”.

The Princess, who was deputising for Her Majesty Queen Rania at yesterday’s award ceremony, added their success is “important to Jordan as role models for the next generation of entrepreneurs whom they will inspire, as future employers and as innovators who are solving valuable problems for society”.

The competition, which aims to encourage a business culture among Jordanian youths, focuses on launching new competitive products and services in various technical sectors, including the environment, information, communications, water desalination, energy and agricultural technologies.
In her address, the Princess stressed that Jordan’s human capital is needed at home to build the country’s economy and advance society.

“If we are to examine the numbers of Jordanians abroad, we learn that more than 500,000 live in the Gulf states alone, and nearly one million worldwide,” she said, adding that if the figures are examined “on how much it costs Jordan to educate these expatriates, Jordan is in fact a donor to the global economy in the form of billions of dollars worth of human capital”.
Mohammad Gawdat, Google’s MENA Emerging Market managing director, also commended the quality of Jordan’s graduates and human capital, describing them as innovative.

He added that the country’s human capital is well-known at Google for their inventiveness and success.
“I am responsible for 112 countries in the world; however, I haven’t seen enthusiasm and creativity more than in Jordan,” Gawdat said in yesterday’s ceremony.
The winners of this year’s award ranged from students to new entrepreneurs.

Hussam Salhab, who won the third prize in the Academia category said his project, “Medical Diagnosis on the Internet”, could never have succeeded without the help of the award organisers.

“I am grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in this competition… It was easy for me to develop the project, but I had no idea on how to work on a business plan without the training offered at the Queen Rania Centre for Entrepreneurship,” Salhab told The Jordan Times.

The QRNEC, which was first initiated in 2005 as the Princess Sumaya National Entrepreneurship Competition, is designed to promote the spirit of creativity and innovation among young people and highlight the significant role citizens play in social and economic development.

This year marked the first-time participation of Google, which awarded a $10,000 prize for the best online business plan, in addition to providing mentorship through online workshops.
The King Abdullah II Design and Development Bureau also offered a prize for the best security and defence business plan.

Starting with $20,000 in award prizes in 2006, the award has now grown to $70,000 in order to help encourage entrepreneurial initiatives in the Kingdom.

Award winners

KADDB Award for the Best Defense and Security Business Plan
YAMAMA: Developing vehicle monitoring systems, that can be used for detecting and reporting various vehicle traffic violations, and for tracking.

Google Award for the Best Online Business Plan

Populace Ads:  Ad serving technology for small businesses.

First Prize in the Academia category
Human Heater: from the name, a personal portable heater where users can control the degree of warmth needed.

Second Prize in the Academia category
JUST TEAM:  Interactive e-learning e-notebook that replaces  paper and pen.

Third in the Academia category

FRIENDS: A medical diagnostic tools for personal health record (PHR) project from Google Health.

First Prize in the Mature Entrepreneurs category
KEENWASH: waterless car washing technology.

Second Prize in the Mature Entrepreneurs category
TALASIM: Arab online comedy community.

Third Prize in the Mature Entrepreneurs category
MIDA: developing and manufacturing interactive non-solid free space displays that give three-dimensional effect, and reduce the complexity of interaction between humans and computers.

Best Financial Plan
Better Care

Best Marketing Plan
Advanced Security and Technical Systems

Do you upload your files to many file uploading websites? If so this manual process takes allot of your time and your effort, in uploading each file to each website alone. Well, you do not have to do that anymore, a new Arabic startup called Mrrha offers the solution to this  problem.

Mrrha allows you to upload your files synchronously on the Internet and send (mirror) it to the most famous file uploading services.
Besides saving you time and effort, Mrrha offers you another benefit: in case if one of file uploading services deleted your file, it will be present on other uploading services.

Mrrha is founded by Mahmoud Elmasoudy and his brother. According to Mahmoud, The name selection of Mrrha came from the word “Mirror” in English, Mrrha means in Arabic “Mirror it”. The word mirror is used to express the act of passing the files (Mirroring it) to more than one uploading site.

Mrrha depends on several concepts in its mechanism, the most important one is the parallel uploading, which means that the file will be uploaded to Mrrha and will be sent to your choice of the uploading sites at the same time, that’s means you don’t have to wait until it’s uploaded to each uploading site.

Example: when you upload a file of 100 MB of size to five uploading sites. It will take about an hour to upload it to each one of the five uploading sites. (your upload speed depends on your Internet connection speed). But when using Mrrha, the file will be uploaded on Mrrha.com and the chosen mirroring service within one hour without the need to wait for five hours to be uploaded to each one alone.

Mrrha  currently supports only 5 of the following uploading sites at the same time: RapedShare,  MegaUpload,  depositfiles, zshare,  sharedzilla, netload, sendspace, filefactory, badongo,  loadto, easyshare, flyupload.
With an uploading limit of100 MB for each file, as it’s the maximum limit in most of uploading sites it supports.

Currently Mrrha interface is in Arabic only, which means the initial target market is the Arab world, where the uploading services are used heavily among Arab internet users to share files, just look at the most famous Arabic forums to see the extensive use of the file uploading websites. Mahmoud works in one of the famous Arabic tech forums; as such he spotted the trend and came up with Mrrha as a solution to the uploading problems.

The business model of Mrrha is not clear somehow, most likely it will be Ad supported, but I suggest offering premium accounts for uploading to 10 sites or more for example.

Mrrha is self funded and has no current competition in the Arab world, it is also planning an English interface later on.

Google Launch of its Arabic version of its SaaS calendar is part of its plan to continue serve the Arabic market, by Arabaizing all its products, and launch other apps that caters to the Arabic speakers.

GoogleGoogle Calendar is a tool that simplifies keeping track of events, special occasions, and appointments — whether they’re on your own agenda or on the calendars of contacts who opt to share their schedules with you.

Calendar is fast and easy to use. You can add events just by clicking on a time slot and typing in event information. It’s also integrated with Gmail so you can add events mentioned in email messages to your calendar with just one click. Furthermore, you can turn any event on your calendar into an invitation just by adding the email addresses of your guests. They can see and respond to your invitation, whether or not they use Google Calendar themselves. With Calendar, it’s also easy to share your calendar with friends and family, and have them share theirs with you.

‘Calendar is a great tool for organizing your life. It’s another of our efforts to provide users with fast, easy-to-use applications that help to simplify your life. We’re really happy to be launching this tool in Arabic.’ said Husni Khuffash, UAE Country Manager, Google.

Another benefit of Calendar is that it’s open. It cooperates with many other calendar applications, enabling you to easily get event data in and out. And with the holiday calendar that comes standard, you can see public and national holidays listed automatically on your Google Calendar.

To use Google Colander in Arabic go here and   then go to Calendar Settings then chose language as Arabic.

ArabCrunch is proud to announce its partnership with Mashable, in its 2nd Annual Open Web Awards.
Mashable is one of the top visited blogs worldwide, its choice to include ArabCrunch as one of the 100 worldwide blog partners, shows the level of global credibility ArabCrunch has achieved in a short time period.

The open web award is a unique opportunity for the most accomplished websites and services to achieve international recognition across scores of influential blogs.
According to Mashable “Last year’s Open Web Awards achieved over 250,000 votes combined between Mashable and our 50 international blog partners. This year we’ve doubled in size: nearly 100 blog partners have signed up from 18 countries, providing unprecedented global coverage for the nominees and winners.”

A Call for Nomination
Nominations is open from now till November 18th 2008, you can start nominating using the widget below, Nominations is one Site per Category per person (validated through PollDaddy).
The first and final voting rounds will be held from November 19th till December 15th.

Blogger’s Choice
Each Blog Partner including ArabCrunch will receive 1 vote per category to decide the “Blogger’s Choice” winner in each category.

Start Pushing your Nomination
Do you want others to help you nominate your favorite site, leave a comment here or in one of the Awards blog partners encouraging readers to add their support.

Online Competition Timeline Outline:
•    Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 | Nominations.
•    Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 | Online Voting Round 1.
•    Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 | Final Round Voting.
•    Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 | Winners Announced.

Some other Rules:
•    Voting is one vote per Category per person (validated through PollDaddy).
•    IP tracking and e-mail confirmation will remain in place.
•    E-mails will only be used in regards to alerts about the Open Web Awards.
•    Winners will be determined after voting round is closed and data is verified.

Winners:
•    “People’s Choice” Winners will be validated by Mashable and PollDaddy before any announcements are made.
•    “Blogger’s Choice will be validated by Mashable and compiled from our Blog Partner.

I encourage AC’s readers to nominate Arab startups who they see fit.

muslimbc whose CEO Rias A. Sherzad I interviewed back in April 08, is in few days time –next Tuesday- 

to rebrand to SALAMBC short for Salam Business Club. (Screen shots at the end of this post.)

MuslimBC was initially aiming to be a Linkedin for Muslims, but the startup found out a different target market than initially planned according to Sherzad. “ “Salam” (which means peace in Arabic) reflects business more than “Muslim” does”, and “includes people from all over the Muslim region.” he said. Thus the company “decouples the platform from religious aspects”.

Now SALAMBC according to Sherzad targets business people from all over Arab,Asian, and Muslim world, not just Muslims.

The main focus according to him is Arab countries, especially UAE, Qatar, Maghreb, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, and India.

SALAMBC has a better revamped and cleaner design, with new features such as Status updates, Network Activity, Banning/reporting members, more blocks to see/find potential contacts, Advanced search, Privacy control, and Guestbook.

This is the profile page

This is the groups page

This is the Dashborad page

Here is an interview done by IslamCrunch with Sherzad about the rebranding back in July.