The entrepreneur chooses a winner

Entrepreneur LouLou Khazen Baz won with Nabbesh, an inspired skill sharing business supporting women, youth and SMEs. 

http://www.nabbesh.com/

Congrats on the win. Lou Lou received 2 million UAE dirhams to develop her business further. 

Collaborative & mobile consumption

Why the Entrepreneurship Revolution is Critical for the Arab World

By 2020 over 100 million job seekers will have entered the job market in the Arab World. This, according to some sources, is from an overall population of just 372 million. The strain this population bubble is already placing on the job market and resources is unprecedented in the Region.

How will the impending skyrocketing jobless rate for youth impact the stability and daily life within the region? The recent shortage of youth jobs has already been sited as part of the fire which fuelled the Arab Spring. The sheer numbers of placements needed are no longer manageable by adding more government jobs. The dream of a government job for life has been eroded for most.

That leaves only the creation of new jobs. Investors to build organisations may be part of the solution when areas of the region cool down, but no solution alone is likely to reach the scale of new jobs needed. Entrepreneurship is becoming survival.

With technology,  inexpensive communication interconnectivity and access to knowledge, skills and learning, exporting knowledge based solutions has become possible and is happening.

While at the International Startup Festival in Montreal this summer, a Startup CEO of an online marriage counselling site asked me how to hire programmers and coders from Palestine. Why Palestine? The nature of our dialogue didn't allow me to delve deeper, however the interaction brings focus on a small wedge of the pie of possibility.

The ecosystem of entrepreneurship is weak in the region. A majority of business success has historically revolved around trading, and importing.

It's time for local and resident entrepreneurs to focus their energies on developing exportable knowledge based services and homegrown solutions which fit their community's cultures, lifestyles and unique problem sets. Easier said than done with complicated bureaucracy, a distinct lack of mentors and a culture of interfering investors and a business culture which doesn't make an exit part of the plan let alone a strategy.

But think about the realm of the possibilities. We write future history through our actions today. It's time to get to work and be part of the entrepreneurship revolution.

Ban Ki-Moon UN Secretary General on collaborating in our interconnected world.

SEO and the ICEMAN are Dead

SEO is Dead from Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr shares insite into Google's new SEO approach on the slides above.




Finally - a new discovery... as if we didn't know.

People don't like to read intrusive, uninvited advertising. Content created for SEO is uninteresting.

Stories should be created for the reader/listener/viewer.

Back to basics; let's communicate in a natural way. Captivating, relevant content re-rules!

My guidelines for successful content:

1. Keep it real
2. Be authentic, be human
3. Be you - you are interesting! 
4. Be relevant to your intended audience
5. Don't try to sell - all those guys who told you they could sell ice to eskimos... where are they now? Did they create a global ICE e-commerce business yet? 

Don't die with the Iceman and SEO. Keep on keepin' on with interesting conversation. 

An Entrepreneur to Watch: Jaber Henzab, Young Qatari Inventor and Winner

While attending the wrap up dinner for the Global Entrepreneurship Week Qatar last night, I was fortunate enough to connect with a pleasant, matter of fact Jaber Henzab. Jaber is a recent graduate of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A and M University, Oct 2012 winner of a Stars of Science award, inventor of an automated dispenser of medication and inspiring entrepreneur.

He is one of those people that squeezes the quality out of every opportunity life offers and during his studies at Texas Aand M he participated in 5 internships around the globe from Germany to Japan and including Porsche and Toyota.

Jaber shared some of his internship experiences, one of which was life changing.  Jaber's most significant lesson was one of self awareness and personal development. Through his internship experiences, Jaber decided he wanted to be in charge of his own future when he graduated. He did not set out to be an inventor, but his passion for entrepreneurship and independence led him there.

Jaber developed a prototype of Tahi using his own resources, sought out and worked with star mentors from Education City and won significant prize money from the Stars of Science TV experience. Tahi now has investors lined up to support the development work ahead.

This is one young man to watch.

Wish you best of luck Jaber!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fEcdn25Sks

Global Entrepreneurship Week Qatar Wrap Up

Dr Rachel Awad presents a prize to winners of ..