Teletimes April 2011.pdf

Amman is unlikely hotspot
for technology startups
Once a technology wasteland,
Amman is now home to
a growing number of internet
startups. Their young founders
credit a more liberal government
and lower seed costs.
“Amman’s different than other
places because we’ve got good
leadership and better education
- we produce engineers who’ve
been producing tech work before
they even leave school,” Fouad
Jeryes, chief of social networking
platform d1g.com.
King Abdullah - younger than
other kings in the region,
British-educated, with a wife
who Tweets regularly under
the handle @QueenRania - told
the BBC in 2004 that he hoped
to make his country the tech
hub of the Middle East. That
year, he instituted an education
programme he called “big ideas
for a little country,” which
saw private companies donate
computers to local schools and a
software curriculum designed to
be taught alongside traditional
subjects. “The King is a regional
leader - very tech savvy, very
much caring about how tech
can move forward,” Jeryes said.
“In the last two years, growth
has been big.” Very big - he
estimated that the number
of startups had increased by
1825%, compared to about
430% in the rest of the world.
Kamel Al-Asmar, an Amman
native with two local startups
under his belt - Nakweh.com
and Ideation Box, said it was
easier and less expensive to
start a company in Jordan than
a traditional tech hotspot like
Dubai, which boasts a 120%
mobile penetration rate. He
also said Jordan’s internet
capacity was higher than is often
realized, at 21 megabytes per
second - matched only by Dubai
and Saudi Arabia. “The capital
required to start a company here
is not high - about $30,000,”
Queen Rania
he said. But “it’s not feasible to
only serve Jordan - we target
the GCC because [customers
there] have the money but
lack the product.” Amman’s
success is also due to a stronger
technology infrastructure. Jeryes
is the founder of Amman Tech
Tuesdays, monthly tech meetups
which now welcome about
500 visitors per session. He
modeled it on similar, popular
events in America, where he’d
been living before repatriating
8th Media and Telecoms Convergence
Conference 2011 getting strong support
The Arab Advisors Group has
announced getting strong
support for the 8th Media
and Telecoms Convergence
Conference to be held at the
Four Seasons Hotel - Amman
on June 6 & 7 2011. Zain is the
main sponsor of the conference.
Qualcomm, Arabsat, Motorola,
Umniah, Ericsson and Orange
are among the companies who
already confirmed sponsoring
Arab Advisors 8th Media
and Telecoms Convergence
Conference 2011. Limited
number of sponsorships remain.
Conference exhibitors include
– to date: Damamax, Mada
Jordan and JWT. Arab Advisors’
8th Media and Telecoms
Convergence Conference has
deservedly become the region’s
premiere conference tackling
the convergence dynamics of
the media and telecom industry.
In 2010, more than 600
delegates from 180 global and
regional companies attended
the conference. Delegates
leveraged the conference online
networking system to prepare
for their meetings before,
during and even after the
conference ended.
Karen Leigh
King Abdullah
to Jordan. “What I missed was
the ecosystem - you have people
to meet,” he said. “That wasn’t
available here. We had a vibrant
tech scene in Amman but it
was cliquey, no culture of open
knowledge or exchange.”
He and fellow Amman techies
have also launched Oasis
500, a push to start 500 tech
startups in the next five years,
predominantly in the social
media and mobile sectors. T
As in the past seven
conferences, Arab Advisors’
8th Annual Media and
Telecommunications
Convergence Conference 2011
will have an impressive array
of speakers and delegates
from the top regional and
global operators and vendors.
HRH Pincess Sumaaya Bint Al
Hassan inaugurated the event
in 2010 and will also officially
inaugurate the 2011 conference.
Teletimes International is
the media partner to the
conference. T
15Apr - 14May 2011
www.teletimesinternational.com
47