Cinco startups creadas por jóvenes árabes
In recent years, young men and women in the MENA region have created new products, started new businesses and inspired new ideas. These entrepreneurs are a potential boost to the region's economies, which suffer from slow growth and high unemployment, especially among young people. Innovation always depends on context, and both the Middle East and North Africa intend to innovate in order to emancipate themselves from their difficult social and political context, to fight against certain dogmatic bodies and to finally empower the population. Because, yes, oppression, political instability, corruption, law, religion and cultural resistance sometimes reign supreme in certain regions, and this is not a context favourable to innovation.
To the list of ecosystem problems, we could also add the lack of 3G in Algeria, the internet in Lebanon, censorship in Jordan and others, which once again makes creation very complicated. It is therefore a shame that so many obstacles stand in its way and that so many are put in place by governments. No place in the Arab world comes close to Silicon Valley in terms of dynamism. But, little by little, progress is being made.
The Arab world will need its private sector to address youth unemployment, the current lack of skills for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the inclusion of women in the workforce. Start-ups, and the entrepreneurs who create them, are key to a strategic public-private dialogue on these issues and to creating corresponding new opportunities in society. However, all these elements have not weakened talent - on the contrary. A new generation in the Arab world has never lived without access to the internet, and knows exactly how to use technology to create.
Seeing technology as a way to solve problems, all these brains have connected to establish the problems and the directions to follow. Moreover, with the recent changes in the political climate, the wind of revolution has blown over these ambitious minds. They have seen possibilities in the short term, and a real opportunity to start now to paint the world they want to see with the speed and transparency offered by technology.
It seems, therefore, that despite the existence of problems and political instability, the Arab world is in fact waking up to technology. It should be pointed out that this aversion to risk is not a persistent problem in the rest of the Arab world, as each market has its own problems: in the United Arab Emirates, for example, new companies have to enter an excessively saturated market, and in Bahrain investment opportunities are huge, but the challenge is to find access to talent. The only problem everyone faces is defining the specific needs of the region and creating a profitable product. The Arab world continues to prosper thanks to the ambition of new companies and their young creators. Talented and convincing, these young people are attracting investors from the region. Companies and large private firms are willing to take risks and allow the start-up to grow.
Nour al-Hassan is the managing director of Tarjama, which literally means "translation" in Arabic, the largest translation agency in the region, based in the United Arab Emirates. Tarjama relies exclusively on contract translators, writers and publishers of all educational levels. Tarjama was established in 2008 in Jordan. Due to the lack of quality translation and the need to translate a large amount of content, Al-Hassan decided to open a small agency, with some women working from home. Today, Tarjama is a company of 73 full-time employees, 90% of whom are women. "We do content creation and translation and operate in eight countries," says Al-Hassan for SceneArabia magazine.
The majority of its network of translators is made up of women who work at home. "No one wants to hire people on a part-time basis or who want flexible hours to suit their families, but there are many talented women who are desperate to work and have the skills and discipline to offer their services as freelancers," says the Middle East CEO.
Think iT was founded by three entrepreneurs like Joscha Raue, Mehemed Bougsea and Amal Abid, whose paths first crossed as students several years ago. By addressing both the global problem of the lack of technological talent and Tunisia's specific problem of unemployment, as well as the growing phenomenon of Tunisians, and Arabs in general, having to emigrate in search of work opportunities abroad and the resulting "brain drain" in the Middle East, this start-up offers the best of both worlds from the heart of Tunisia.
Companies around the world are facing the greatest shortage of technological talent since 2007 and are struggling to recruit the skills they desperately need. So this new Think.iT company believes it has found a solution in North Africa, an untapped talent pool and home to a highly educated but largely underutilized young population.
By connecting technology companies to the region's brightest individuals, Think.iT is helping to bridge the talent gap while enabling young people to reach their full potential. The company adopts a data-driven training approach using the latest technologies, including AI, the cloud and blockchain, to enable these technology graduates to hone their skills before joining research partner companies in Germany and the United States as software engineers without having to leave the country they call home.
NUTechSpace, based in Cairo, is the first Technology Incubator specializing in Cognitive Technologies in Egypt. Its specialty is helping start-up companies improve their product and business model by preparing them to scale up globally. Its main objective is to develop a thriving business ecosystem of innovative technology, education and responsible business that will contribute to a transitional impact on the Egyptian economy. NUTechSpace's mission is to assist technology-based start-ups by providing them with the tools they need to succeed by building, innovating and commercialising their products to contribute to economic growth.
"Whenever you work hard, there is always hope," says Sara al-Afifi, Mentoring and Communications Coordinator of Gaza Sky Geeks to the SceneArabia. In Gaza, it is very rare to have access to electricity, medicine and basic commodities. Yet, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger; the young minds of the unfortunate Strip have decided to make a business out of their misery. That's why since 2015, the GSG has become a central pillar of Palestine's technological ecosystem, according to the World Bank. Today, the GSG supports start-ups, workers in the giant economy, aspiring software developers and advocates for diversity and inclusion. It provides collaborative services throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip where future technology leaders can do their best work.
The World Economic Forum and Bahrain Economic Development Board placed the Moroccan company, Clean City, among their 100 "most exciting Arab startups". The application is the work of Mouhsin Bour Qaiba, the CEO of Coding Agency M3KOD based in Marrakech. His company has developed several similar social innovation projects since foundation in 2015, but Clean City is what has given Bour Qaiba's team a worldwide reputation. The idea for Clean City came to Bour Qaiba when he observed how rubbish was piled up on the pavements of Moroccan cities. He always felt "very affected" when he saw the conditions in which many of the cities in Morocco were, he told Moroccan World News. The application speeds up rubbish collection - as well as other maintenance services, such as filling in potholes - by allowing users to post photos of the waste and other problems they encounter in the cities. The photos are uploaded to a public channel with a location tag, which the application then shares with the authorities.
