ArabNet Pre-conference Workshop

Couple of hours ago we were at Al-Hasan Science City  (the campus that hosts QRCE) interacting and working together to explain the idea behind the first international conference for the Arab web industry; ArabNet 2010.

The workshop started with an introduction about the conference by Mohamad Khawaja (QRCE) and Ayman Azzeh (YEA), the introduction also included some stories on entrepreneurship in the Arab world. We were 9 in the hall when it started, then people started to join until we reached 14 people who introduced themselves in front of everyone.

Based on the agenda Khawaja and Azzeh started to explain the idea of the “Ideathon” giving an example for the template of a business case, and to make more useful, one of the attendees presented the business case he submitted to the “Ideation” already and discussed the idea with the audience. Also a good question came from one of the attendees asking about the benefits of submitting an idea, Khawaja answered that the people who will be there in Beirut during the conference time are a mix of entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, venture capitalists… etc; that obviously helps in taking any idea that will be presented to another level with the input from all people there. I also added to Khawaja’s answer the cash prize that the best 3 ideas will get (2500$, 1500$ and 1000$).

I’ve been invited to speak about Ideation Labs involvement to come back with ideas from the conference then I explained the “Startup Demo” part of the agenda and the event. We also announced the new deadline for applications and early registration.