At7addak to Host the Biggest Online Tournament in Arab World History

At7addak.com, the Arab world’s biggest online competitive gaming community, will host the world’s biggest online tournament, “The At7addak.com SR. 1’000’000 Battlefield 3 Global Rush Online Tournament”, which will be organized over a 10 months period starting from March and running until December.

Officially backed by EA, and sponsored by Logitech and AMD, the tournament will attract over 100’000 gamers, playing from home in 24/7 non-stop action using At7addak’s revolutionary “Fully Automated Scoring System”, meaning that gamers’ scores will be updated automatically onto the Tournament Ladder.

ArabNet Digital Summit Speakers: Shervin Pishevar, Frank Meehan, Ossama Hassanein & Rashid Al-Ballaa

Since 2006, the IT and Software sectors have occupied the largest chunk of VC investments in the MENA region at 45%, Media sits joint second with Industrial Manufacturing at 12%, while Telecom ranks 4^th with 8%.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE dominate the VC and entrepreneurial landscape in the GCC, constituting the largest and most dynamic economies in the region respectively. With an increasingly entrepreneurship oriented youth, the Levant, a region blessed with a healthy ICT-specialized human capital, is experiencing a growing VC ecosystem with Jordan and Lebanon leading the way. In Egypt, the internet and mobile industries have seen the emergence of many start-ups taking advantage of a large user base to leverage. The VC arm of EFG-Hermes, Ideavelopers, which manages an Egypt-focused fund, includes a wide range of companies that cover different areas of innovation and technology in its portfolio including semiconductor and electronic payment companies among many others.

To shed more light on the VC landscape in the region, the ArabNet Digital Summit 2012 will feature leading executives, managing partners and directors from the venture capital investment landscape including...

ArabNet Digital Summit Speakers: Hassan Kabbani, Hatem Dowidar, Ghassan Hasbani & Firas Abi-Nassif

Middle East mobile penetration exceeds that of the United States. Mobile subscriptions in the Middle East are expected to cross the 250-million mark during 2012, with mobile penetration rate reaching 107%, exceeding North America for the first time. Subscriptions will rise further to 352 million by 2017.

Iran continues to be the biggest mobile market in the Middle East with 82.91 million subscriptions. Second is Saudi Arabia with a 50.8 million active subscriptions.

All three of Saudi Arabia’s mobile operators have unveiled LTE services, with Etisalat poised to launch the service in the UAE. LTE subscriptions in the Middle East will number 1.94 million by 2014 and will reach 15 million by 2017.

According to a recent research paper by university professors Noura El Housni, Sakib Ali, and Rafi Ashrafi, the fast growing number of mobile subscribers in the region is expected to support the rise of mobile commerce throughout the region. The study revealed that a five year forecast estimates mobile commerce’s potential reach to be 900 million subscribers in the Middle East by late 2011.

To shed light on the meteoric rise of mobile proliferation and the accompanying progress of m-commerce in the region, the ArabNet 2012 Digital Summit will feature leading executives from the telecom industry including...

ArabNet Digital Summit Speakers: Amina Belghiti & Jan Rezab

Fifty seven percent of companies who invest in social business outperform their peers. Enterprise 2.0 practises, social CRM, and B2B social media marketing, often underrated, have become imperative for companies to survive in today’s business climate. More and more companies are adopting social media to engage users and customers, gather marketing intel as well as generate solutions and products. Beyond external engagement, social media is employed to unlock talent within the organization, strongthen relationships among employees and improve internal processes.