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Under the patronage of H.E. Dr. Mohamed Salem, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, The Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC) announced the upcoming launch of ArabNet’s first-ever  conference in Egypt on October 19 and 20, as part of its collaboration with the organizer of ArabNet, the International Business Alliance Group (IBAG).

ArabNet Cairo Conference 2011 aims to explore the latest trends and technologies as well as digital entrepreneurship in web and mobile. One of the ways it will do so is through staging competitions for Egyptian entrepreneurs and digital start-ups before a high-profile audience of foreign investors, business leaders, and digital executives from a number of world-renowned digital multinationals.              

ArabNet Cairo Conference 2011 is expected to draw an audience of over 600 global players and entrepreneurs in the digital field. TIEC will be sponsoring the participation of 60 of these entrepreneurs in ArabNet Cairo’s activities. The conference will feature cutting-edge discussion panels and specialized workshops that will cover the latest topics in the field, sourced by 40 globally-renowned speakers, including social commerce and loyalty, mobile apps, location-based services, e-commerce, social media, online content, gaming, and more.

Dr. Hazem Abdel Azim, CEO of TIEC, expressed his support for ArabNet’s initiative to hold its conference in Egypt for the first time, indicating that conferences like that of ArabNet that aim to promote and develop entrepreneurship amongst youth are one of the direct products of the January 25 revolution.

Dr. Abdel Azim added that ArabNet Cairo Conference 2011 will greatly help to build the desired links between Egyptian innovators and foreign venture capital in the IT sector, which will strengthen the Egyptian economy and help realize TIEC’s goals of endorsing innovation and entrepreneurship.

Omar Christidis, the founder of ArabNet, said that “ArabNet Cairo Conference 2011 will bring together all those who work in different areas in the digital field, from e-commerce to digital advertising. It presents a unique opportunity to connect with global leaders, creating new work opportunities.”  

Christidis emphasized that his choice of Egypt as the location for his upcoming conference is attributed to the enormous size of the Egyptian market, with 25 million Egyptian Internet subscribers, the highest number of Internet users in the region, as well as almost 75 million Egyptian mobile subscribers. These statistics present Egypt as an essential market for digital ventures in the region.

He added that “the goal of organizing ArabNet conferences outside of Lebanon is to delve into the dynamics of each of the digital markets in the region, while at the same time building a network to join all of these markets together, and ultimately helping to develop and strengthen the Arab web and mobile industry.”

The ArabNet Cairo Conference 2011 program will feature the Ideathon and Startup Demo competitions. The Ideathon is a series of rapid-fire back-to-back 2-minute presentations, in which each entrepreneur must convince a panel of judges that their idea is innovative and has business potential. The Startup Demo is designed for startups and gives each startup 5 minutes to convince the judges and an audience of investors and incubators of the market potential of their product. The ArabNet pitch sessions are rare chances for Arab entrepreneurs to highlight their potential and to secure the funding and mentorship they need to launch their projects.

For more information about the ArabNet Cairo 2011 conference, please visit the ArabNet website: www.arabnet.me