About Me 0059: Forum Making Money

“Excitement is Contagious” said David Coleman a Canadian entrepreneur while he explained to me how one of the companies he was promoting works. “People will follow you if your sincere and excited enough about an idea.”

That phrase stuck with me over the years, I hadn’t heard anything like that before. I kept wondering to myself why no one taught me that in school or in a workshop. I wondered if there were others like David here in the Middle East. Then I met Habib Haddad.

Founder of successful Yamli.com, Arabic-English transliteration tool we’ve covered since it’s launch in 2009. But that’s not all Habib has to be proud of, he’s also the co-founder of YallaStartup a community and platform that solely exists to support startups.

I was fortunate enough to meet Habib in Amman during the MENA ICT Forum where he explained to me his vision and how he wants to change the Middle East by creating what he called “an atmosphere that facilitates serendipity”.

Habib and YallaStartup co-founders Sami Shalabi of Google and Elie Khoury of Woopra found a perfect opportunity for Middle Eastern startups in Startup Weekend.

Startup Weekend is a not-for-profit that gives entrepreneurs a 3 day crash course in building startups. Day1 is matching talent and creating teams (if they don’t join as a team to begin with), day 2 is for design & development, and day 3 is pitching the idea and competing with the other participants.

So basically it’s an Entrepreneurial slumber party with adrenaline instead of pajamas, and a startup battle instead of pillow fights.

And since it’s global, it happens over a given weekend in 13 cities simultaneously. To get an image of just how massive that is, you should know the show up in Beirut alone was around 250 participants that launched 34 startups in 3 days. It’s mind-blowing I tell you.

Addressing participants, the founders said “this event is not a competition but about living the life cycle of a startup in just one weekend! It’s about getting interest for your idea, matching you with co-founders and team members, and showing each and every one of you what you are capable of.”

The most amazing part of it, is the fact the winners from the 13 cities went head to head with their startups by posting a video describing their startup, which was then voted on and the winner was decided after a couple of days. Guess who dominated the Global Startup Weekend scene? Beirut.

One of Beirut’s very own startups called Mimix, a platform to translate all languages into whatever sign language dialect the user chooses, implemented through a graphical representation of hand signs. People who need to speak sign language won’t need to speak any other language if using Mimix.

The runner ups to for the Beirut competition were Capsu.ly a free infinite community based storage solution, and Hintout a social platform that revolves around activities & going out. You can read the full coverage of YallaStartup Weekend here.

We wish all participants the best of luck and will continue to let you know which of them actually turn into money-making startups in the near future. Check out the Mimix elevator pitch video.

Did you know our prison population has topped over 2 million inmates? This is the first time in the history of our country: a sad statistic, to say the least.

How can we save our children from dying young or going to prison for years? Does it make sense to have this argument in today's society?

The reason I ask is because mainstream culture is so bent on glorifying terrible role models. What is preached and sold is a lifestyle that would get most youth put in an early grave or a prison cell for years. Too many of our children will follow this idealism to either end.

Especially those inner-city children with no dad at home. Many in the poor communities come from single family homes. Most of these homes are led by the mom doing her best to raise her young.

The role models in the neighborhood are as bad as the ones the media is pushing. What can be done? It seems hopeless in many cities from Chicago to Detroit. The story seems to repeat itself with no end in immediate sight.

I do, however, feel that if values change at an early age, we would be able to make an impact on this disturbing trend. This trend? Prison population is rising and our young are dying.

President Obama has directed the Department of Justice and Education to launch the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention.

Too often our young kill each other. Life isn't a movie, nor is it a music video. When we kill someone, they are dead... most of the time we will go to prison. Maybe for life and maybe not. Regardless, there are consequences for all of our actions. Families, both ours and of our victims, will be affected in the most negative ways.

Continued on the next page

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