Under the sign of Geek: It’s the ArabNet Conference!

View from my window...

Church bells as my wake-up call. (at 7:23 - unless it’s my mind playing tricks?). Unusual to me, to say the least. An Eastern view on a garden, and beyond it a towering white(-ish) and beautiful city - yet, I’m not at home.

Good morning, Lebanon!

I’m in Beirut for the ArabNet Conference - if you’re in the Arab World and use Twitter, the people who’ve been tweeting non-stop for the past week? Yep, that’s them.

Decision to come here started fermenting on Sunday. Then, waiting... until Wednesday:

- Reserved a ticket by phone at 2:00 pm.

Got my visa at 3:15. Bumped into Zeinab at the Lebanese embassy there.

- Visit to the Mogamma3 to see if I need a police permit - no clearcut response but basically a ‘go do your thing’ brush off from the Colonel in charge of the permits.

- Visit to the police station next to my place to confirm.

- Packing. 6:30 PM, I’m at home wondering whether it’s a good idea to go.

- And at 7:20 PM, 70 minutes before the flight, I buy a ticket. Woman at the counter wanted to punch me. I could see her fist clenching. Oh well.

A new record in tardiness! Hurray!

57-minutes and a flight chatting with my next-door what turned out to be a friendly and once-too-many-botoxed celebrity - Nathalie Fadlallah, ladies? (Yeah, she flies economy). -

I land in Beirut.

Best decision I made in a while. Gets me away from Cairo - and from the project I’ve been working on (on... entrepreneurship. Hmm. Not sure I chose the best escape destination, did I!).

Nothing to report, day 1 is a quiet evening. We’re remote from downtown Beirut so it wasn’t worth the trip.

Network, network, network away!

Now a word on the conference, of which we just finished the first day!

The ArabNet Conference is part blogger convention, part internet-business meeting. Everyone is unequivocally under the sign of Geek.

I’ll raise my hat for the concept of the conference: bring young entrepreneurs, established or yet to be, together with industry leaders; and giving the floor to many young ones - 20 altogether: 10 young but existing businesses and 10 business ideas. A pitch to a room full of CEOs, Venture Capitalists, Angel Investors, Media, and mad Tweeters who will, in a heartbeat, share with the world that your presentation is awesome and that they’d put their meager pittance in that company - or declare your three years’ work to be a stinking pile of horse manure.

Interesting presentations. The Ideathon was overall mediocre - one guy wanted to invent mobile phone business cards. Another created a job website. Yes. That’s innovation. Worse: those things went on to win a prize at the dinner.

The Startup presentation was more interesting - overall. Nothing groundbreaking... Oh yeah, I did like the Tasmeem business - a website connecting employers to freelancers. Which is smart and simple.

Oh yeah, this speech was about... zzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Hmm, what else. Networking, hanging out with my Egy-Tweep Zeinab, meeting very interesting people - and seeing an old friend - as well as hanging out with some old e-friends - most notably Dame Roba El-Assi (finally! and who, for the record, is as delightful as she seems online), and... Emma! (inside joke :) who let me take over a reservation of one of the Palestinian entrepreneurs delegation who couldn't make it (Lebanon wouldn't give them visas. Picture that.)

It works! After pitching her idea, Maya Zankoul enjoys instant stardom and has to push away venture capitalists..

Dinner was nice too. Part of me however was craving Lebanese food - we’re in LEBANON, for Hariri’s sake!! - not beef tenderloin. Not that I’m complaining.

Hmm… Highlights. Fadi Ghandour, CEO of Aramex and a fucking rockstar in the Arab business world, took the podium for his very own speech - alone on stage, if you please - and mixed Arabic and English (loved that), and the speech can be summed up in a direct quote of his: “Whoever doubts there’s Entrepreneurship in the Arab World - ma bya3ref” (doesn’t know any better).

Other good advice from Ghandour:

- Don’t think you’re it. You’re not it. Network with your peers. Learn from your mentors. Go seek a mentor.

- “Don’t think about the exit - build it (the company), and it will come”

- “Any company investing in your company is investing in you, not in your company.”

- “You need to be in there to build the company. Entrepreneurs are builders. They are not hit and run people. I want to know about an Entrepreneur that looks at the long term.”

The only way we’re successful as an industry is by being competitive - sooner or later, it is coming. There’s no way out of competition.

Some idiot stole a giant check for a photo