The event started with a panel discussion entitled “Interesting Views on Innovation and VC Culture in MENA” featuring Ahmed Alfi, CEO of Sawari Ventures, Walid Bakr from Abraj Capital, Ziad Mokhtar of Ideavelopers, Tamkeen’s Tarek Fahim, and moderated by N2V Investment Director Ahmed Takatkah.

The panelists tackled some of the key opportunities and challenges facing VC investments in the region and the increasingly important role of venture capital firms in fostering economic growth.

This was followed by a private screening of “Something Ventured – Risk, Reward, and the Original Venture Capitalists” It is a great documentary film. Particularly captivating since most of us knew some of the players and knew of all of the companies.

It told of the early days of Kliener Perkins and the funding of Steve Jobs – including interviews with some people who turned him down because he was “arrogant, hippy and smelled bad”. At one point, 33% of Apple could have been bought for $50,000.
It included stories of the founding of Cisco (and the firing of the founder by the VC), Atari, Genentech, Tandem, Intel and others.

Last night N2V sponsored another private screening of “Something Ventured” at the ITWorks HQ in Cairo, which was attended by over 25 ITWorx employees and guests.

Take a tour in our new website and let us know what you think.

GameTako is an Arabic game publishing company dedicated to help create, publish and nurture the creation and production of web based Arabic games through its Game Portal.GameTako’s Portal offers unique games and fun experiences for Gamers of all ages, and it also offers advanced APIs and features for Game Developers to build against and create fun experiences for gamers.

GameTako is shifting players to play innovative local games from their neighborhoods that reflect their culture, and relates to them in many ways. GameTako is the first company in Arabia with an initiative that serves both gamers and game developers alike.

The new company is an idea by Abdullah Hamed, currently CEO of GameTako, who is very keen on creating a sustainable Game Development industry, and sees the opportunity in a booming market where high quality content is rare, and the potential to create extremely great games is high.

Announcing this significant development, N2V’s CEO, Eng. Rashid Al Ballaa, said that investing in GameTako is integrated with the Group’s entrepreneurial culture that encourages those with dreamers to start their own ventures, and that it comes as part of our effort to increase the capacity of game development resources and talents around Arabia.

Abdullah Hamed, GameTako’s CEO, commented about this investment saying: “We are glad to receive investment from N2V, GameTako has a bright future ahead, and we are excited to execute on our upcoming plans with the support and faith of N2V.com .

“By empowering game developers to publish and monetize their games, GameTako aims to disrupt the way games are being made in Arabia. GameTako will help independent as well as professional game developers get the exposure they need and get feedback fast and tweak their games according to Arab Gamers tastes. This is the lean startup model thatGameTako runs on, and its what we are also trying to provide for Game Developers.”, “ we are not just creating a game company, we are creating a Game Development community, Game Developers own a stake in the success of GameTako as much as we do. GameTako is where Game developers and gamers come to be a community”- Abdullah Hamed added.

To participate: users simply enter their names, email, then choose 1 to 3 friends of their choice to win prizes with them. It’s as simple as this.

“We hope that this sweepstakes will help increase the engagement with our facebook fans, encourage them to share prizes with their close friends, and consequently, help grow our Facebook page even bigger” Said Nagi Salloum, N2V Chief Marketing Officer.

The Sweepstakes will end by March 2nd and the winners will be announced 2 days later.

Participate now and join the fun.

This weekend in Amman will be like no other weekends, witnessing the one of the most important gathering of entrepreneurs in Amman under 1 single roof, with non-stop hard work and engagement among developers, coders, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts.

The 54-hour event will commence its activities with open pitches. The next day, teams will gather to work on their ideas. On its last day, teams will come together, watch each other’s demos, listen to judges’ feedback, and win prizes.

With this sponsorship N2V will help support the youth entrepreneurs and those whom interested in entrepreneurship and building projects on the Internet in order to exchange experiences and promote the values ​​of cooperation and teamwork.

N2V is playing a significant role in making SW Amman a great success through the participation of many of the N2V Executives and colleagues. Ahmad Takatkah, Head of Investments, will be as one of the judges. Rami AlKarmi, CEO of N2VLabs, and Mohammed Khawaja, CEO of N2V StartupCafe, are going to be speakers. Along with group of our staff as mentors who will supervise, lead and inspire the participants.

“The importance of show support to entrepreneurs should never be underestimated. That’s why we, as N2V, are committed to provide these entrepreneurs with the necessary resources, mentorship and investment to help them building a world of their creation.” Nagi Salloum, Chief Marketing Officer in N2V, said.

“It is amazing how much creativity you can get if you only challenge people to deliver big results and meaningful value within 54 hours.” He added.

Meet our team closely, share your thoughts and begin your project!

For the 4th year in a row, the Tech World website holds its Annual competition for the best Arab web projects of year 2011. The contest contributes in encouraging the Arab developers and entrepreneurs to create more that is helpful to the Arab users.

We at N2V have the privilege to participate in this competition. Nagi Salloum the Head of marketing will be representing us there, as a member of the jury, judging the best ideas for websites nominated in the contest. In addition, Mr. Mashhur Aldebyan will be evaluating the website’s usability, Mr. Mohamad Fares will evaluate the profitability. And finally Mr. Mohamed Bin-Hammady will assess the quality of design.

                                                                        

• The state of the smart phone ecosystem in the Arab World.
• Roles of Arab telecom operators in driving the industry forward.
• Roles of international vendors and technology companies in the regional ecosystem.
• Roles of Media companies and content owners.
• Opportunities for application developers for the Arab World and from the Arab World.
• The evolving business models and revenue streams.
• The role of clusters and business hubs in developing the content and models for smart handhelds in the Arab World.

Among the guest speakers at the summit was; Mr. Rashid Al Ballaa, CEO, N2V, Mr. Mohamad Mourad, Regional Manager Gulf, Google, Mr. Mohammed Al Mufleh, Director, Research in Motion and Mr. Tom Erskine, Director of Smart Devices, Nokia.

Through participating in this event, there was a chance to come together, network with a number of specialists, experts, representatives of international manufacturers, and providers of wireless services. As well as a chance to learn from a skillful variety of speakers and the experiences they shared.

Rashid Al Ballaa, N2V CEO comented: “Our participation in this summit resulted from our focus on creating innovative web and mobile web ventures. Because we are regional and invest in a wide variety of ventures (from start-ups to established companies). We believe we can add value and contribute in such events by sharing our stories, regional as well as global case studies.”

Start-up Weekend is a forum held for three days, in which Web and mobile application ideas are displayed on the first day of the forum.The best ideas among those submitted are chosen, and the attendees start teaming up to work on the chosen ideas turning them into real products. On the third day of the event, the product should be finalized and presented to the jury who will choose the winning project.

During the forum a number of meetings with key leaders and entrepreneurship activists took place. One of those was a meeting with Rashid AlBallaa our N2V CEO. Rashid spoke about  the importance of investment and entrepreneurship in these times and the importance of the Internet as a fertile and promising field. AlBallaa also mentioned some of the inspiring regional and international stories

This is not our first participation as N2V in such forums. For we have perviously participated in Start-up Weekends Riyadh, Beirut, Alexandria, and Cairo. And we shall keep participating with and supporting all those who contribute to the renaissance of the internet in the Arab world.

This Video-based contest aims to attract the best ideas focusing on mobile applications, as contestants are invited submit a 2-minute video describing their ideas and then upload them to the contest website (www.startappz.com), where they can share it and try to get as much votes from the community. Winners will get valuable among of support to develop their creative applications afterward.

Commenting on this milestone, our N2V CEO Eng. Rashid Al Ballaa said: “Startappz is a regional initiative to attract and support the best ideas for mobile applications as smart phone and tablet penetration in MENA reached 42% in 2011” he added “we need more startups to cater for the needs of this growing segment”.

As a future step, Mohamad Khawaja –Investment Director at N2V- elaborated: “Startappz is the ideation phase of a full-fledge specialized mobile accelerator as we will give mobile startups focused support, including: hands-on mentorship, training and relevant partnerships to transform their ideas into world-class apps”.

 OneCard were thanked for their efforts and hard work in providing a comprehensive online payment solution that empowers users to shop and buy online, fixed and mobile communication services, stock market solutions, educational resources and much more.

 Rashid Alballaa , N2V CEO and who received the award from Eng. Mohamed Jamil Bin Ahmed Mulla, KSA Minister of communication and information technology, commented saying: “Such appreciation from the Ministry, provides motivation for the OneCard team, driving them to achieve further progress and growth. There are various opportunities available for OneCard to grow in many areas of ecommerce and online payment, and I am extremely confident in our ability to achieve new and international heights.”