zeedna at ArabNet 2011

Last week saw one of the seminal events in the tech calendar of the Arab World. It was the week of ArabNet Shift Digital Summit 2011. So far this year we have seen a lot of change in the Arab World - change in which social media has played a significant role. Against this backdrop, we realized that the gathering was about more than the technology - it was more importantly about how web and social media technology can be used as tools for progress, empowerment, transparency, sharing and collaboration. The panels covered the whole gamut of subjects from funding, entreprenership, mobile, citizen engagment, socil media marketing and gaming so there were topics, discussions and ideas galore for all to take part in whether they felt like just sitting back and listening or wanted to be more actively engaged.

This year's conference was the first time they had a developer day, in which our Director of Development, Mutaz Qasem, gave a talk on Django to help aspiring developers get an overview of the framework.

We were also selected as a finalist in the Startup Demo competition, finishing in the top 10 out of 70 applicants from the region and beyond. It was a truly proud moment for the team and we were honored to be selected and given the chance to present our platform to the conference.

We're already looking forward to next year's ArabNet conference and to making more friends and meeting fantastically energetic and inspiring entrepreneurs, techies and media & marketing people.