ASTF and Intel announce '2nd Arab Technology Business Plan Competition'

ASTF President Dr. Abdalla A. Alnajjar said,

'The strong participation levels in the past two competitions prove yet again that there is no shortage of world-class entrepreneurs and technology in this region. We are focusing on bringing convergence between investors and ideas in order to support and facilitate the introduction of a strong technopreneurial start-up culture that will further strengthen its economic well-being in the region, and lay strong foundations for a hotbed of ideas and commerce.'

'As youth mark over 70% of the Arab population, instilling them with the right innovative skills is key to enhancing their academic and professional development,' said Bassem Nasir, Higher Education Manager, Intel Middle East Turkey and Africa. Nasir also added that endorsing home-grown talent and education are key focuses for the company, as part of the Intel World Ahead Program.

For this year, the universities competition (Arab Universities Technology Business Plan Competition) will be merged with the mature entrepreneurs competition, and several new categories will be created. The final round of the competition will be held in Jordan on the 10th & 11th of December this year and the winners will be announced in a special ceremony at the 5th 'Investing in Technology' Forum, 12th -13th December 207, held under the patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein.

In the 2006 universities competition, held in UAE, the first award went to Kindisoft, A Jordanian team from Princess Sumaya University for Technology. The winning business plan introduced a unique and powerful Adobe Flash reverse-engineering protection solution. The product aims to protect the intellectual property of more than 2 million flash developers suffering from code theft since 1998. The second award went to PyramidTech, an Egyptian team from American University in Cairo (AUC). PyramidTech's idea is to develop low-cost three-dimensional (3D) range cameras targeting both the automatic guided vehicles (AGV) and ground vehicles markets. The combined market size is at least $800 million.

'Participation in this kind of competitions provided us with the tremendous opportunity to explore new avenues. In our plan, we needed to consider issues such as the valuation of the Intellectual Property of our products, the present and future value of our company, and what kind of investors & funding we are seeking, and for how much equity ', Said Ammar Mardawi, co-founder of Kindisoft, first winner of Arab Universities Technology Business Plan Competition. 'In the past year, we registered the company and received seed investments from Arab investors. This investment has helped us to focus more on the product development and marketing, and we are going to launch a new edition of our main product (secureSWF Professional edition) in a few weeks, in addition to developing two new novel products.'

'It was a wonderful experience for us to win in the regional competition and then represent the region at the Global Business Plan Competition organized by Intel and the University of California, Berkeley,' said Dr. Ahmed Abou-Auf, CEO of PyramidTech, the second winner in the Pan-Arab Competition.

'Being at Berkeley gave us a great opportunity to represent our venture to well known venture capitalists in the US and benefit from their feedback. We also had the opportunity to widen our network with best entrepreneurs from all over the world and benefit from their experience. PyramidTech is now using research grants in development of different subsystems of the ladar-based 3D camera, such as the focal plan array detector and the image reconstruction processor. Our major challenge at the moment is to secure enough funding to complete the prototype for navigation control of automatic guided vehicles, and we hope we can benefit from the seed & early stage Venture Capital Fund being established by ASTF to invest in Arab Technology startups like ours,' he added.

In the second competition, held in Kuwait, the first prize went to Astroleap, which had submitted a business plan to stream location sensitive data to mobile devices. Astroleap's content will allow users to download and redeem coupons and promotions, check for friends in near proximity while traveling and dispatch emails and invitations. Astroleap was awarded an investment of US$ 50,000 in their business plan. WadiMobile UAE secured the second place with its mobile applications platform, while Hakaya Technology's concept for new software development tools gave them the last spot in the winner's circle.