Middle East Web Development Societies Won’t Be Deterred

As the fever continues to rise, it is obvious that the region is going through a shift that governments can hardly keep up with, let alone control as has been the case before with civil society organization’s activities. Today it is clear to me that the Web Development society of the ICT industry has decided to take matters into their own hands, and the result is astounding.

It has been going on for a while with ArabNet 2010 as an example of the industry’s size, yet has recently culminated into a number of events that have been sprouting around the region in what appears to be the beginning of a techie grass-root movement to achieve two primary goals:

1. Kill the fear of a failure
2. Simply put professionals in direct contact with other

We’ll be taking a look at some coming up events that fall in this category and in my opinion have a good chance of achieving the above two objectives amongst much more. (In no particular order)

• TEDx Events: TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. TEDx on the other hand is an independent event from that of TED held with the same devotution to that of it’s US counterpart, which is to serve ideas worth spreading in the Middle East. Some examples are: TEDxDubai, TEDxCairo, and more can be found here.
• Arab Techie Women’s Gathering: From Beirut, Arab Techies is a collective that started with the goal to bring together a varied group of techies who vigorously utilize their IT skills to support their communities on the route of development and social change. Organized by by Arab Techies Network in partnership Social Media Exchange.
• Amman Tech Tuesday’s:  The main goal behind the program is to organically fortify and interweave ties in Amman to provide professionals with the knowledge and experience, and simply get them in one big energy charged room. Speakers varying from multiple disciplines such business law, to hardcore technology. Find more details here.
• Dubai Tech Nights: Organized by individuals working at Dubai Silicon Oasis it aims to gather technologists and business people of all sorts under one roof, stir, and see what happens. Check it out here.

What gives these three events significance in my opinion, is that when looked upon each on their own show dispersion and no coordination what so ever, which is exactly what the region needs at this time. In a sense that movement has to start at its lowest level, guided by those with some experience, and far away from politics and competition.

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One recurring phrase I have been hearing throughout the past couple of years from pioneers in the web industry, is that we professionals need to free ourselves from the fear of failure, we need to gain more experience, and start providing solutions for the problem that we face instead of waiting for them to be solved by others.

I sincerely hope these events help us fail more, to finally succeed.