a vision

Women Entrepreneurship in the Arab Word

March 4 2012rama chakakirama@baraka.ae

Sunday, March 4, 12

A personal account

• Fundraising

• USA

• Keybridge - $60 Million 3 weeks (VC)

• MENA Fundraising

• zeedna - $500,000 3 years (F&F)

Sunday, March 4, 12

Tech Venture Landscape

• consumer internet & mobile apps

• OTHER

• infrastructure

• software

• hardware

• services

Sunday, March 4, 12

connect.communicate.collaborate

CONSUMER INTERNET: eCommerce & Augmented Reality

Sunday, March 4, 12

connect.communicate.collaborate

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT - Gaming

Sunday, March 4, 12

MOBILE: Application

Sunday, March 4, 12

connect.communicate.collaborate

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT - Science & Education

Sunday, March 4, 12

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MOBILE: Messaging Application

Sunday, March 4, 12

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SOFTWARE: Social Media Platform

Sunday, March 4, 12

Challenges

• entrepreneurs - Humility & poor self-promotion

• investor profile

• risk averse

• accustomed to brick and mortar model

• lacking industry knowledge

• underdeveloped eco system

• insufficient seed & angel investment networks

• Majles recommendations

• global pressure to invest in developed markets

• family & society

• advocating stability

• time & priorities

• social bias (cupcake business or if you are really serious.. graphics design)

Sunday, March 4, 12

Opportunities

• An eco system - Women centric everything

• angel networks & vc firms

• consumer internet & mobile

• services

• web design, custom software development,

• e-education, digital agencies,

• social ventures

Sunday, March 4, 12

what we must do..

• enable the powerful through tech

• tell stories & celebrate success & failure

• identify role-models

• push them out to the world..

Sunday, March 4, 12

connect.communicate.collaborate

Sunday, March 4, 12