25th April - 4Site DC Event : Social Change in the WANA Region

The day before the Presidential Summit, I attended the 4Site DC event.

The details of the event can be found here : http://4sitedc.eventbrite.com/

The 4Site DC event was organized by my friend David Munir Nabti from Beirut. 

David and I have known each other through GEW and we have remained friends ever since we met in Kansas City in early 2009.

David, a Lebanese, was brought up and educated in the Bay Area in Silicon Valley and went to grad-school at the University of California, Berkeley.

The event itself had only about 20 to 30 people - all highly passionate change makers mostly from the MENA (Middle Eastern and North African Region).

There were many many interesting people at this event and some of them I met had very interesting stories to tell about their ventures.

One lady in the event who was particularly interesting was Susan Schindehette, President of http://www.miworld.com/. 

Susan was nominated best writer in People's Magazine for many years before she decided to leave her profession as a writer of the magazine to the story of human suffering.  She is, I later found out authored many books.

Susan spoke with conviction of her mission to tell the story of human suffering.  

Nabil M. Shalabi of Asharqia Chamber, in Saudi Arabia. (www.chamber.org.sa) is the other person I met.

Nabil is a funny in a very interesting sort of way - he is a deal maker, at least from my perspective. Throughout the Summit i ran into Nabil many times and he always had an interesting request or story for me.   

Nabil, started his venture when he was merely 9. I could relate to him. He now promotes entrepreneurship in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Nabil tells me has very good experience in managing incubator .

David, my buddy, explained his Karage concept and how he is building an incubator and a sort of a "can-do" hub in Lebanaon.

David plans to replicate his concept throughout the region.

Throughout the Summit, one theme was emerging very clearly from the Arab world- that the Arabs and the Middle Easterners are deeply concerned about job creation for their young people. 

They are gravely aware of the vast number of immigrants from Asian countries who are moving in there to take up jobs in restaurants, bars, hotels and other service sectors.  The "functional underclass" are immigrants and so are the young entrepreneurs.

It seems like the people in this region have to act fast to turn their young into hungry start-up entrepreneurs..