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ArabNet kicked off its fourth annual Digital Summit on Monday June 24, 2013, at Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai, with over 900 digital professionals and stakeholders from around the world. This year’s event delves into the hottest trends in big digital business through 45 cutting-edge sessions spanning the themes of commerce, social, mobile, media and advertising, and entrepreneurship.

A Glimpse on the Forum Track Discussions

The Forum Track began with the panel on “What’s Hot in Web and Mobile” that discussed different ways digital technology is tapping into traditional sectors, namely the education sector and healthcare. For instance, the speakers expressed a great need for investment in content in the massive education sector, which reaches $1.1 trillion in the US, according to Namek Zu’bi, Founder and Managing Director at Silicon Badia.

The session ended with a brief discussing on entrepreneurship and concluded that there is a huge potential of growth that it incubates. There is only 1 company per 1000 capita in the region, and with 300+ million population, 100+ million Internet users, and 70+ million smartphone users, the MENA region is the place to be at the moment for investors.

During an exciting panel on how digital is disrupting recruitment and transforming work, Omar Tahboub, Vice President of Product at Bayt.com expressed some of the challenges faced today. “Our challenge is to give employers a consistent, predictable, systematic experience,” says Omar. To enhance the search experience on Bayt.com, they have launched a loyalty program for employers who get in touch with job seekers and follow up with them. “This year, we have released job posting packages for SMES at cheaper rates. And next week, we will launch a new social product that will expand job seeking on Bayt.com,” stated Omar.

According to Ved Sinha, Vice President at Elance, freelancers earned $1 billion in 2012 alone and the global online freelance market is expected to grow to $4 billion within 4 years.

LinkedIn’s Head of Talent Solutions, Ali Matar, also shared impressive insights during the panel. “Since we opened our Dubai office, we have reached over 5 million members in MENA, the largest regional market being UAE, with 1 million members.”

Insights shared during the Startup Track

The Startup Track began with a panel on Acceleration, which examined the sustainability of accelerator business models.

“The sustainability of mentors is one of the very important things we care about at Etohum,” says Burak Buyukdemir, co-founder and CEO at Etohum. “We have many mentors who take board seats with our entrepreneurs. Some even take stakes and act as angel investors. Our mentors are very close to the entrepreneurs. If they see an opportunity, they are more than willing to put more investment,” said Hany Al-Sonbaty, Co-founder at Flat6Labs

Contrary to the mentors at Etohum, Flat6Labs mentors do not engage in any financial exchange with their entrepreneurs. “We are interested in getting as many mentors as possible into our doors. Those who are truly interested are the ones who eventually stay. The real mentor is the one who will build a special relationship with the entrepreneur over 6 or 12 months. They key is if they are interested or not.”

The panel also addressed the issue of second round funding following seed investment. Recently, Oasis500 took the decision to dedicate 30% of their investment to the next round of investment, to which Hany replied: “Our policy at Flat6Labs is never to invest in the next round if we can’t get angel investors because we need a market valuation of the business.”

The following session in the Startup Track explored venture capital with Ihsan Jawad, Partner of Honeybee Tech Ventures; Walid Hanna, Managing Partner of Middle East Venture Partners "MEVP"; Rashid Al-Ballaa, CEO of National Net Ventures N2V; Dany Farha, CEO for BECO Capital; Angus Paterson, Partner, General Manager of STC Ventures (Iris Capital); and Nina Curely, Editor-in-chief of Wamda, who moderated the session.

Rashid explained that N2V has stopped investing in new ventures and is now focusing on scaling, with the hope of initiating an IPO by next year. “The biggest challenge facing companies in the MENA is scaling at all levels. Instead of investing in new companies, we merged the small ventures we invested in and helped them scale,” says Rashid. “There are many highly inspiring companies in the seed investment that never reach the next stages of growth simply because they do not have the capability and discipline to grow and scale. This is why venture capitalists are very picky in investing in these companies.”

“The MENA market today is still immature. It needs more fast growing companies that invest in internationally-proven business models. Once the market matures, we will see more investments in cutting-edge business models,” concludes Rashid. “The MENA market is definitely crossing a maturing curve, and big events like this Digital Summit accelerate the maturing process.”

Surprising stats exposed

Another highly anticipated talk was led by Iyad Kamel, COO at Aramex International, who shared the most recent e-commerce trends in MENA. “E-commerce increased by 190% from 2012 till 2013, and the average value of orders is $115,” stated Iyad.

“Last year, cash on delivery (COD) constituted 70% of online transaction. This year, and contrary to our expectation, COD reached 75%. This is a clear message that we need to take serious measures to improve and encourage online payment in the region.” Iyad later stated that the Saudi Arabia is the largest e-commerce market in the region, followed by UAE and Egypt.

Want to know more about what’s going on during ArabNet Digital Summit 2013? Tune in to the live stream at live.arabnet.me!