Middle East region varies significantly when it comes to readiness for digital transformation. Many states—especially the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula—are awash with government funds, investment programs, and incentives for digital businesses.
Meanwhile, current and recent conflict zones such as Palestine and Syria are sorely lacking some basics, such as the ability to conduct electronic transactions or an investment and market ecosystem in which startups can grow.
In addition, there are difficulties common to many countries in the region, where bureaucracy and slow infrastructure can become obstacles in terms of infrastructure.
We spoke with representatives of startup companies at Expand Polaris Event in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) this week to gauge perceptions of their countries' readiness for tech startups and digital businesses in general.
The event was attended by startup exhibitors from all Arab countries, with a huge presence from the host country – the UAE – as well as a significant presence from states from Morocco in the west to Oman in the east.
We spoke to startup founders and representatives from Egypt, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Qatar and the UAE to take the digital temperature across the region.
Egypt
“The main challenge is how to prove yourself to investors and customers who will buy your product. There are a lot of startups and a lot of entrepreneurship in Egypt.
But also in Egypt, in terms of infrastructure, if you add a new feature that is not traditional in Egypt, it can become a bit of a problem.”
Abdul Malik Mohammed, Technical Director, Ducky Cars, Egypt
“In Egypt, the infrastructure is not digitized at all. So for us to make everything digitized is very difficult. It takes time, maybe months.
Egypt has a lot of AI talent, but the infrastructure is a little slow.”
Roqaya Ashraf, Agridawar, Egypt
Oman
“I think the infrastructure in Oman is fine. It can handle the digital challenges. But there is bureaucracy. You have to go through too many procedures. If you have a plan in your head and want to implement it, it goes through too many procedures.”
Majid Assaifi, Chief Operating Officer, SafaQat Platform, Oman
Palestine
“There are a lot of obstacles. For startups, the problem is that everyone works in theory. There is no ecosystem where people can implement ideas. So, someone may know technology, may know marketing, but there is no way to implement the idea.
Situation in Palestine also makes it a little risky for investors and people and so on. So, most startups die at the grant stage. You will receive grants, but then what? Indeed, it is very difficult to find a real investor who will invest in something.
The mentality of people who have money in Palestine is that they will invest in real business, trade and so on. There is no mentality here to invest in startups and so on.”
Yazan Abassi, CEO of Plink Play, a mobile game discovery platform, Al-Quds/Jerusalem
“First is the size of the market in Palestine. It is very limited. Second is the situation – the socio-political and economic situation in Palestine. It is changing a lot. So people are not willing to invest in Palestinian companies or startups.”
There is a lot of global competition. So there is a huge gap for Palestinian startups that are no longer able to go global.”
Stephanie Polo, startup manager at B-Cite, an incubator at Al-Quds University
“In Palestine, because we have a special situation with conflict, it is difficult for us to get attention for our startup or to enter the market outside of Palestine. Also, we do not have access to all the technology we need. In a country like the UAE or Saudi Arabia, everything is more accessible online.”
Razan Ashhab, Founder, Glycare, Al-Quds/Jerusalem
Qatar
“From an infrastructure perspective, there are several challenges. Here in the region, we rely a lot on suppliers. It's also a data privacy issue because a lot of data is stored externally and that creates issues around data sovereignty.
So the challenge is to develop our own data centers and everything needed to comply with data privacy regulations.”
Almabrouk bin Umran, Founder and CEO of Entreprenode, Qatar
Saudi Arabia
“In Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and North Africa region, it can be a little difficult for deep technologies [ie, hard science-based projects] ventures to find suitable partners, especially in the venture capital sector. [venture capital] space.
When it comes to deep technologies, they require certain skills and abilities that are currently lacking in the region.
Finding talent in the region is certainly a challenge as universities and research centers are not at the same level as those found in the Western world. But the situation is changing with universities like Kaust in Saudi Arabia and Khalifa University in the UAE, which are doing very good, high-quality research suitable for deep-tech enterprises.”
Mohammad Karimi, CEO Saher Flow Solutions, Saudi Arabia
“Saudi Arabia is investing in start-ups, but perhaps the key problem is people's awareness. They don't know there is a huge amount of investment available.”
After Al Shahri, co-founder of Bio Fiber, Saudi Arabia
Syria
“The challenges we face are technical. For example, if someone wants to open a company in Syria, we pay mostly in cash. So our challenge is to integrate Mastercard and Visa so that we can pay easily and everything works easily.”
Ahmad Abdul Jabbar, Yallago, Syria
“The main issue is that if you want to create a startup, it will be based on some kind of service, and you have to receive money. The main thing is that we cannot process electronic payments in Syria yet.
This is not about sanctions; the fact is that we have no money in the bank. So, whatever payment is made will not be accepted by the service provider as they will not be able to receive their money.
We need to find a good solution for this and from my point of view it is to print a new Syrian currency that can solve the problem so that people trust it.”
Khalil Baza, Technical Director, Motzion, Syria
“The main problem is infrastructure. It is still being worked on. But the Syrian government is doing a great job with the new communications minister.
Besides, we need to bring everyone back, especially from abroad. The Syrian people have a huge pool of talent coming from Silicon Valley, the UK and Saudi Arabia. They're bringing everyone back in hopes of making life easier for startups. They invest a lot in people and ideas.”
Abdullah bin Sumaidiya, Director of Artificial Intelligence, aiIXplain-Trustangle, a low-code development platform, Syria
UAE
“I think the infrastructure here is prepared for this in terms of the intentions of helping early-stage startups and licensing support. But I feel like maybe when people get into the ecosystem, very early on, they kind of get lost. So there's a little bit of a gap between when they gain traction to get everything you need to navigate between regulatory, development software and so on.
From a human point of view there are no problems. We were an early-stage startup and we were able to find great people to give us advice.”
Lance Boling, Technical Director, Great People, UAE
“In the UAE, the costs of starting a startup, expanding, marketing, etc. are expensive for those trying to figure out how to get their first break. But there is opportunity – more opportunity than in any other country in the region.”
Bassam Tarek, CEO of Stacks, developer of AI-powered drag-and-drop mobile apps, UAE
“The UAE is amazing when it comes to startups. We have an ecosystem. We also have government support.
The struggle we see in the region, and not just in the UAE, has more to do with investment. Investors are very confident in what they want to move forward.
In the UAE, the money is here; it's about where the money is distributed. Investors don't come to the early stages of a startup. They want to come when the startup is already making money and is really successful.
This severely limits creativity because it forces smaller startups to pivot to where the money is, but then lose focus on their core mission.”
Yahya Kabara, Marketing and Strategy Manager, MyGatePass, UAE
“Dubai and other emirates are very dynamic and have a successful ecosystem for supporting startups. If you need mentorship or anything like that, they support us very well.
But there needs to be more women in business, and we need to put a little more effort into that. “Especially in the AI business, it’s a male-dominated business, so there needs to be more support for women to come into this business.”
Nafiseh Gharavi, Chief Operating Officer, Onkaru, AI Toys, UAE
