Held under the patronage of His Excellency Mr. Khaled Nasser Abdullah Al-Roudan, Minister of Commerce and Industry and Minister of State for Youth Affairs and with the Platinum Sponsorship of the The National Fund for Small and Medium Enterprise Development, the 2nd edition of ArabNet Kuwait was a great success and gathered over 800 attendees and 70 speakers from across the UAE, the region and the world.
The second day of ArabNet Kuwait 2017 featured eight panels spread among two Forums: Digital Commerce and Adtech. The conference also featured a 1-on-1 interview with one of the most successful entrepreneurs and active investors in the MENA region, Fadi Ghandour, who spoke about the trends in tech investing. The highlights included keynotes from Twitter, Instagram and KNET, as well as the CEO series which hosted Salah AlFulaij – CEO of NBK and Neil Hardwick – CEO of MEC MENA.
ArabNet conference hosted a roundtable, “Aligning Efforts to Support Entrepreneurship & Innovation”, focused on analyzing the state of Kuwait’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and evaluating gaps and opportunities that would help maximize market growth in the next few years. It brought together investors, entrepreneurship enablers and regulators who presented and discussed the best methods for stimulating the growth of entrepreneurship in Kuwait.
At the closing ceremony, and for the second time in Kuwait, the three winners of the Startup Battle were announced. Under the sponsorship of Kuwaitnet and with Sirdab Lab as a training partner, orddr, a platform that connects food suppliers to restaurants, by Naser Al-Qatami came in 1st place; Festivity, an online destination delivering event, by Nasser Altowaijri came in 2nd and PantryBee, delivering fresh pre-portioned ingredients and visual step-by-step recipe cards, by Yousef Almunayes was chosen in 3rd place. The three winning startups will get the chance to participate in ArabNet Startup Championship taking place in Dubai at the ArabNet Digital Summit 2018 (April 30 - May 1). Furthermore, and with Sirdab Lab again as a training partner, TABB, a smart restaurant solution for wait-free dining, by Yong Joon (John) Rhee was announced as the Ideathon winner and received $5,000 as a seed grant to help them kick start their idea.
ArabNet Kuwait is sponsored by The Kuwait National Fund (KNF), Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS), Gulf Bank, KuwaitNet, Nabad, Bayt.com, JustClean, KNet, Social Entrepreneurship Enterprise Development (SEED), DBS Digital, Wataniya Airways, VIVA Telecom, Careem, MEC Global, DarisniME, and Boubyan Bank.
ArabNet Kuwait was able to highlight the state of digital economy in Kuwait, as well as delve into the latest trends in digital media and marketing. High profile industry leaders and entrepreneurs tackled key topics via 3 forums, and it served as a platform for thriving entrepreneurs who want to turn their ideas into reality. ArabNet will be hosting its next event in Riyadh on December 11-13, 2017; in Beirut on February 20-22, 2018; and Dubai April 30 - May 1, 2018.
