Last week my TootCorp partner Mazen and I had a great time attending Le Web, Europe’s largest internet conference. You can actually watch the entire conference on the video archives of Ustream, who where streaming the sessions live.

The pace of innovation we witnessed around the real time web, social networks is just and mobile apps was just astounding. Rapid cycles of startup activity, VC funding and acquisitions is what makes this innovation happen. Not to forget bloggers like Techcrunch’s Mike Arrington, Robert Scoble, Steve Gillmore and Chris Pirillo and Om Malik (all of which were present at Le Web) who just publicize the hell out of every little web innovation out there. It’s an amazing ecosystem, which we lack in this part of the world.

This being a European conference, there where endless discussions on Europe vs Silicon Valley. Listening to European entrepreneurs complaining about the restrictiveness of Europe and the fragmentation of their markets made, at least for a moment, feel sorry for them :-) But then again, I really wanted to go up on stage and just invite them to the Middle East to show them what our web entrepreneurs have to face!

The Middle East was the focus of a session on the first day of the conference, featuring Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito, Habib Haddad of Yamli and Rabea Ataya, which was a good intro to the market and its particular challenges.

But he highlight for us at TootCorp was on the second day of Le Web. HM Queen Rania delivered a keyonte speech with a sharp emphasis of moving virtual activism to real-world activity. She cited how Watwet, the “arab Twitter” was used to mobilize people to help with sorting and packing donations for Gaza last year (the people at 7iber.com and Aramex played a pivotal role there of course).

The Jordanian web industry, which is starting to build quite a reputation especially after the Maktoob-Yahoo deal, cannot have a better spokesperson than Queen Rania. She is definitely the most web savvy royalty in the world. Her championing of this industry should help attract attention to its potential from global media and investors. Yeah.. and local investors too.


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2 responses to “HM Queen Rania mentions use of Watwet in Le Web keynote as example of digital activism”

  1. petitenemesis Avatar
    petitenemesis

    what an awesome shout out. and if i recall correctly, this isn’t the first time she toots the watwet horn. great stuff, guys.

  2. Nas Avatar
    Nas

    congrats to watwet for the exposure!