Why Can’t The Region’s Cities Be The Next Silicon Valley’s?

Why can’t the region’s cities become the Silicon Valleys of the Middle East? The Economist explores the question on all of our entrepreneurs’ minds.

Entrepreneurs in the region face too many obstacles. “Let’s face it—the internet in Lebanon [is] abysmally bad!” writes Tony Fadell, the Lebanese-American who co-created the iPod at Apple. With no proper regulations to protect the startups that fail, closing down could be a nightmare for startups. “Closing a company can take five to ten years and reams of paperwork” in Egypt, for example. Though the Egyptian cabinet just approved a new bankruptcy law, the country, and the region respectively still has a long way to go.

“Unfortunately, the difficulty of doing business in the region, and the repressive nature of most governments, have caused many of the brightest minds to move abroad. But these challenges also force those who remain to think creatively about how to work around the system.”

That last line, that’s what keeps us going, it’s that many of the startups we have seen are eager to work around the system, nothing would stop them.