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TechCrunch Is Off To Beirut For ArabNet

Mike Butcher

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Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

Monday, March 26th, 2012
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This week I’m heading the ArabNet Digital Summit in Beirut, Lebanon. It looks like the march of the Internet isn’t just changing society across the Arab region, but business too. The MENA (Middle East North Africa) region’s largest digital event has been expanded to 5 days featuring speakers, panels, workshops, a startup competition and about 1,500 delegates. In a sign the the Arab business world is really getting switched on to tech these days, there’s even a hackathon-style developer event during the conference. I daresay there will be some interesting startups for TechCrunch to unearth there.

You can follow the conference at @ArabNetME on Twitter or the #ArabNetME hashtag. You should also follow Omar Christidis on @omarchr, Founder and CEO of ArabNet, who’s a cool guy.

I’m looking into holding some kind of TechCrunch Meetup, maybe in the bar of the hotel where the conference is. Let me know if you have any suggestions in the comments on venues etc. Thanks people.