Sindibad: Reviving Arab Entrepreunerialism through the Web?

Ahmad Humeid brings Sindibad, a new blog devoted to reviving the culture of entrepreneurship amongst Arabs, to light. (You can read his post here.)

The blog thus far is exclusively in Arabic; Ahmad has translated the mission statement of Sindibad below:

“Arabs have been known throughout history as good traders. Nothing expresses that better than the story of Sindibad, the Arab trader from Baghdad, who braved the seas in his trading adventures that reached far beyond Arabia.

If ‘risk taking’ is an admired business trait today it is worth noting that this too is an Arab invention. European traders of medieval times learned the word ‘risk’ from the brave Arab traders who were sailing the seas seeking ‘rizq’ (Arabic for ‘a living’ or ‘fortune’).

Today, a global business revolution is reshaping our world. We live in a globally connected, technologically enabled world. The rules of business are constantly being re-written. Work is being redefined. Information flows around the globe at lightening speed. Goods and services travel faster and further from their place of origination. Amazing wealth is created and destroyed simultaneously as the wheels of the global economy turn.

Where does this leave the Arab world? Stagnating economies, a mere 4% contribution to global trade, slow risk averse companies, stifled creativity and an import-dominated culture are the prevailing realities. Has the modern world seen any Arab brand of significance? What is the Arab’s contribution to the world economy? Are we innovating new ideas, products or services?

Still, in this dark age of Arab business, there are islands of entrepreneurship, sometimes as small as single individuals, who simply will not accept being drowned by the stagnant waters of the Arab business scene. You will find these entrepreneurs and leaders in small companies, corporation and even in government. Their insistence on taking their fate into their own hands, tirelessly innovating and pursuing their goals is the only hope of Arab business to survive in a competitive global economy”

Ahmad writes: “This is the spirit behind Sindibad, an ambitious publishing project that hopes to play a central role in an Arab business and entrepreneurship renaissance. The first manifestation of this project is the Sindibad Blog, the first Arab blog focusing on a new business culture in Arabia: a culture of entrepreneurship, ideas, excellence and renewal.”

This is a direly needed first step in attempting to create, rather than reviving, a new entrepreneurial culture in the Middle East. As anyone who’s lived or worked in the Middle East knows, the region is well known for proclamations of grandeur and self-congratulatory rhetoric, and it looks like Sindibad is off to a solid start at fitting in. It has yet to monetize its front page as can be seen here (look for the gray box under the green search box):

The largest problem with the blog is fairly obvious: its entirely in Arabic (save the company logos that adorn the site). The internet, as has been mentioned in a previous post, exists almost entirely in English. And while this may sound harsh, the language of modern global business is not Arabic, rather its again English. While its helpful to have an internet community for Arabic speakers that are business oriented, its clearly a huge limiting factor as well since no non-Arabic speaker can access the site or communicate with those that use it.

If the purpose is to create an engaging business culture, the site should be in English and Arabic, or at the very least have some English content. To some extent this has been recognized by the site’s creators as they’ll be licensing content from Fast Company, and I assume translating it in Arabic. That’s a rather clear recognition that the language of business in today’s age, and the information that they wish to share is in English. (To provide some context, I know of no business publication that caters to the Middle East in Arabic. Venture, Jordan Business, AME Info, Business Islamica (a case of blatant copyright violation of Islamica Magazine), Gulf Business, and The Middle East all exist in English.)

Lastly, and this is a minor issue, why didn’t they call the blog “Sindbad” as opposed to “Sindibad.” Know one in the West knows what Sindibad is. Sindbad, however, is a lot more obvious.