100+ online fans rushed after Iftar time to join the 2nd Amman Twestival on the evening of 13th of September and at the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship. The event was co-organized by Malik Shishtawi and sponsored by Aramex.

A Twestival or Twitter-Festival is a global series of events organized by volunteers around the world under short timescales, which bring people offline for a great cause. Twestival is run 100% by volunteers and independently from any not-for-profit; although the organizing teams do work closely to outline an achievable and measurable fundraising target. Twestival also sets out to identify key skills of volunteers and match these with the needs of the cause; particularly communications strategy, tech integration and social media training.

Twestival this year took place in over 140 cities around the world, Amman was not just another hosting city, but the capital that produces the most prominent Arab entrepreneurs in the domain of social media.

The discussion about social media was very interesting. I started by introducing the panelists: Razan Khatib, Zeid Nasser, Laith Qasem and Laith Zraikat. after that we went into and open discussion about the current situation and the future of social media in Jordan & the Arab world.

Lina Shehadeh -CMO of Aramex- talked about the value of twitter for a big corporate like Aramex and how is it utilized by the customer service department when it comes to B2C services aiming to resolve any raising issue with customers in effective manner in order to vent frustration quickly.

Hana Ramli was there as well. Her story was about how social media (facebook) helped her to recruit over 3000 volunteers in her impressive initiative "Ketabak Ketabi" and it is now becoming a regional initiative for Palestinians in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Co-founder of Nakhweh, Kamel Al Asmar, talked about how Nakhweh is utilizing social media in promoting volunteering opportunities announced at Nakhweh.com and how people trust social media leads over other means of marketing.

The active blogger Osama Romoh described his fan page on facebook as primary source of traffic to his blog. He also believes that twitter functionality is embedded in Facebook feed, and that makes him more excited to use facebook over twitter.

Sabri Hakim -the co-founder of Talasim- shared his story during Amman bombs and how his photo was featured on CNN. According to Sabri, Talasim is now utilizing twitter as an alert/reminder for latest updates on their portal and this creates more traffic & interactivity.

Mohammed Alzubi - the managing partner at Arab Seed Ventures, a venture capital fund focusing on seed stage investments in the Arab region & Silicon Valley - elaborated on what attracts Angel investors to invest in the business of social media in the Arab world and how web startups are becoming a sizzling opportunity for VCs and Angels specially after the Maktoob-Yahoo deal.

Majd Shwikeh -CEO of Orange- talked about her personal experience with twitter and how she became addicted to it! :). Generously, Majd promised to send a special iPhone offer to all participants of Amman Twestival. The offer is available here.

I was so glad to see the audience interacting by talks and tweets, which were displayed live on the big screen behind the panelists (check #AmmanTwestival). I think that setup kept everyone active until the last moment and even after that during the "Qatayef" (Ramadani Sweets) reception! :)

The last and most important portion of event was announcing the donation from Aramex to Al Aman Fund. The donation was followed by a mini-speech through which Maha Saqqa -Director of the Fund- invited attendees to volunteer their time to support & empower orphans in Jordan.


Enjoy this short video about the best tweets during the event.



I also recommend visiting the following interesting blog posts about the event:

• iReport : Twestival in Amman,
• Ali Dahmash's blog,
• And Then There Was a Tweep,
• Top 10 Quotes at Amman Twestival

posted by Mohd Khawaja in amman, business, donation, Entrepreneurs, innovation, Jordan, Love and Passion, media, Photos, qot, Royal Jordanian, startups, success, technology, twestival, twitter, Voluntary Work @ 12:03 AM

Last Tuesday, we were were invited to a special Iftar at the Princess Sumaya University for Technology organized by the IEEE Jordanian Student Branches.

The event was really very exciting and full of entertainment and fun activities. Members of DART -the student Entrepreneurship Society- joined the event and spent great time with others. The nice weather, dynamic audience and interactive program contributed to make it such a remarkable event! :).

The title of my potion was: "Your Path For Life". Basically, I talked about the choices you may have after graduation and what the best decision to take. The most interesting part was when I invited a jobless fresh graduate to share his daily life with the audience -with some sense of humor :-D.

As per the request of the audience I share the presentation here...



Few other photos are available here.

Interested to join IEEE or DART? drop me a comment here to guide you where to go!

posted by Mohd Khawaja in amman, Entrepreneurs, IEEE, innovation, jood, Jordan, My daily life, passion, Photos, success, Voluntary Work @ 2:13 AM

posted by Mohd Khawaja in amman, business, donation, Entrepreneurs, innovation, Jordan, media, passion, queen rania, startu, startups, success, technology, twestival, twitter, Voluntary Work, Work @ 9:19 PM

posted by Mohd Khawaja in amman, donation, family, innovation, Islamic, Jokes and Fun, Jordan, Love and Passion, My daily life, passion, Photos, Voluntary Work @ 10:48 AM

posted by Mohd Khawaja in amman, car, energy, innovation, Jordan, My daily life, solar, taxi, Voluntary Work @ 11:46 PM

I love reading quotations so much!.. thus I would resume blogging by posting this inspiring one:

posted by Mohd Khawaja in passion, qot, Voluntary Work @ 2:01 PM

posted by Mohd Khawaja in Islamic, My daily life, Voluntary Work @ 1:52 PM

My workmate Basel was there too, we went to the clinic first to make the necessary blood test. The blood test was really painful :( (but I acted as "don’t care" مش فارقة). They've cut my finger (couchhhhhh!!!!) and pulled my blood out into 3 tubes containing special chemicals that indicate blood type and concentration of hemoglobin. My blood type is "O+" and I figured out that the concentration of hemoglobin is 16.6, which is considered to be very good.. hamdullah (touch the wood) :)

I moved to the caravan … laid on a cushioned bench and extended my arm. The doctor smiled, when I told him: "I'm a soft hearted person.. I hope you would reduce the pain as much as you can!", then he placed a cannula in my vein, and asked me to keep opening and closing my hand to help speed the blood withdrawal process… I felt the flux of blood :( for the first time!

Right after I've finished, I have been kindly asked to set down for a while drinking sweet juice… to recover back some of my energy…

posted by Mohd Khawaja in blood, doctor, donation, Love and Passion, My daily life, Voluntary Work @ 8:03 PM

I want to hail all of those who organized that event with high morale and creativity. especially because this event was the practical component of the training course I have recently delivered, and the organization team has to apply themselves to make it a success.

Looking forward for more effective voluntary events. Ramadan Kareem!

posted by Mohd Khawaja in Voluntary Work @ 9:43 AM

posted by Mohd Khawaja in Voluntary Work @ 9:25 PM

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