Juniper Research has released its latest report on consumer app downloads to mobile devices and has reported a 16% rise in Arabic mobile applications in the United States alone, despite the slow rise in Arabic mobile application availability.

According to the report, the rise in application downloads responds to the rising interest in Arabic language and society globally.

The Seeqnce Accelerator Program, recently ranked in the Top 10 Accelerators of the MENA region, brings together promising individuals or teams from the business, design, and engineering fields, who want to create the next big startup. Collaboration between entrepreneurs and skilled individuals – even those coming from completely different industries – can help create the new spin ideas and talent need to grow into a healthy, young business.

Set up to take applicants’ ideas and talent from early stage to the point of being a company investable by seed investors or traditional venture capitalists, the program is immersive and intense, but definitely exciting. Applicants will be introduced to educational experts and serial entrepreneurs that will inspire and encourage applicants to crystallize their ideas and skills, and support the transition from the idea to the launching stage.

Tourtwist is a social platform where tourists identify and connect with friendly locals to customize their visit and turn their holidays into unique cultural experiences. It’s mainly targeting non-commercial and rural areas where one can experience the true Lebanese culture.

Tourtwist is planning its beta launch to be at the end of May and the official launch to be sometime in November after the high season is over.

Alibaba (China’s biggest e-commerce site and global leader in online B2B trading), TradeKey (a Pakistani company “competing against Alibaba”), and Global Sources (a Hong-Kong based B2B company facilitating trade between Greater China and the rest of the world), are among the global leading online B2B marketplaces.

Generally, this type of e-commerce websites connects sellers and buyers by enabling each party to:

There are handful companies in the MENA region developing amazing products. In today’s article we picked 5 startups we believe are worth to keep an eye on.

We are pretty sure there are many other startups doing awesome things in the region and that’s why we’d be very happy to hear your suggestions in the Comments section.

Laimoon, a Dubai-based startup, is an alternative to traditional job boards with a current focus on sales and marketing in UAE and Qatar. Its aim is to match applicants to relevant jobs which in effect will also match employers to relevant applicants.

The company was founded nearly 1 year ago, but the official launch was 6 months ago.

Breedo.com (“I want it” in Lebanese) is a daily deal website offering discounted and limited quantity products. Right now the products are mainly electronics. However, the team plans to expand their offer by adding a range of diversified products.

“The ultimate goal is to become a reference for any company that is selling products at a big discount”, says Emile Boustani, Breedo’s Founder.

e-dailydish.com launched its first Facebook Game called Spicy Dish.

The game will be running for 10 days and will bring over 200 awesome prizes to its fans, among which iPad 3 is the “hot spice” prize. So make sure you start playing Spicy Dish NOW.

Last weekend we talked to Sherif Maktabi, Founder of Project Better, over Skype. He’s launching the project today at Stanford University.

You can read more about the core team of Project Better in the biographies provided at the end of the article.

App&Above is a company dedicated to delivering customized mobile and tablet applications to corporate clients as well as providing mobile strategy for clients’ businesses. It was launched 5 months ago, on November 1, 2011 in Beirut.

Last week we invited Antoine Abou-Samra, the Founder of App&Above, to Seeqnce Space. He told us more about his company, including its business culture, the company’s purpose of existence as well as its business model.