Brate is a Lebanese startup that will launch this month.

The team describes it as “a one-stop local search engine aiming to cover a wider universe of outlets”, meaning it enables you to:

“You are young, so whatever happens you still have tomorrow to do whatever you want. There is no big deal in just jumping in and doing it. But if you don’t do it now then in 5 or 10 years you will definitely regret it” - Mackram Raydan, Founder of Cuevox

Who is Mackram Raydan?

Have you heard of I-DAW (Intelligent Development of Applications on Web)? It’s a Beirut based company that has been established a year and a half ago. However, its story began around 5-6 years back. At the current stage, with a growth of over 100% in terms of number of customers in the last 6 months, the team believes the company is approaching the end of its startup life, ready to focus on establishing a corporate structure. Even though I-DAW has not attracted a lot of media attention so far, it seems as it is doing excellent, preparing to expand regionally and gaining more and more popularity among its existing and potential customers.

The company has been selected among the top 50 participants at this year’s MITEF Arab Business Plan Competition. They are now getting prepared for the rest of the competition hoping to win or at least get connected with as many business and technical partners as possible since this is what they look after right now.

Youssef Chaker, Ruby on Rails developer and Agile Consultant, gave a workshop on best practices for software developers at Seeqnce on Feb 23-24.

Who is Youssef Chaker?

In the last couple of years a new wave of startup accelerators is emerging in the Arab world. Most of them are being inspired by leading Silicon Valley startup accelerator programs such as Y Combinator and Techstars.

The great thing about this is that if you have an idea to pitch, or you possess the entrepreneurial spirit, skills and desire to be part of the next big thing, then your dream is probably not far away from reality. No matter where you live or work in the region, you can easily find great accelerator programs offering extraordinary entrepreneurial advices, funding and networking with investors, business angels, and venture capital funds. All this will ultimately help your idea to blossom into a successful business.

"In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different." - Coco Chanel

“Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do” – Steve Jobs

“It’s really overwhelming to be on the top charts and to have thousands and thousands of downloads so I advise everyone that can develop a game to go ahead and start directly right away” – Lebnan Nader

Do you remember Birdy Nam Nam? The cool Lebanese game that achieved almost half million of downloads in a week? Last year there was quite a big buzz around this. Seeqnce had a chance to interview Lebnan Nader, one of Birdy Nam Nam’s team members.

Constantine Nicolaou is a Ruby on Rails coder with an exceptional background. He completed a BA in Management Information Systems studies at Haigazian University, Lebanon where he co-founded, designed and published a business and informatics magazine (BE-News). During his studies and in addition to working as a sys-admin and web developer for Saint Mary’s Orthodox College, he started surfcampus.com, an academic social portal for Lebanese students.

Seeqnce interviewed Costa a few months ago and early this week we had a short chat again.