El Malak: Increased sophistication by both entrepreneurs and investors.

By Arno Maierbrugger
Gulf Times Correspondent
Bangkok

The Global Islamic Economy Summit, inaugurated just two years ago, introduced to the world for the first time idea of a cohesive global Islamic economy. This year’s event held on October 5 and 6 in Dubai under the slogan “Driving Innovation, Unlocking Potential,” put its focus also on Muslim startup culture and innovation. Gulf Times spoke to a young Muslim entrepreneur on his views on where the momentum for young Muslim businesses lies.
Rami El Malak is founder of Miella.com, an online portal for halal fashion.
How would you describe the existing ecosystem for entrepreneurs and start-up founders in the Arab world – are there enough incentives, venture capital, disruptive ideas?
The ecosystem is definitely growing and we are seeing increased sophistication by both entrepreneurs and investors. That said, there are important factors that need to develop in order for the environment to continue expanding. For example, with the rarity of big exits and/or IPOs in the region, investors do not always get the larger returns they may be expecting on their investments. As a result, while there is liquidity in the markets, start-ups (especially in technology) don’t always have access to that capital because they end up appealing to a still limited number of sophisticated investors. Another area that we are still lagging behind in the Arab world is the availability of world class science and technology colleges. So while we see some cool start-ups and apps, there isn’t significant innovation at the frontier of science and technology, especially if you look at sectors like the medical field.
Regionally, which countries in the Middle East do have developed some form of startup culture?
There are a few places in the region where entrepreneurship is being fostered both by governments and private institutions. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and to a certain degree Egypt house increasingly active clusters of angel investors and venture capital funds seeking to invest and grow various start-ups. Governments are facilitating these activities with projects like Dubai Technology and Entrepreneurship centre at Dubai Silicon Oasis for example. And accelerators like Astrolabs are also engaging with entrepreneurs and across the Mena (Middle East and North Africa) region and helping scale their various start-ups.
In general, what role does entrepreneurship/innovation play for the Islamic economy as a whole?
Start-ups are one of the engines of growth for any economy, let alone the Islamic one. From Microsoft and Oracle to modern day supernovae like Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and the world’s most valuable company, Apple, all these companies and many more have been the direct result of entrepreneurship. Of course, with every big success story, there are hundreds of failures, but that is part of the process, and entrepreneurs will continue to innovate in software, biotechnology, energy etc. And so with growing entrepreneurship ecosystems in the Islamic world, and game-changing initiatives to position Dubai as the global capital of Islamic economic jurisprudence, there has never been a better time to be a Muslim entrepreneur.