VCUQatar Hosts Refresh Qatar

Billed as a networking, discussion and learning event for web designers, web developers, e-marketers, entrepreneurs and investors working in Doha to “refresh” the creative, technical and professional culture of the internet in Qatar, the intent was to be different from a typical conference and instead provide a friendly, vibrant atmosphere for people to meet and share what they know through demonstrations, panel discussions and open Q&A sessions.

“In this particular event we wanted to experiment and do something different” noted Moamer Qazafi, Director of Marketing and Public Relations. “While using the weekend time slot of a Saturday, we purposefully kept the event on a fast track schedule. The 11AM to 1PM time slot was packed with short, interesting presentations from the movers and shakers of Doha such as Khalifa Saleh Haroon and Bassam Al Ibrahim founders of iLoveQatar.net , Rana Sakhawy of UrbanSouq.com and George Engel of the Vodafone online store.” Inspirational talks were also given by Levi Hammett about the Tasmeem Doha Design Conference, Tarek Kassar about Entrepreneurship in the Middle East, and Kapil Bhatia on online marketing.

Balal Khan, Web Developer for VCUQatar and the organizer of Refresh Qatar noted that “The Middle East has entered a phase of massive uptake of web services and online media by consumers and businesses. If web agencies and startups are to take advantage of this new growth, it is vital that the Qatari web community is strongly interlinked and operating at a world-class level. The Refresh meet-up was started to make connections between Doha’s best web designers, developers and entrepreneurs, and to identify the true professionals in our midst. We hope to have our next event in February 2011 and continue this momentum into the future.”

Anyone interested in learning about the next meet-up or contacting the organizers should start at www.RefreshQatar.com