Shoot 4 The Moon,: passion

An angel celebrating his first birthday!

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:14:00 GMT

Our little angel Mahmoud has celebrated his first birthday last night with a small crowd of family kids!

365 days ago, Mahmoud came to life to change the world in his own way! :)

As passionate parents, we can't wait to see Mahmoud growing up and becoming an independent mature man who takes decisions on his own and chooses his own path for life. I think that would be the best day all along our lives!

I think the Mahmoud's charming smile can say a lot, so I just want to conclude with this nice short quote for John Bowring. It says: "A happy family is but an earlier heaven."

Happy birthday, little Hammodeh... keep growing :)

P.S. a previous post predicting the future of our kids is posted here. enjoy reading it!

IEEE Iftar '09.. Fun, Entertainment & Networking!

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:13:00 GMT

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!

The Charming Sharm!

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:32:00 GMT

Early this year, we took a great decision to go for a full week of adventure, fun and entertainment in the charming Sharm! (Egypt)... the 30-second video can tell you the most exciting parts of story! enjoy :)

Wait for more special "short" videos.. stay tuned!

Amman Twestival '09 Tweet. Meet. Give.

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:19:00 GMT

On behalf of the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, It is my pleasure inviting you to join the 2nd Twestival event in Jordan Amman Twestival (Twitter + Festival). This time the discussion will be around Entrepreneurship and Social Media. The event is designed to be very interactive where your tweets will be displayed live (on the BIG screen) during the event, which will give the moderator and everyone -including the panelists- the chance to elaborate on your tweet either by talks (or maybe another tweet!) Thanks to @tweetDeck :) !

The Cause for this year's Twestival is to support: Al-Aman Fund for the Future of the Orphans

Al-Aman Fund for the Future of the Orphans is an independent non-governmental organization founded in 2006 by Her Majesty (@QueenRania) Al-Abdullah.

Time: September 13, 2009 from 9pm to 11pm

Host:Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (@QRCE)

Location: Al-Hashemeyyen Theatre, Royal Scientific Society

Location map:http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=109625758156428484728.00043e8954f270a9d9d7c

For more information about twestival, please visit: http://amman.twestival.com/

Stay tuned follow @AmmanTwestival !

Milan... The city of mediapreneurs!

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:41:00 GMT

Media gurus, government officials and promising entrepreneurs were gathering last Wednesday at the Milan Chamber of Commerce to discuss the future of media and mechanisms to better support technopreneurs (technology entrepreneurs). The event was organized by PROMOS in cooperation with Creative Commons, "Meet The Media Guru" and the local government of Lombardy.

Over the full-day event, I was glad to speak at the same panel with peers from the Arab World: Abdullatif Al Sayegh -the CEO of Arab Media Group one of the powerful player in the scene of Arab media, and Mohammad Abdullah -the Executive Director of Dubai Media City. I also was glad to speak to Antonio Ferrari -the World-class journalist who interviewed leaders across the world including H.M. King Abdullah few days right before the recent visit of the Pop to Jordan. I was also glad to meet Roberto Ronza -the Senior Advisor of the Lombardy Region in Italy.

For Melan, media business occupies a huge space of the landscape of the local economy and plays a great role in promoting it as the city fashion, history, art and business opportunities.

During the panel discussion, statistics about traditional media in the Arab world and future of the Media after the rise of Media 2.0 (social web) were presented. As part of discussion interesting ideas were raise, like the how policians and celebrities are adapting with the new media? and how new media will affect the positioning of traditional media instead of replacing it? (Taking for example, the status of radio and cinema after the widespread of TV) Also, how the growth and spread of new media is dependent on the development of infrastructure (internet speed and cost of bandwidth, availability of supporting devices and enabling technologies.. etc.)

During my talk, I focused on Innovation as the primary competitive advantage in the 21st century -while price and quality were the most dominant competitive advantages of businesses in previous centuries- and I moved to speak about the progress of the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship in nurturing innovation by establishing a specialized training Institute in the domain of systematic Innovation.

Speaking about Innovation, I presented two success stories from Jordan: Ketab Technologies and Kindisoft and how these entrepreneurs managed to gain remarkable market access and achieve rapid growth and recognition of world class companies such as Google and Disney.

In the afternoon session, there were one-to-one pre-scheduled meetings where I get the chance to meet a representatives from FBF -an international network branding company and candidate for one of Oskar Awards. I was pleased to talk to two exceptional entrepreneurs Fuse Creative Lab and Lorri who have successfully developed amazing interactive surface solutions using gesture recognition technologies, which can really achieve better performance than Windows Surface and Xbox technologies and can be applied for so many other applications.

I will be writing a special post about them soon. But for now, I can keep leave you with this interesting appetizer that demonstrates one of their solutions!

iSi / eMotion Control 2.1 from fuse creativelab on Vimeo.

Joi Ito (Creative Commons) & Habib Haddad (Yamli) speaking at the Entrepreneurs Week!

Sun, 17 May 2009 09:10:00 GMT

It gives me a great pleasure to invite you to join the world-class speakers at The Entrepreneurs Week!

During this week, the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship and other distinguished partners are opening an interactive discussion with outstanding international speakers who are going to talk about several important topics in Entrepreneurship, Business and Management.

Among the speakers are Joi Ito; a Japanese entrepreneur, venture capitalist and board member of numerous for-profit and not-for-profit boards. He has a background in Hollywood motion pictures, Japanese television production and online media. His recent focus is investing in early stage internet companies such as Flickr, Twitter, Last.fm, Six Apart and Technorati. Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons.

We also lucky to have Habib Haddad the entrepreneur behind Yamli.com, and drives its vision of empowering the Arabic language and users on the web. His responsibilities span from product strategy and design to business development. The World Economic Forum recently recognized Habib as a Young Global Leader for 2009.

Yesterday's Seminar about Blue Ocean Strategy was very interesting since the speaker Mohammad Ajlouni -the Managing Director of Middle East Defense Systems - one of the rare 48 Blue Ocean Certified Practitioners world wide.

The program of The Entrepreneurs Week:

Date	Time	Topic	Speaker
16/5	5pm	BlueOcean Strategy: How to transform a new business idea into a winning strategy	Mohammad Ajlouni Managing Director, MDS
17/5	5pm	Identifying your Strengths as an Entrepreneur	Ronald Evans CEO, SIMA International
18/5	5pm	Idea to Reality	Habib Haddad Co-Founder, Yamli.com
19/5	6pm	Innovation in Open Networks - Perspectives from an Internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist	Joi Ito CEO, Creative Commons
20/5	5pm	Cross-cultural business issues as companies expand internationally	Doug Christgau Director, Cross-Cultural Development
20/5	5pm	The current U.S. and world financial market situation.	Larry Hutchins Certified Financial Planner, Wachovia
21/5	5pm	Insights into family-owned companies in regards to economic and human resource issues.	John Carmon President, Carmon Community Funeral Homes

Please feel free to attend all -or at least part of- these seminars. because such experts will not be available -and free of charge- again in Jordan until the upcoming Entreprenuers Week! :)

I lost my finger :(

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:46:00 GMT

I'm sorry, but this is what a delicious dish of fish may cost you!

For more details you may visit my wife's blog!

Blogging right from the TOP!

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:29:00 GMT

On my way to Beirut, to speak in a public event about Creative Commons and its impact on the Internet Community, I took this few nice photos:

I wish I can just stand on the top of this wing! It would much more interesting to fly this way, ain't it?

What a small meal !!! I know the trip to Beirut is short (1 hour) but this does not mean to cut down the breakfast !? (Royal Jordanian should reconsider this!)

Snowy mountains from the top... don't we miss snow in Jordan these days! :-(

Want to see more of Lebanon? stay tuned here during the upcoming few days!

How to listen and TALK to people in Gaza ?!

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:45:00 GMT

During the last 2 weeks since the beginning of the strike on Gaza. We've all seen millions of angry people across the world holding banners condemning the 'genocide' in Gaza and chanting anti-Israeli slogans on several TV channels and other media channels as well.

I'm sure that protesting is really a supportive action, in addition to in-kind and financial donations and other common means of support. But, I'm writing now to suggest another effective powerful way to support people in Gaza morally, and make feel them how much we do sympathize with them; it is basically to call them!?

Yes, you can really support people at Gaza by calling them and telling them how much we are proud of their persistence, braveness and resistance against this inhuman barbarian strike on Gaza. I've tried it and I can tell you how they would love to listen to us and find a listening ear from you as well.

To call a random number in Gaza, all you need to do is to dial:

+970828 XXXXX (add a random number composed of 5 digits)
+970820 XXXXX
+970821 XXXXX

Example: +97082812345

P.S. I will record one of my calls and post it her to share with you this experience. Please try it yourself, NOW!

Mahmoud; the Gentle Baby :)

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:28:00 GMT

It is my pleasure to introduce our little son to you:

Name: Mahmoud M. Khawaja
Date of Birth: 21st of Nov. 2008
Martial status: Single!!
Hobbies: sleeping, imagination and discovering the new world around :)
Occupation: jobless ?!
Dreams: Endless....

To know more about his "predicted" character, personality and style, I invite you to read this interesting post. :)