Shoot 4 The Moon,: Photos

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!

Amman Twestival '09 - The future of Social media in Arab World

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:03:00 GMT

100+ online fans rushed after Iftar time to join the 2nd Amman Twestival on the evening of 13th of September and at the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship. The event was co-organized by Malik Shishtawi and sponsored by Aramex.

A Twestival or Twitter-Festival is a global series of events organized by volunteers around the world under short timescales, which bring people offline for a great cause. Twestival is run 100% by volunteers and independently from any not-for-profit; although the organizing teams do work closely to outline an achievable and measurable fundraising target. Twestival also sets out to identify key skills of volunteers and match these with the needs of the cause; particularly communications strategy, tech integration and social media training.

Twestival this year took place in over 140 cities around the world, Amman was not just another hosting city, but the capital that produces the most prominent Arab entrepreneurs in the domain of social media.

The discussion about social media was very interesting. I started by introducing the panelists: Razan Khatib, Zeid Nasser, Laith Qasem and Laith Zraikat. after that we went into and open discussion about the current situation and the future of social media in Jordan & the Arab world.

Lina Shehadeh -CMO of Aramex- talked about the value of twitter for a big corporate like Aramex and how is it utilized by the customer service department when it comes to B2C services aiming to resolve any raising issue with customers in effective manner in order to vent frustration quickly.

Hana Ramli was there as well. Her story was about how social media (facebook) helped her to recruit over 3000 volunteers in her impressive initiative "Ketabak Ketabi" and it is now becoming a regional initiative for Palestinians in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Co-founder of Nakhweh, Kamel Al Asmar, talked about how Nakhweh is utilizing social media in promoting volunteering opportunities announced at Nakhweh.com and how people trust social media leads over other means of marketing.

The active blogger Osama Romoh described his fan page on facebook as primary source of traffic to his blog. He also believes that twitter functionality is embedded in Facebook feed, and that makes him more excited to use facebook over twitter.

Sabri Hakim -the co-founder of Talasim- shared his story during Amman bombs and how his photo was featured on CNN. According to Sabri, Talasim is now utilizing twitter as an alert/reminder for latest updates on their portal and this creates more traffic & interactivity.

Mohammed Alzubi - the managing partner at Arab Seed Ventures, a venture capital fund focusing on seed stage investments in the Arab region & Silicon Valley - elaborated on what attracts Angel investors to invest in the business of social media in the Arab world and how web startups are becoming a sizzling opportunity for VCs and Angels specially after the Maktoob-Yahoo deal.

Majd Shwikeh -CEO of Orange- talked about her personal experience with twitter and how she became addicted to it! :). Generously, Majd promised to send a special iPhone offer to all participants of Amman Twestival. The offer is available here.

I was so glad to see the audience interacting by talks and tweets, which were displayed live on the big screen behind the panelists (check #AmmanTwestival). I think that setup kept everyone active until the last moment and even after that during the "Qatayef" (Ramadani Sweets) reception! :)

The last and most important portion of event was announcing the donation from Aramex to Al Aman Fund. The donation was followed by a mini-speech through which Maha Saqqa -Director of the Fund- invited attendees to volunteer their time to support & empower orphans in Jordan.

Enjoy this short video about the best tweets during the event.

I also recommend visiting the following interesting blog posts about the event:

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!

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!

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. :)

To Jood on her 1st birthday!

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:07:00 GMT

If you missed the first letter written to Jood (before she came to life), you can find it here.

Our little sweetie,

Hard to believe, but true, you have blown out your 1st birthday candle last week :)

A year full adventure and amazing funny moments has passed leaving special memories that will live inside us forever. So be ready to trigger your memory back when you grow up!

The love of a parent is something impossible to understand until you become a parent yourself. You were the naughtiest baby around who attracted the eyes and hearts of everyone and made them all fall in love with your innocence, intelligence, cheerfulness, playfulness, energy, curiosity and cuteness.

During the times we were travelling, you were the most beautiful thing to discover! We still remember how you were making new friends everywhere we go with your charming smile –whatever their language, skin color or age.

If there is one thing that I want you to know even at this young age, it is to know that every moment in life counts - each is beautiful in its own way, whether happy, painful, joyous or awful. Treasure the wonderful moments in life, and learn to grow by living through those that are not.

You are developing in so many ways, sweet baby, and each day I catch another glimpse of something new that makes me say with swelling heart, "This is another aspect of Jood!" we are so privileged to love and care for you. We are so excited to get to know more and more of Jood.

They used to say that everyone inherits the qualities related to his/her particular name. That is very true in your case; especially when you insist on feeding everyone around you before you start eating!

I cannot look upon you without thinking of how Allah gave us the tremendous blessing of being your parents.

Our hope for you is to grow to know, love, and change the world in your own way!

With Love,

Mama & Papa!

Jood ... a four-month-old fetus

one-week-old baby..

3-month-old little lady!

7-month-old naughty girl!

almost 1-year-old swimming in Wild Wadi - Dubai

Study & Work!

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:28:00 GMT

This photo has been recognized as the best photo for the year 2007. The reward, was announced during the final meeting of Federation of Arab News Agencies (FANA) General Assembly held in Amman, and given to the Syrian Arab News agency (SANA)'s Cameraman Wasem Kheir Beik for his photo taken in one of the streets of Damascus.

The photo shows a 7-year old girl sitting in front of her movable table on which she sells sweets and biscuits, and at the same time carries her books trying to do her school duties.

This photo has stimulated so many ideas and impressions in my mind... I'll list 2 of them here briefly!

First, it shows a high level of persistence we seek for in the younger generations; you need not to have a rich family or be a son or daughter of a tycoon to get educated, if you decide to educate yourself you can do it, no matter what the circumstances are. Jordanian educational system has proving this through many cases for students from less fortunate public schools who were keen to excel in national and supra-national competitions (both curricular and extracurricular) and exceed our expectations. I was a jury member at the National Robotics Competition this year and I was so amazed by the achievements of teams from El-Shoneh and Baq3a.

This photo really shows and interesting example of a multitasking little girl! you can never effectively utilize your time in the 21st century without being multitasking, you might feel stressed and under pressure at the first place, but the more progress you do the more you get addicted to being multitasking. So, Keep you favorite books/magazines with you wherever you go … store you favorite audio books, e-books and podcasts and play them whenever you move around (by car or public transportation) or waiting somewhere (at the clinic, bank, governmental office… etc.). An interesting research published last years says that an average person spend -at least- 2 FULL years of his/her life on the road!

I really have more to say about this pretty nice photo … but since I have so many to do before the end of 2007, I leave the floor for you to express yourself!

Special smiles for a speacial Eid :)

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:34:00 GMT

Special smiles for a special Eid! :)