Articles

AMPA: Creating, Funding Competitive Startups

NEWS

07/26/12

SAN FRANCISCO, JULY 20, 2012 - AMPA, the Association of Moroccan Professionals in America, organized its first ever technology conference in the Silicon Valley under the theme of “Creating and Funding Globally Competitive Startups”. AMPATech brought together Arab-American and Moroccan-American technology entrepreneurs, investors and mentors from all over the US, Canada and Morocco that came to benefit from the Silicon Valley know-how.

The conference was aimed at shedding a light into the practical steps of launching a start-up company while encouraging outsourcing and offshoring IT processes to Morocco. It also provided participants with lessons learned from subject-matter experts and covered multiple topics including branding, developing a technology plan, and Venture Capital funding.

The conference featured prominent speakers including:

• Ossama Hassanein, EVP of Berkeley International in San Francisco, Chairman of Technocom Ventures in Paris and ‘The Rising Tide Fund’ in Silicon Valley. Mr Hassanein is also chairman of the board of TechWadi, the largest network of Arab American high technology executives in Silicon Valley.

• Bassel Ojjeh, co-founder and CEO of the start-up company nPario, who also served as Sr. Vice President of Data Technology and Products at Yahoo.  

• Ali Benmoussa, CEO and co-founder at Ticketwood, Inc - a ticket search engine, and Bnet Technologies, a service provider of quality eCommerce websites and e-Business consulting in Morocco.  

The conference panellists offered coaching and advice from real life experiences and helped address relevant audience topics including practical steps to launching, funding and running a start-up as well as IT outsourcing and offshoring.  

Yassir Abousselham, AMPA president commented “we’re delighted to have hosted our first Silicon Valley technology conference and would like to thank our distinguished speakers for providing a high quality content and the passion they demonstrated in their areas of expertise. We would also like to thank the event coordination team and all those who volunteered to make this event a success. We will continue to break new grounds in making positive impact on our members' careers and encouraging economic exchange between US and Morocco”.