TechWadi is a leading networking association for Arab professionals in the technology field. The association is based in Silicon Valley but is open to members around the World. The main focus of the association is to promote technology entrepreneurship and career development for its members. TechWadi organizes events, hosts a website for its community and maintains a database of its members.

TechWadi is the brain child of two Arab technology professionals in Silicon Valley. Indians, Europeans and many other groups in technology have had professional associations for a long time. Despite their relatively large numbers in technology, Arab professionals did not have their own networking association. So, these two Arab colleagues got together and united their efforts to launch such an association, with the help of many other dedicated Arab professionals.

In 2005, planning for TechWadi was started. Several meetings with Arab professionals were held and the demand for such an association was confirmed. In December 2005, TechWadi held its first informal meeting to introduce the concept to members of our community. 55 executives were invited to the kick-off meeting at Mohr Davidow, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. 55 executives showed up for that first meeting ! Some of them coming all the way from San Diego. And the first term sheet was signed at the event, between an Arab entrepreneur and an Arab venture capitalist ! TechWadi was born ...

In Feb. 2006, TechWadi was incorporated and a board of directors was formed. In April 2006, TechWadi held its first official event - an entrepreneurship panel. More than 80 Arab professionals attended and the interaction of the attendees at the conference confirmed what we believed all along: Arab professionals are very eager to network with each other and to help other.

During the first half of 2006, TechWadi had 150 members. Word was starting to spread in the community ... A series of events were held during 2006 to help our members network. TechWadi ended 2006 with about 250 members. During that time, we continued to notice that there is a significant portion of Arab professionals that are very successful executives. TechWadi held its first leadership dinner in Sep. 2006 for 50 top executives in our community.

In 2007, TechWadi continued to hold its career & entrepreneurship events and the attendance at the events continued to grow. During that time, TechWadi realized that very few people outside our community realize that Arabs have helped make Silicon Valley what it is today - through their entrepreneurship, their inventions, their patents ... So TechWadi organized the first Industry Award event for Arab professionals in technology. The event was held in June 2007 and we honored four of Silicon Valley's success stories. Through 2007, TechWadi held 8 events in and around Silicon Valley.

In Jan. 2008, TechWadi reached beyond the borders of Silicon Valley to North America and the Arab World to invite Arab technology entrepreneurs to come and meet their colleagues and learn from each other. TechWadi had reached a new milestone with this event, which was held under the High Patronage of HRH Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan of Jordan. TechWadi had entered a new phase ...

In 2008, the board members of TechWadi and the volunteers will endeavor to take TechWadi to the next level. TechWadi intends to intensify its efforts to help Arab technology entrepreneurs start companies and get the funding their needs. We are designing a lifecycle program (business plan to funding) to help turn that into a reality. TechWadi will also be focusing on providing its members with more focused activities to help them achieve their career goals. Finally, TechWadi will expand its Arab Technology Forum event to include technology companies headed by Arab professionals from around the World, not just North American and the MENA region.

Today, the association has about 800 members in its database but believes that there are probably more than 3,000 Arab technology professionals in the USA alone. Our website gets more than 7,000 unique visits / month, many of them from around the World. Of our 800 members, more than 250 are top executives at startups, public companies, law firms, banks, venture capital firms, etc. - Arab professionals have helped create tens of Billions of dollars worth of value in technology, they helped create thousands of jobs, wrote hundreds of patents and everyday their contributions to the technology industry grow. We intend to work hard to reach out to all of them and to make TechWadi an invaluable resource for them in their professional lives.

If you would like to learn more about TechWadi, visit us at: www.techwadi.org

We look forward to having you join us.

TechWadi Board of Directors".

I hope this helps.

Ghazi