Published: 3 October 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
AHMAD RAMAHI’S SUCCESS HAS been a long time coming. Eight years after he graduated from Ramallah’s Birzeit University and jumped into entrepreneurship against the odds in a battered economy, Ramahi’s business-to-business crowdsourcing delivery and logistics company, WeDeliver, has turned into the fastest-growing start-up in the Palestinian territories.
Operating throughout the occupied West Bank, it is enjoying double-digit growth since its launch earlier this year and is the first start-up to boast of a Palestinian angel investor.
WeDeliver’s emergence is part of a pattern that could transform the Palestinian territories. A 2016 UN report concluded that the Palestinian territories’ economy might double in size if the occupation were lifted.
But where most traditional businesses are unfeasible, a young generation of Palestinians is driving an explosion in tech start-ups as an alternative route to catapult the Palestinian economy forward.
Flow, a “one-stop shop” incubator and accelerator program, serves as a backbone to young start-up teams and their needs, even post-investment. Fikra Hub — a subsidiary of the largest Palestinian telecommunications company, PalTel group — is another successful incubator, which enjoys the support of the company’s generous venture capital fund.
WeDeliver was Fikra’s first partnership.
These and other Palestinian incubators and accelerators have collectively produced almost 250 start-ups. The brand-new city of Rawabi, where construction began in 2010, is coming up with the express purpose of serving as a tech hub for the region and as a base for multinational companies.
FULL STORY How tech start-ups are firing up the Palestinian economy (Ozy)
Photo: Startup accelerator Flow’s office space in Ramallah (Ozy)
