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Every Friday, we choose an alum who has been making headlines—for better or for worse.
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10/21/11: Omar Christidis ’04, ’07MBA

By the staff | 1:52pm January 03 2012

Last December—just ahead of the uprisings roiling the Arab world—Omar Christidis ’04, ’07MBA, traveled the Middle East trying to instigate a different kind of revolution. His ArabNet RoadShow, a three-week bus tour, sought out young digital entrepreneurs and connected them with the investors, lawyers, and experienced business people who can help them succeed.

In the words of a Huffington Post columnist: “The next frontier of the digital age is the Middle East and its evangelist is 28-year-old Omar Christidis.” Christidis himself adds: “There’s no reason why the next big thing—Google, Facebook or GroupOn—shouldn’t emerge from Lebanon, Jordan or Saudi Arabia.”

After earning his bachelor’s and MBA degrees at Yale—where he cofounded the Yale Arab Alumni Association—Christidis returned to his native Beirut and launched ArabNet, which calls itself “the hub for Arab digital professionals and entrepreneurs to connect and learn.”

After the road show, ArabNet sponsored a four-day “festival of digital” in Beirut last March, and this week held a two-day conference in Cairo, with an anticipated 600 attendees. Which just goes to show that in the digital age, people still know how to network in the flesh.

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