COMMENT
DO IT
YOURSELF
Silicon Valley’s navel-gazing startups
have never been less relevant to
Middle East enterprises – it’s time for
the region to think of new strategies
to encourage local innovation, says
Eliot Beer.
A
few weeks ago news emerged of a little project
called Peeple, a new app which would let anyone
rate anyone else – in the same way as anyone can
now rate a business on sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor.
The world (or selected parts of it) went nuts – and the app’s
creators subsequently went dark. Quite possibly an actual
apocalypse would not have drawn as much vitriol as Peeple
did (even though a number of things suggested it might all
be a publicity stunt to promote an online video series). The
as-yet-non-existent app was definitely The Worst Thing Ever
– at least for a few weeks.
But this slightly dodgy vapourware neatly illustrates a
major current trend in Silicon Valley towards a world where
nothing (and no-one) is unknown, and where any trace of
inconvenience is removed from one’s daily life – with firms
such as Trashday offering a service to move bags of rubbish
from a house to the street, to services offering to drive, clean,
cook, fetch and pack, along with innumerable laundry apps.
Some commentators have suggested this trend
demonstrates an infantilisation of modern life – an
attempt to return to the days when mummy and daddy
did everything for you, amusingly spoofed by the Trashday-
24
INTELLIGENTCIO
BOTH OF THESE BIG-DATA
PROJECTS ARE USING
TECHNOLOGY TO TACKLE
SOME OF THE MOST
PRESSING SOCIETAL
CHALLENGES THE MIDDLE
EAST FACES – AND WHICH
DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY
AFFECT EVERY PERSON
AND COMPANY IN THE
REGION
www.intelligentcio.com