Two MENA Blockchain Startups in MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Startup Semifinalists list

The 12^th edition of the MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Startup Competition will be held on March 29^th in Beirut Lebanon. After receiving more than 4000 applications over a three month period, organizers recently announced the SemiFinalists list.

The MIT Competition has three tracks of participants, startup track, idea track and social entrepreneurship track. Two Blockchain startups have made it to the semifinalist list. The first one is Addenda from the UAE which is in ideas track. Addenda is a blockchain technology that is built on Hyperledger Fabric.  Addenda enables insurance companies to settle outstanding claims and payments between each other faster, safer and at a fraction of the overhead costs needed today. Addenda isco-founded by Walid Daniel Dib. Last year Addenda had also qualified for the The FinTech Hive Accelerator programme – a first-of-its-kind accelerator in the region established by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) .

The second Blockchain/AI startup to qualify is dhonor.org, Dhonor HealthTech –which focuses on global healthcare blockchain solutions and is founded by 15 year old Ryan Merheby. Dhonor has already made great strides within the UAE and signed a partnership with du during the UNLOCK Blockchain forum as well as signed up its first client, the Ministry of Health in UAE

The semifinalists will be taking part in a pre-bootcamp training which should prepare them to perfect their business model, learn about customer mapping, scale their ventures, improve their pitching skills, and more. The training will immensely help the semifinalists when they pitch in front of the final jury in March.