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Nahdet El Mahrousa and Yahoo! Are Looking For Egypt's Next Great Social Entrepreneurs and Calling on Young Egyptians to enter the Social Entrepreneurship Competition

'Social Innovation Starts With YOU' competition begins on June 28th; winners will receive grants and project incubation to help bring their ideas to life or expand existing projects.

CAIRO, June 24, 2010 -- Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Nahdet El Mahrousa, an Egypt-based nongovernmental organization (NGO), will launch a social entrepreneurship program and competition on Monday, June 28th hoping to inspire young Egyptians to think about social entrepreneurship, and socially responsible business ideas, that are innovative and sustainable and can have a positive impact on Egypt. The competition will foster Internet innovation and growth in emerging markets across the Middle East with the unique combination of Nahdet El Mahrousa's commitment to Egypt's economic and social development, and Yahoo! 's global scale and technology expertise.

The "Social Innovation Starts With YOU" competition calls on young Egyptians to visit http://eg.socialinnovation.yahoo.com where inspirational stories are shared by some of today's most successful Egyptian social entrepreneurs. Additional resources will also include an entrepreneurship toolkit, a place to enter social entrepreneurial ideas to be eligible to win monetary grants and project incubation at Nahdet El Mahrousa's Incubator of Innovative Social Enterprises, which includes technical and management support to help bring the entrants ideas to life.

"In partnering with Yahoo! , we are furthering Nahdet El Mahrousa's mission to engage and activate young Egyptian professionals in the development and public arenas and in shaping Egypt's future," said Ehaab Abdou, cofounder and board member of Nahdet El Mahrousa. "Through the Social Innovation Starts With YOU competition we are seeking young social entrepreneurs who are agents of change in their communities and demonstrate strong passion for and appreciation of Egypt and its diversity."

Calling for Innovative Ideas

Today more than 16.5 million[1] people use the Internet in Egypt, representing one of the largest[2] Arab Internet populations. Starting on June 28, Yahoo! and Nahdet El Mahrousa invite individuals from across Egypt to be the next social entrepreneurs of the year by developing new enterprise ideas that have a positive developmental impact on the lives of Egyptians in the categories of education, health, environment, and a wildcard category. The competition's website (http://eg.socialinnovation.yahoo.com) will serve as an entry point for aspiring entrepreneurs by providing an online toolkit of resources, inspirational stories, advice, and Web services to get them started. Ten winners will be honored in November with monetary grants, capacity building, technical support, infrastructure, and performance management. Among the winners will also be current social entrepreneurs who will receive support to scale their efforts and achieve wider impact. In total, Yahoo! will contribute $500,000 to the campaign, and as part of that, will provide close to $250,000 in monetary grants to awardees.

" Yahoo! 's announcement to acquire Maktoob last year shined the spotlight on tech entrepreneurs in the Arab world and the incredible potential and talent in the region that is largely untapped," said Ahmed Nassef, vice president and managing director of Yahoo! Middle East. "This partnership with Nahdet El Mahrousa continues our commitment to invigorate and grow the Internet market in the Middle East as a whole and will enable the next wave of tech entrepreneurs from Egypt to realize their dreams. We can't wait to see their innovative ideas!"

Criteria for Competition

Each applicant's proposed social enterprise will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Root Causes: Projects must address the root causes of societal issues rather than addressing the symptoms.

Scalability: Projects must have a clear vision on how to affect large segments of society.

Innovation Projects must take an innovative approach to the need they are addressing.

Sustainability: Projects must consider sustainability as a priority to ensure that the project would continue and would have the necessary means and resources -- human, financial, and otherwise--- to be able to continue and expand.

Mission: Projects must have clear and specific ideas with well-defined missions and objectives.

Impact: Projects much have tangible impacts on target beneficiaries or clients.

Monitoring and Evaluation: Applicants must list quantitative and qualitative performance indicators.

Utilize the internet: Projects must leverage the internet in some capacity to meet their mission.

Vote for the Entrepreneur Who Has Already Made an Impact

Starting on June 28, 9 inspiring social entrepreneurs will be featured, and visitors to the website can vote for the entrepreneur who they think has made the biggest impact on their communities. The winner will be featured on the front page of Maktoob.com and invited to be a judge for the campaign's Social Innovation Competition.

The 9 inspiring social entrepreneurs include:

1. Sherief El Ghamrawy, Founder, Basata and Hemaya

2. Raghda El Ibrashy, Founder, Alashanik Ya Balady

3. Manal El Mahdy, Founder, Teen Stuff and Kelmetna

4. Sherief Abd El Maseeh, Founder, SPARK

5. Mohamed El Sawy: Ashoka fellow and founder of El Sawy Cultural Wheel

6. Mona El Sayed: Managing Director, World Fair Trade Organization and Managing Director, Fair Trade Egypt

7. Magda Iskandar, Founder, Care with Love

8. Amr Koura, Founder, ALKARMA Edutainment

9. Amr Waked, Actor & Co-founder, Zad Communications

Builds on Yahoo! Middle East's Efforts

Yahoo! 's social entrepreneurship campaign with Nahdet El Mahrousa follows its announcement in August 2009 that Yahoo! had acquired Maktoob.com, the leading online community in the Arab world, which has more than 19 million unique users. This acquisition is part of Yahoo! 's larger strategy to grow its business throughout the world's emerging markets by connecting consumers with the content and services that matter most to them in their local language. Internet users benefit from the combination of Yahoo! 's popular products and services with Maktoob's compelling local content, which reaches one in three people online throughout the region. The acquisition extends Yahoo! 's current offerings by adding capabilities to deliver relevant Arabic-language content and services, as well as Arabic versions of Yahoo! 's popular Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mail services.

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About Nahdet El Mahrousa
Nahdet El Mahrousa (NM), in Arabic meaning the Renaissance of Egypt, is an Egyptian youth-led non-governmental organization, established in November 2003 and registered with the Ministry of Social Solidarity. NM seeks to make a positive and lasting impact on Egypt's cultural, economic and social development through activating and engaging Egyptian youth in the country's development, public work and decision-making arenas. NM achieves these goals through its core program, the "Incubator of Innovative Social Enterprises," which acts as a vehicle for social innovation and is the first of its kind in Egypt and the region. NM currently incubates several active social enterprises in the areas of youth development, arts and culture development, health services and the environment, linking education to employment, promoting the culture of research and development, promoting the values of citizenship and tolerance, and preparing emerging young leaders and development practitioners. The NM incubator addresses a wide community of youth, students, and other beneficiaries throughout the country.

About Yahoo!
Yahoo! attracts hundreds of millions of users every month through its innovative technology and engaging content and services, making it one of the most visited Internet destinations and a world-class online media company. Yahoo! 's vision is to be the center of people's online lives by delivering personally relevant, meaningful Internet experiences. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com).

Yahoo! and Yodel Anecdotal are the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Media Contacts:
Yahoo! Inc.
Terrell Karlsten
+1-408-349-5528
terrellk@yahoo-inc.com

Nahdet El Mahrousa
Nadine M. Reda
nadine.reda@nahdetmasr.org
+20-2575-1888

Memac Ogilvy Public Relations
Rama Alsayegh
rama.alsayegh@ogilvy.com
+971-4-305-0318

[1] According to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in Egypt, December 2009.

[2] According to Maktoob Research estimates.

© Press Release 2010