译者 flyingheart
Yousef Ghandour, who is fostering a new community of Palestinian tech entrepreneurs, works on his social networking site at a Ramallah coffee shop.Jackie Spinner
优素福·甘杜尔正在培育一个巴勒斯坦技术公司创业者们的新型活动社区。图为甘杜尔正在拉姆安拉的一家咖啡店里维护他的社交网络站点。（摄影：Jackie Spinner）
Ramallah, West Bank
约旦河西岸城市拉姆安拉
In the hip Ramallah coffee shop ZAMN, Yousef Ghandour laments the slow Wi-Fi as he launches the beta version of one of his many start-ups, a social networking site that allows users to travel through time to find connections.
在拉姆安拉时髦的ZAMN咖啡店里，优素福·甘杜尔一边发布他社交网站的Beta版本程序一边抱怨店里的WIFI太慢了。这家网站是他众多新事业中的一个，是一个为穆斯林服务的网站，名叫AnaBasili，翻译成中文叫“我在祷告”， 目的是帮助用户上网冲浪，寻找有趣的链接。
Mr. Ghandour, who never wastes a moment, shares the e-books he is currently reading on his iPhone (among them, "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't"), shows off his blog, and lingers for a moment on his latest vision for a social networking site for Muslims called AnaBasili, or "I'm praying."
甘杜尔先生一丁点儿时间都舍不得浪费。他一边分享着正在iPhone上阅读的电子书（其中有一本叫《从优秀到卓越：为什么一些公司可以完成大跨越……其它的却不能？》）（Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't），一边炫耀着自己的博客，一边在自己刚更新的社交网站上逗留一会儿。
"People are really passionate about entrepreneurship and putting Palestine on the map using technology," says Ghandour, a software engineer who is helping to create – and brand – an emerging community of technology entrepreneurs in the Palestinian territories. They call themselves Palestinian geeks, or peeks.
“人们对创业的热情真的非常高，都希望巴勒斯坦能够技术立国，”甘杜尔说。这位软件工程师正在参与创办并打造一个为巴勒斯坦地区技术创业者服务的新兴社区品牌。这些创业者自称“巴勒斯坦极客”或者“劈客”。
Until now, the primary Palestinian contribution to technology has been outsourcing programmers and engineers to firms in the United States and Israel, including Google and Cisco Systems.
迄今为止，巴勒斯坦对技术进步的主要贡献也仅仅是美国和以色列公司（包括谷歌和思科等大公司）的外包程序员和工程师而已。
But these new entrepreneurs want to do more. They want to create companies based on their own ideas and hire people to implement them. Already their ventures range from smart phone apps to Web design.
但是这些新的创业者希望更进一步。他们想借助自己的创意创办公司并雇人实现它们。现在他们的事业已经涉及智能手机的应用程序及网页设计。
Crucially, the community is now beginning to attract investors. The Sadara Fund, the first venture capital fund focused on the Palestinian territories, launched last year with an initial $28 million to invest in Palestinian start-ups. At the time, Sadara estimated that more than 300 tech companies were operating in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, employing about 3,200 people.
至关重要的是，该社区正在开始吸引投资者。专注于巴勒斯坦地区的首个风险投资基金萨德拉基金于去年推出，首期投入资金2800万美元以扶持新兴公司。萨德拉基金估计，目前约旦河西岸和加沙地带有300多家技术公司，雇有大约3200名员工。
"We're starting to see some green spots here and there, but not by any stretch of the imagination do we have a mature ecosystem," says Saed Nashef, a Palestinian-American software entrepreneur who lives in East Jerusalem and is a managing partner of Sadara. "But the entrepreneurs have started to think they can go out there and do something of value. If you get one or two of these guys going, you get things going."
“我们正在看到一些零零星星的亮点，而且不带任何凭空想象地讲，我们确实有一个成熟的生态系统，”萨伊德·纳塞夫说。他是一名巴裔美国人、住在东耶路撒冷，是一名软件创业者也是萨德拉基金的主要合伙人。“而且创业者们已经在开始考虑他们可以走出去做些有价值的事。如果能有一两个这样的创业者和你合作，事业肯定会更上一层楼。”
From Microsoft to Ramallah
从微软到拉姆安拉
In booming Ramallah, the administrative seat of the Palestinian Authority, cranes and new high-rise office buildings jut from the rolling hills, with new names like Asal Technologies and PalTel emblazoned on the buildings. Many were started with seed money from local nongovernmental organizations.
在急速发展的拉姆安拉，巴勒斯坦当局行政中心、吊车和新的高层办公建筑在起伏的山坡上向空中伸展，建筑物上镶嵌着Asal Technologies和PalTel之类的新公司名称。许多公司都是借助当地非政府组织的种子基金起步的。
The potential here prompted Mr. Nashef to return home from the US, where he went to college and worked as a software engineer for Microsoft. Now he has teamed up with Yadin Kauffman, a New York lawyer who was a partner in the first venture capital fund in Israel in the 1980s.
纳塞夫先生在美国上的大学并在微软做了一名软件工程师，但此地的潜力促使他从美国回到拉姆安拉的家。现在他与亚丁·考夫曼（Yadin Kauffman）组成了一个团队。考夫曼是一名纽约的律师，上世纪八十年代与他人在以色列创办了第一个风险投资基金。
"It was one simple reason that motivates most of what I do here. I can come here and have an impact," Nashef says. "There's no reason not to try to make a difference."
“这是一个激励我在这里大干一场的很简单的原因。我回到这里，发挥我的作用，”纳塞夫说，“没有理由不干出点名堂来。”
For all of the growth and exuberance of the entrepreneurs, plenty of challenges remain, including outdated 1964 business laws. Nashef says he tried for a year to figure out how to register Sadara in the Palestinian territories before giving up and incorporating the fund in Delaware.
创业者们在茁壮成长，但大量的挑战依然存在，其中就包括已经过时的1964年的商业法。纳塞夫说，他用了一年的时间才搞清楚如何在巴勒斯坦地区为萨德拉基金注册，此后他便放弃了单独注册并入了在美国特拉华州的一个基金项目。
"The industry has some good beginnings, but it's suffered from a lack of risk capital [and] access to international markets," says Mr. Kauffman, Nashef's partner.
纳塞夫的合作伙伴考夫曼先生说，“这里的产业有了一些良好的开端，但仍然受困于缺乏进入国际市场的风险投资。”
Virtual freedom from Israeli control
摆脱以色列控制的虚拟自由
Palestinian schools produce between 2,500 to 3,000 graduates a year in computer-related fields.
每年，巴勒斯坦的学校中计算机相关专业的毕业生有大约2500-3000名。
Among them this year are Rasha Rasem Hussein, a computer systems engineering student in her last year at Birzeit University in Ramallah.
塔拉夏·拉瑟姆·侯赛因（Rasha Rasem Hussein）便是其中的一位。她是拉姆安拉比尔泽特大学（Birzeit University）一名计算机系统工程专业的大四学生。
Ms. Hussein has already helped launch a start-up called Bazinga, a communal space for local entrepreneurs with mentors, gadgets, and networking events. It stayed open for nine months before it ultimately closed its doors because of funding and management issues.
侯赛因小姐已经帮助别人建立了一家叫作Bazinga的新兴公司。这是一个为当地创业者提供咨询服务、gadgets小工具和社交场所的共享空间。该空间坚持了9个月后便因资金和管理问题关闭了。
But Hussein, who in many ways embodies the spirit of the young tech community in Ramallah, is undaunted. "I just love being part of the tech community," says Hussein, a Google student ambassador and one of the few female tech entrepreneurs here. "It feels like everything is possible. You just need to let your imagination work a bit, plus use your network to learn about how people think, then develop some great ideas."
但是侯赛因却无丝毫畏惧，她在许多方面都体现出了这个年轻的拉姆安拉技术社区的精神面貌。作为一名谷歌学生大使和这个技术社区中少数几名女性创业者之一，侯赛因说，“我很高兴成为社区的一员。这里让人感觉一切皆有可能。你只需稍微放飞一下你的想象力，再通过网络了解人们的想法，最后一些伟大的创意便出炉了。”
She says her work gives her a sense of freedom despite the Israeli occupation. "It doesn't matter where you are and what you do, you can go anywhere on the Internet – the opposite of what's here in Palestine, with checkpoints and [the] political situation and everything."
她说尽管仍在以色列的占领之下，但她的工作带给她自由的感觉。“在互联网上，你在哪儿、你做什么都无关紧要，你哪儿都可以去——可在现实中，在这里、在巴勒斯坦，则恰恰相反，检查站、政治形势、一切的一切……”
Though entrepreneurs are mostly able to work within a virtual community, they do run into life-size roadblocks visiting clients or traveling outside the Palestinian territories to attend conferences.
尽管创业者们多半都在虚拟社区内工作，但他们在生活中却是路障重重——比如拜访客户或者到巴勒斯坦地区之外的区域参加会议等。
Saed Shela, who runs SteadyPoint, a software business, was unable to get the necessary permit from the Israeli military to travel from Ramallah to Jerusalem – only about eight miles – to apply for a visa after being invited to attend a conference at Microsoft's headquarters in the US. He says he has tried for years to get a permit to travel in Israel but is always denied. "We have rules here much more than any other place," he says.
萨伊德·希拉经营稳点（SteadyPoint）软件公司。希拉受邀参加在美国微软总部举行的一次会议，为此他要办理签证，但从拉姆安拉到耶路撒冷仅仅8英里的旅程，他却无法得到以色列军方必要的许可。他说为了得到在以色列境内旅行的许可，他已经尝试好几年了，但总是被驳回。他说，“这里和其它地方都不一样，我们要受到很多很多规定的束缚。”
Unlike Mr. Shela, Faris Zaher – cofounder and chief executive officer of the discount travel site Yamsafer.me – has an Israeli passport, which enables him to travel between Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories. But it also bars him from traveling to many Arab countries, making it difficult to meet with potential partners and investors.
与希拉先生不同的是，法里斯·查希尔却持有以色列护照，这使得他可以在耶路撒冷和巴勒斯坦地区之间旅行，但他仍然不可以到其它阿拉伯国家去旅行，这样，与潜在合作伙伴和投资者会面便成为麻烦的事。查希尔是折扣旅行站点Yamsafer.me的联合创办人兼CEO。
His bigger issue, however, is competing for skilled workers in a market-place inflated by the high number of foreign aid workers, he says, noting that NGOs typically pay $1,000 to $1,500 a month, compared with private sector salaries of $400 to $700.
然而，他面临的更大问题是在一个因国外援助机构大量雇工而推高的劳动力市场中抢夺熟练工人。他说，非政府组织通常每月付给员工1000-1500美元的工资，而与此形成对照的是私营部门的薪水仅为400-700美元。
"We believe the private sector is really going to save the Palestinian economy, not the public sector, not the NGOs," says Mr. Zaher, who currently has five employees. "The young people all have the same vision. I think the Internet is very attractive to people in the West Bank because of the ability to export across the border. You can nurture a company only if it's an Internet company because all other sectors are blocked."
查希尔先生目前雇有5名员工。他说，“我们相信真正可以拯救巴勒斯坦经济的不是公营部门、也不是非政府组织，而是私营部门。年轻人都怀揣同样的梦想。我想是因为可以越过边界出口的原因，所以互联网对约旦河西岸的人们还是很有吸引力的。其它的领域都被封了，所以只有办网络公司才能看到公司成长壮大的希望。”
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