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Honesty
turned out to be the best policy for this Saudi programmer
|
Fizzing with boyish exuberance, Saudi programmer
Zainalabdin Tawfiq could be mistaken for a college freshman, but the popularity
of his "honesty" app has shone a spotlight on the conservative
kingdom's nascent tech scene.
Tawfiq catapulted to fame when he took time out
of his day job as a business analyst last year to develop an anonymous
messaging tool called Sarahah — honesty in Arabic — that subsequently topped
the charts for app downloads. Initially conceived as a tool for soliciting
bluntly frank workplace feedback, Sarahah has found its way into the
smartphones of millennials worldwide, even as critics have raised alarm about
trolling and privacy issues.
The app has a frugal design and a simple prompt
that encourages users to "leave a constructive message :)", with the
recipient not allowed to reply but only share it on social media or block the
sender. Its mass appeal stems from the appetite in the
Arab world — notorious for online censorship — for unfiltered platforms for
expression, though Tawfiq said it has also gained a strong popularity in
Western countries.
Such has been its power to knock down social
barriers that obstruct free speech that one user described it as an app where
you can "hit enter on comments you would have otherwise backspaced".
Sarahah has so far drawn 85 million registered
users, and rocketed to the top of the Apple app store in some countries, ahead
of heavyweights such as Snapchat and Instagram.
- 'Oil's decline, entrepreneurship's
rise' -
That a Saudi app could gain such success spotlights
hidden potential for tech innovation and entrepreneurship at a time of economic
transformation in an ultra-conservative country.
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| Giving online feedback without fear of the consequences |
"The success story of Sarahah really proves
that Saudi startups can achieve spectacular gains when properly
supported," said Nawaf Alsahhaf, CEO of Badir, a government-backed
technology incubator that helped Tawfiq. "There truly is undeniable potential behind
Saudi startups we currently incubate," he told AFP.
Saudi Arabia is promoting private enterprise as
part of its ambitious reform program to move the kingdom away from its
dependence on oil revenues. "It is clear oil's decline and
entrepreneurship's rise are necessarily intertwined," the Beirut-based
venture capital firm Leap Ventures wrote on its website last year, noting a new
growth in disruptive tech innovations in the region.
A new breed of Saudi startups — from an
on-demand roadside assistance app called Morni to Hunger Station, a food
ordering portal — have recently drawn the attention of venture capitalists.
- Minimizing abuse -
Tawfiq said he is in negotiations with venture
capitalists from the United States, China and the Arab world, without disclosing
details, in response to critics who question whether his app can be effectively
monetized.
In some gender-segregated Arab societies, men
have used Sarahah for secret love confessions, but it has also been used by
service delivery companies to harvest constructive feedback and psychiatrists
in far-away Mumbai to engage openly on subjects such as sexual health.
Sarahah has come under fire for being a troll
magnet — but Tawfiq said that problem was common to all major social media
platforms. It has also recently been accused of secretly
harvesting the address books of users. Tawfiq rejected that claim and said he
plans to remove Sarahah's address upload feature with the next update.
He currently runs a tight ship with another
business partner and three customer support executives, but is considering
leaving his day job to focus on Sarahah full time.
"I believe that even one case (of abuse) is
actually too many," Tawfiq said. "I won't tell you how, but my aim is
to make the job of misusers as difficult as possible."
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