Where are the Arab technology billionaires?

Arabianbusiness.com has released the latest installment of its list of the 50 richest Arabs, showing once again the lack of technology billionaires in the region

Arabianbusiness.com has released the latest installment of its list of the 50 richest Arabs, showing once again the lack of technology billionaires in the region.

While the worldwide rich lists are regularly full of men who've made their billions through IT, including Mexico's Carlos Slim, Gates, Ballmer and Paul Allen from Microsoft, Larry Ellison, Brin and Page of Google, Michael Dell and Carl Icahn, the Arabian Business list shows only three entrants that can directly attribute the majority of their wealth to technology. Even then, while Egypt's Sawiri family, at number 23, and Najib Mikati of Syria, at number 47, both made their riches through technology, the third entrant, Ayman Hariri at number 36, is an engineer by profession, but inherited family wealth.

There are some of the groups among the rest of the list that have substantial holdings in technology, mainly telecoms, but its a very different picture of wealth to the US.

So where are the Arab technology billionaires? While a lot of the US richest made their wealth during the early days of the technology industry, they aren't all beneficiaries of a single boom period. The gradual development of new parts of the industry can almost be traced by the wealthy men that helped to found them, and there are still new players, like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, appearing today.

For the most part, with the technology billionaires, its been a question of ideas and the right environment to be able to action them. Despite the credit crisis, the region's wealth funds are showing more and more interest in technology, and local incubators are increasingly in search of start ups to invest in. With the right ideas, there's no reason why the rich list shouldn't have a true Arab technology billionaire or two in a few years time.