Egypt's revolution inspires tech start-ups

Egypt's revolution in 2011 proved two incredibly important things for Egyptian youth.

First, that the combined power of the crowd can accomplish anything. Second, that it takes critical networks of communication and collaboration to activate that crowd.

While the revolution eventually led to the collapse of a 30-year old regime, it has also had a lesser-chronicled impact - becoming a catalyst for a growing movement of technology start-ups booming across the country.

Egypt's swelling mass of young, educated, and enlightened graduates are now working on changing the future of a nation byte by byte, not just brick by brick.

And embracing the principles of the revolution, many of their start-ups are using this idea of collaboration, and the power of the crowd, to make it happen.

Local networking
For at least one start-up, the story begins amongst millions of protestors in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

"The government had just cut off all internet and communication networks around the nation," recalls Mohammad Omara, who has spent years designing semiconductor chips for companies around the globe.

The ability to rapidly spread information, a backbone of the revolution, was in jeopardy.

"I started thinking of a solution to get people connected," he says.

His answer? Bluetooth - a technology available in nearly all phones, PCs, and other devices that wirelessly exchanges data over short distances.