This has been a week of looking back and planning ahead. What are you excited about for next year? What are the most valuable experiences you've learned in 2012? 

Pic of the Week

Failure is sometimes inevitable. We often need to fail first, so we can learn. But how do you get right back up, dust yourself off and move on? Read what Features Editor Glen said about it here.

Upcoming Events

• 21 Dec – Startup Weekend Tripoli
• 21 Dec - Beirut Global Shapers Hub Launch
• 31 Dec - King Abdullah II Award for Youth Innovation and Achievement
• 12 Jan - Finance for Entrepreneurs and SME's

Make sure to check wamda.com/events, or follow @WamdaME on Twitter to stay updated about more events you can!

Entrepreneur of the Week

This week's 'Entrepreneurs of the Week' Taline Assi of Mosaic Marbles, which started as an early version and family-owned e-commerce but quickly pivotted into a platform to order and sell marbles made of mosaics. What were the struggles and what are Taline's most interesting experiences on entering a US-market and focusing manufacture on Lebanon after the start of the conflict in Syra? Find out in our interview with her.

Articles you Might have Missed 

Wamda's 2012 Editorial Team Picks

We decided to end this year with a special post highlighting each of the editorial team members' favorite stories. Find out which ones each of us picked, and why, here.

10 Myths About Startups from Habib Haddad

What are some the most bizarre reasons you've heard from entrepreneurs that either keep them from 'taking the plunge' or why they thought their startups were going to be an immediate success. Check out Wamda CEO Habib Haddad's picks. 

Entej Works to Connect Egypt's Entrepreneurship Ecosystem

When you have a great project idea, you probably tap into your environment for potential partners and team members, go on social media networks to pool for potential investors, and maybe mentors. Or, you can hit Entej and check out what they're about here.

How to Contribute to Wamda's Newly-Launched Community Blog

Want to write your own posts on Wamda? We've just enabled a new feature allowing you to add your own posts. We'll regularly check these and who knows? If your post offers valuable information to our readers on entrepreneurship, we could even promote it to Wamda's homepage. Find out how here.

Palestinian SMS Platform Souktel Raises $1 Million from Sadara Ventures

Souktel is set to enter a new era with a round of $1 million in investment from Palestine-based venture capital fund Sadara Ventures. Find out more here.

When is the Right Time to Quit your Job? [Poll Results]

We always encourage you to share with us in our posts’ comments section. This week, we received a great question from one of our readers. So we turned it into a poll to see what others thought. When is the right time to quit your job and focus full-time on your startup? Check out the results here.

Tips from an Omani Entrepreneur at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit

Couldn't make it to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit hosted by the Entrepreneurial Ventures of Arabia? Sharifa Al-Barami has got you covered. Check out her key take-aways here.

iOS App Abjad City Teaches Kids the Arabic Alphabet

When Syrian entrepreneur Reem Atassi and Jordanian entrepreneur Mona Abdel Hamid found themselves raising their children in a foreign country where no one spoke their native language, they realized that others, like them, must also be struggling to teach their children Arabic. So they came up with Abjad City. Find out more about it here.

Big Data Visualization Made Accessible to All: Burak Arikan of Graph Commons [Wamda TV]

In the age of big data, will the revolution come from well-connected little data, and how we integrate and map them into larger networks of ideas? Find out what entrepreneur Burak Arikan, founder of Graph Commons, a platform dedicated to providing “network intelligence” for everyone, has to say about it and why he chose to set it up in the region, here.