Money for ideas

An “American Idol” for entrepreneurs; that’s how the first round of selection for Beirut-based business accelerator Seeqnce could be called. The 436 applicants — ranging from designers, developers to business people from 30 countries and places as far apart as California and Romania — had three minutes to pitch their idea to the three-person jury of Seeqnce program directors. Their dream? To become the next DropBox or AirBnb, ideas that found financing from Y Combinator, a renowned Silicon Valley-based accelerator. All you needed was an Internet business idea, or techie aptitudes as a developer or web designer, and you could have applied to the program to be part of one of the eight startups that were recently selected. There was just one condition. You had to commit to being in Lebanon for six months, the duration of the program, which started on September 25.  The 150 candidates selected after the