The Arab Spring swept away a variety of dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa, but it also represented a pause when it came to economic development in the region. “It gave a huge motivational boost for the whole generation to build and innovate,” says Egyptian Omar Gabr. He looks back now on the whole situation as a positive one, but at the time, the impact was huge. Social media played a big role in the process in Egypt and elsewhere, but for internet companies, the immediate impact was one that caused investors and customers to desert in their droves.

Gabr runs Instabug, a bug reporting app so innovative, it has raised millions of dollars in funding, taken part in the renowned Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator, and has over 800 million devices around the world running it.