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Gaza's unemployed graduates: between Google and falafel

With the unemployment rate steadily on the rise in the Gaza Strip, many college graduates are taking and creating jobs outside their specialty.
Palestinian youths take a nap as they wait with other passengers to cross into Egypt at Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip August 12, 2013. Egypt has sharply cut the number of Palestinians allowed to enter from the Gaza Strip since its military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi last month, the tiny enclave's Islamist Hamas rulers said on Monday. An Egyptian official said the curbs were "not a punishment" for Hamas's Islamist leanings but an effort to reduce civilian traffic as Egypt has
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Yasser Harara, a 25-year-old engineer, failed to make it to the final-round selections at the Gaza Startup Weekend held June 19 and co-sponsored by the Palestinian Telecommunication Group (Paltel), Google and other organizations. Startup Weekend bills itself as “54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, project managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch startups.” Harara presented a project about exchanging business cards via mobile phones. He did not lose hope after his project wasn't selected and in the end joined one of the winning projects as an assistant.

“I graduated two years ago, but I haven't found a suitable job. I presented this project today to try to get out of unemployment, but luck was not on my side. I did not get the required number of votes to be selected,” Harara said.

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