The 2009 Internationalization Award of the President of the Republic goes to the Muxlim Lifestyle Community

Helsinki, Finland, February 2, 2010 – The President of the Republic of Finland, Tarja Halonen, presented the 2009 Internationalization Award to the Muxlim Lifestyle Community. The objective of the Internationalization Awards is to encourage businesses to operate in an international environment and to boost their ability to develop and adopt new operating models. The 2009 Internationalization Awards were presented today in Helsinki.

The President drew attention in particular to the social media network aimed at Muslims. "Politically and religiously independent, Muxlim promotes an excellent dialogue between different cultures," the President said.

Muxlim Lifestyle Community is a social media website aimed at Muslims. Muxlim is developed and maintained by Muxlim Inc., which was established in Espoo in 2006. The company was established by Mohamed El-Fatatry, an Egyptian who came to study in Finland due to the high-quality education opportunities and Nokia's international reputation. Muxlim is now awarded the Community Award, which Nokia received in 1999.
 
“Muxlim could not have been born anywhere else but in Finland, a country with strong technological expertise and a neutral position worldwide. Here, there has been no prejudice against our community. Instead, everybody without exceptions, has supported our activities. Thanks to the company's neutral background, the Muxlim.com community has spread to 190 countries. The Muxlim community is not intended for Muslims only, everybody is welcome,” says Founder and CEO Mohamed El-Fatatry. 
 
Muxlim is an independent meeting place that offers companies and organizations a unique channel to get to know the lifestyle and way of thinking of Muslim youngsters and young adults. It reaches tens of millions of people in over 190 countries.  Also Mohamed El-Fatatry has raised significant attention internationally. In fact, he has been chosen as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world, and he will participate in the Presidential Entrepreneurship Summit hosted by US President Barack Obama in Washington in the spring 2010.

Every year, Finpro looks for candidates for the Internationalization Awards and carries out their preliminary assessment. Based on the evaluation the Board of Directors of Finpro proposes a list of candidates to the President in collaboration with the Association for Finnish Work. The President of the Republic decides the winners of the Internationalization Award. Today’s award ceremony was the 42nd in the history of the award.

More TV Coverage see below:

YLE TV -      http://areena.yle.fi/video/725343 (In Finnish/English around minute 17)