In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, AI is more than just a buzzword; it’s a transformative force driving change across many different industries. With DataQueue, Orange Corners Palestinian Territories graduate Bashir Alsaifi stands at the forefront of this trend, helping businesses integrate AI into their processes to enhance efficiency, innovation and growth. For this interview, we delve into the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with Bashir and his Dutch business partner, Anton van Halteren.
Hi Bashir and Anton! Bashir, we first came across you in 2022, when DataQueue was still called Jobify. What happened to Jobify/DataQueue since?
Bashir: back then, we were a service company called Jobify. We initially worked with crowdsourcing for annotation labelling for AI, but pivoted into a product-based company later, which we still are today. We aim to become a leading AI infrastructure company, where we help other businesses incorporate AI into their processes.
Our business model is B2B2B, which means we work with industry integrators that have their own pool of clients. As DataQueue we don’t work with the end clients directly, but we enable these industry integrators to innovate and expand faster. Build more products, go to more markets. We help them to do it quickly, without having to think about the processes behind it. While they focus on their business, we worry about the backend.
We focus both on the MENA region and Western Europe. Earlier this year, we opened an office in Groningen, where I work together with Anton.
Anton: I’m a chemical engineer by training. Previously I worked at the University of Groningen, where I developed AI projects that connected students to companies in order to help them with AI solutions. Some students had a background in AI, others had no technical training at all, but in teams they’d develop really cool solutions. It was both a learning community and a consultancy assignment. This is how I met Bashir. From the moment I met him, I thought what a really interesting, cool company DataQueue is, and I wanted to contribute more. By working together and combining my network, university contacts and actual implementation, we generate a lot of interesting leads in this part of the Netherlands.
Companies in the north of the Netherlands are starting to notice that DataQueue is a promising company. We’ve connected with a lot of other startups here, regularly take part in startup events. And we were also selected for the Founded in Groningen investor readiness programme. And in addition to that, we’re exploring as many leads as possible in Western Europe as well as the MENA region to develop new products and solutions. Exciting times!
For people who don’t know a lot about AI, could you make it a bit more concrete what DataQueue does?
Anton: I’ll give you an example of a real user case we’re working on now. From the DataQueue platform we’ve developed Call Studio. Everybody knows how annoying waiting for customer service is, it always takes too long. Speeding this up is interesting for both clients and companies. With Call Studio, companies can monitor their calls. With this input, they can better understand what their customers want, what they need, and also what their agents need to help their customers better. And this is just the beginning. After this, we can implement other AI features, such as real-time assistants for call agents, which allows them to answer questions better.
This here is a typical DataQueue model, where all the data to recognise a conversation, the sentiments, all the details, we trained this AI model with everything and implemented it in such a way where it’s very, very useful for our clients.
We’ve developed this model together with a client, an industry integrator who’d love to add this to their portfolio. And we’re working with their end clients to perfect the model. Because our AI model is really a customised product, we can change anything based on the preferences of our clients.
Bashir: it’s a bit like Lego – there’s a base model, but you can take components out or add them, based on the solutions customers need. And you can add as many flexible components as you want. This doesn’t really take a lot of time or people. It’s built-in in our code infrastructure. We’re a team of ten, and it took us about three months to build this base model for Call Studio.
Our model is a bit like Lego – there’s a base model, but we take components out or add them, based on customers need
Bashir Alsaifi, founder DataQueue
So why the Netherlands?
Bashir: there are many reasons for that! We’re particularly interested in the north of the Netherlands at this point. Why the north? We see a lot of potential for this region when it comes to technology, and AI specifically. The economy used to be based on natural gas extraction here, but the government is now trying to attract tech companies here, for example through subsidies. And our CTO was already here, I previously worked in the Netherlands as well. We saw some traction, had some good leads here, started employing some part-timers from university, so part of our team was here.. so we thought we might as well open an office. And so far, every assumption that we made about the region has become reality.
And you also already received investments, right?
Bashir: yeah, we had a session with investors at Orange Corners. They were just very interested, so we took it from there. Even before the programme was finished, we were already in talks with investors. We had real luck with Orange Corners connecting us to our first investors. And now we’re actually going for Series A funding. In general, Flow Accelerator and Orange Corners helped us a lot, not just with investors, but also to validate our business model, the financial operations.
Orange Corners connected us to our first investors
Bashir, DataQueue
Are you still in touch with the Orange Corners PT team?
Bashir: we’re always in close contact. Whenever we need advice, they’re always the first people we ask. They’re a great team, I really like their work ethics and how they’re really trying to make a difference in the ecosystem. They’re not in it for the money. You can see they really care, they make an effort to keep you connected – even after graduation. So it’s easy to just reach out to them and tell what’s on your mind, also after the programme. And we’re also working together in other ways. We’re preparing some webinars, in which Majd (Managing Director Orange Corners Palestinian Territories) is participating, and she connected us to other speakers as well.
I also keep in touch on a regular basis with some startups from my own cohort, such as The Middle Frame – who also work with AI.
Where do you see DataQueue going in the next few years?
Bashir: we’re a startup, everything changes in a second. But our plan for now is to stay here in Groningen, establish our headquarters here. When we first started, the US was our target market. They deal with AI and data a bit differently than in Europe: they want to go quick, they want to go fast, compliance isn’t as important as it is here. Compared to that, things in Europe are very slow and calculated. People here want to make sure that all regulations are met, GDPR, the EU AI Act etc. So we feel this is the time for us, taking our experience from the US market here.
By the end of the year, early next year at the latest, we want to go for series A funding. For that, we need traction, partnerships and clients. We’re already having conversations with several potential investors right now, but everything is connected to traction at the end of the day. So this is our focus, to connect with as many partners and clients as possible to go to for our Series A.
By the end of the year, early next year at the latest, we want to go for series A funding
Bashir, DataQueue
Do you have an ideal investor that you’re looking for?
Bashir: we’re looking for investors that either have a portfolio of AI companies or have industry expertise or connections in AI. I wouldn’t like to have an investor who can give me $10 million but knows nothing about AI. For the sake of communications, it’s better to have investors who also have a background in AI.
Bashir, as an Orange Corners graduate, do you have any advice or recommendations for us?
Bashir: something I regularly think about.. there are so many people with great ideas, but many are held back because they don’t have the resources to start, or they’re waiting for something to happen. Or they have to work so many different jobs they don’t actually have the time to start. What the Palestinian ecosystem could really use is something that can turn ideas into MVPs as quickly as possible, so that people with ideas don’t spend 3-4 years of their lives building MVPs. Because only in the next stage, the validation stage, you know whether something is going to work out.
Going from an idea to a MVP and the validation stage is the most impactful, interesting and important time for a business, where you can validate something and see whether it works, or if not, do it a different way. A programme that could bring ideas to MVPs within weeks, that would set those people ahead of the curve to where they can start validating their ideas and learn from their mistakes. I believe this can really push our ecosystem to another level!
DataQueue can play a role in this as well when it comes to AI. When there’s 200 people with AI-related ideas, we can validate and see what makes sense based on our market research and industry expertise. And within 1-2 weeks we should be able to bring to life a MVP that they can validate.
Most programmes, including Orange Corners, focus on the next stage of the chain. They take ten startups and they focus on bringing them to the next stage. This is of course also very important. But if you want to really have many success stories, you need to have a pipeline full of ideas that we can bring to life. And then maybe, maybe we’ll have one or two really big success stories in the future!
