"I knew there was a need for Internet solutions to the Arabian Gulf," Freeny said in a recent interview.

"Many North Americans shy away from that market because they don’t really know it, and there is some political stigma with it when you mention that region. So it’s a hidden market."

Freeny, who started his web-hosting solutions company in the spring of 2001, provides customer service and technical support in both Arabic and English 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

Companies in the wealthy United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, require web-hosting solutions outside that region since "the infrastructure is unreliable and the Internet charges are very expensive," he said.

That’s where Amanah – an Arabic word for "trust" – comes in. "Amanah was formed mainly to better serve these Arabian companies, by offering them a world renowned connection to the North American Internet backbone," said Freeny, whose mother tongue is Arabic.

"The main thing is we offer them the service in their own language, so they don’t have to look for translators or have difficulties explaining themselves and so forth," he said.

For Freeny, business experience arrived at a young age. As a 10-year-old living in Sudan, he frequently helped his father run his manufacturing company.

"In his absence, I was the man in charge at that age," he said. "Some sort of running a business was in my blood."

After immigrating to Canada and attending high school in Toronto, Freeny moved to Saskatchewan in 1994, where he completed a degree in computer science at the University of Saskatchewan.

At age 28, the young entrepreneur quickly started his business from humble beginnings – the storage room of his apartment.

"I was a marketing person, I was a technical person, I was the bookkeeper, I was the salesperson – everything," Freeny recalled. "(But) we just started to grow from there to where we are right now…In our second year of business we had a 600 per cent growth compared to our first year in business."

Today, Freeny’s business has five employees – all U of S graduates under the age of 30 – and has relocated to 116 Research Dr.

His company also recently signed an agreement with Falconsearch.com, a web development firm in Dubai, on the sidelines of GITEX 2003 Dubai, the largest technology trade show in the Arabian Gulf.

For 31-year-old Freeny, the future looks bright as his Saskatoon-based business continues to grow and prosper.

"I call Saskatchewan my home after my home," he said. "I’ve been living here for a while, so it’s an excellent place to live."

By Shannon Boklaschuk of The StarPhoenix