What the Iran deal means for the country’s surprisingly strong tech industry

[Commentary] There's going to be a lot of ink spilled about the nuclear agreement the West just struck with Iran. The deal to scale back Iran's uranium enrichment program still has to be approved by Congress and Iranian officials. But if it moves ahead, analysts say, there's at least one group that'll unquestionably benefit from the move, and that's Iran's burgeoning tech sector. Iran has a tech sector? you might ask. Well, yes -- and it's one of the fastest-growing in the region.

Some technology in Iran has flourished in spite of the country's restrictions. Satellite TV may be illegal in Iran, but it can still be found in homes everywhere. The same goes for Facebook. Nearly 60 percent of Iranians were said to use Facebook "regularly" in 2012, even though the service is illegal. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, is also active on social media. But these are just data points about technology consumption. What's really interesting is how Iranians are increasingly producing technology of their own -- sometimes with the blessing of Tehran, other times completely independently. Iranians! They're more like us than you think. Iran's deal with the United States, which is expected to lift a number of economic sanctions against Tehran, could allow the country to attract more foreign money or technology to bolster its growing tech sector.