May 8th, 2019 – Beirut, Lebanon: LebNet and the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (MSFEA) at the American University of Beirut (AUB), signed a Memorandum of Understanding at AUB’s faculty to announce the launch of a joint initiative called SiliconValley@MSFEA.

The initiative was signed by George Akiki, LebNet’s co-founder and CEO, and Dr. Alan Shihadeh, the Dean of MSFEA. Both parties signed the MoU in the presence of faculty members.

SiliconValley@MSFEA aims at leveraging the expertise of LebNet’s members in North America to support college students in Lebanon through several tracks: advisory, internship opportunities, talks and seminars, entrepreneurship support and mentorship, collaboration on Final Year Projects (FYP) and research with industry.

AUB students will have access to LebNet’s existing internship program. Under the Silicon Valley Channel track, both AUB and non-AUB students will be able to join a series of talks and seminars delivered by LebNet members to share knowledge and expertise on various topics of interest.

LebNet will also provide problems in search of a solution for senior students to adopt as their Final Year Projects and furthermore, LebNet members will define industry relevant research projects for graduate students and faculty members. LebNet will be represented at the MSFEA International Advisory board.

Under the Entrepreneurship Program at MSFEA track, LebNet members will act as a brain trust by providing coaching, mentoring and advising.

“Our network of over 1,000 members in the US and Canada is always looking for impactful and results-oriented opportunities to give back to Lebanon. We felt that AUB’s vision and MSFEA’s plans were inline with how we wanted to make an impact and we were very encouraged by Dean Shihadeh’s energy and detailed follow-up which increases our chances of success in adding value to Lebanese students,” said Akiki.

“I was looking back in my notebook this morning. I had a meeting with George in a restaurant on February 26, where we cooked up on the back of a napkin this initiative. The project we were working on was to see how we can leverage the Lebanese talent in the technology sector in North America to make a difference here at AUB and create two-way opportunities,” said Shihadeh.

About MSFEA

​​​​The Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (MSFEA) was named in January 2017 for alumnus, trustee, entrepreneur, investor, business leader, and philanthropist Maroun Semaan. Engineering education at AUB, however, dates back more than a hundred years to 1913 when the Faculty of Arts and Sciences introduced a program leading to a BS degree in engineering. AUB awarded the first engineering degree (BS in civil engineering) in 1944. The faculty is now AUB’s second largest with over 2,300 undergraduates, 350 master’s students, almost 100 doctoral students; and over 175 instructional faculty. In 2017, Dean Alan Shihadeh and his colleagues began to introduce changes to make MSFEA a catalyst for transformative change that embraces innovation, pedagogy, and knowledge production to promote human well-being.

About LebNet

LebNet is a network for tech professionals of Lebanese descent in North America. This premier Diaspora group is a US registered 501c3 non-profit organization launched in 1999 in Silicon Valley, California. Today LebNet has more than 1,000 members organized by communities in 10 cities across US and Canada and dedicated to enable tech entrepreneurs and professionals succeed on a global stage. It includes Fortune 500 managers and executives, CxO’s, Venture Capitalists and investors, Start-up founders and entrepreneurs, academics, consultants and small business owners. LebNet programs focus on education, mentoring, and internships promoting career advice and feedback on business plans including a flagship program LebNet Ignite, a 2-week residential accelerator boot camp in Silicon Valley for Lebanese startup founders. In pursuing its mission to Connect, Network and Nurture, LebNet hosts regular talks, meetups and sessions in the US and Canada and seeks to empower the Lebanese diaspora while giving back to Lebanese entrepreneurs, youth and professionals in Lebanon.

LebNet CEO and co-founder George Akiki and Endeavor Lebanon Managing Director signed a Memorandum of Understanding to mentor Lebanese entrepreneurs.

LebNet and Endeavor Lebanon signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on May 13 to mentor Endeavor Entrepreneurs through LebNet’s network of diaspora professionals.

This partnership will allow Endeavor Lebanon’s entrepreneurs to benefit from the support of the North American LebNet network of tech professionals to augment its mentoring capabilities by sourcing specialized support for their Lebanese high-impact entrepreneurs. LebNet members will have the opportunity to provide key assistance to Lebanese scale-ups ranging from punctual mentoring to more strategic guidance.

“Our collaboration with such a renowned worldwide network of entrepreneurs, mentors and investors is of great value to LebNet’s core mission of mentoring and we’re looking forward to adopt some of Endeavor’s best practices and to sharpen our assistance to Lebanese entrepreneurs,” said George Akiki, CEO and co-founder of LebNet.

“By connecting our local entrepreneurs with esteemed Lebanese diaspora professionals from LebNet’s network, we wish to encourage mentorship that can contribute to scalability, job creation and growing the Lebanese economy,” said Christina Chehade, Managing Director of Endeavor Lebanon.

The MoU was signed by George Akiki, CEO and co-founder of LebNet and Christina Chehade, Managing Director of Endeavor Lebanon.

Established in 1997, Endeavor is leading the global high-impact entrepreneurship movement to drive economic growth and job creation by selecting, mentoring, and accelerating the best high-impact entrepreneurs around the world. To date, Endeavor has screened more than 70,000 individuals and selected more than 1,800 founders leading over 1,100 scale-up companies. Lebanon is Endeavor’s eleventh country and fourth in the MENA region. Since its launch in 2011, the Endeavor Lebanon office has selected 40 high-impact entrepreneurs from 31 companies.

Peer-to-peer car sharing platform Turo has recently raised $250 million in Series E, from media and internet company IAC, which was in charge of creating and growing company like Expedia, Match Group and Ticketmaster.

This late Series comes after the company raised $92 million dollar in 2017 from Mercedes-Benz manufacturer, Daimler, and one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates, SK Holdings, bringing Turo’s valuation to over one billion dollar.

Since 2017, the vibrant car-sharing community has been rapidly growing

And has now over 10 million sign-ups and nearly 400,000 registered vehicles shared worldwide, according to Turo’s blog post.

In his post, CEO Andre Haddad spoke about the community’s growth over the past two years. “Turo has been on a tear for years — growing 2x year-over-year the past two years, and 8x year-over-year in our nascent international markets (the UK and Germany)”.

Haddad has previously spoken about Turo’s success, spending money on user acquisition and the early beginning during a previous talk he gave at a LebNet event in San Francisco. He advised the audience to obsess about conversions and be disciplined about data and team management.

“The car business is an 80 billion dollar market. There’s a lot of need for cars but what wasn’t clear back in 2011 was if anyone would be willing to share their car […] Throw yourself into something you are really passionate about and be engaged with the problem you are solving. It’s hard to have the long-term commitment during the ups and downs if there’s no real connection, if it’s not part of your life.”

On August 4th 2020, the Capital and heart of Lebanon, Beirut, was devastated by a huge explosion.

The city was left in ruins within seconds. The damage is unimaginable , and it only added salt to the many existing wounds: economic collapse, social upheaval, and a Pandemic. One is too many for any nation.

Lebanon, LebNet launched the Beirut Emergency Fund 2020, in collaboration with SEAL and LIFE, two reputed 501c3 US registered Lebanese Diaspora nonprofit organizations, and joined by non-governmental US-based Kuwait America Foundation and the Jamhour Alumni (in Europe and the US). The fund is also collaborating with Impact Lebanon on the allocation and disbursement of funds to avoid any duplication in funding. The Fund is collaborating with Qudurat and Ruwwad Al Tanmeya, among other Lebanese NGOs on the ground, with the support of 3QA, to ensure that the funds are disbursed in a coordinated and transparent manner to well vetted Lebanese NGOs that focus on Shelter, Food, Medication, Medical Support, Rehabilitation and Environment.

The list of vetted NGOs includes AlGhina, Arcenciel, Beit El Baraka, Lebanon Needs, Lebanese Red Cross, Nusaned and Offre Joie. More organizations will be added to the list on a regular basis so make sure you visit the fund’s page for the updated list.

LebNet has previously partnered with SEAL in April 2020 to help raise $1 million to feed families in need in Lebanon, through several partners on the ground. “We were overwhelmed by offers of support from friends and colleagues and wanted to offer them a reliable and trustworthy platform for their US Tax deductible donations. We’re so privileged to have great reputable partners like SEAL and LIFE who quickly agreed to establish the Beirut Emergency Fund 2020 to be that vehicle for donations and we continue to on-board new partners who believe in the power of collaboration for Good,” said George Akiki, LebNet CEO.

LebNet members, Lebanese supporters and friends living in Canada can also donate safely online by visiting this link. LebNet Canada partnered with The Canadian Red Cross to provide tax deductible donations.

“The humanitarian needs in Beirut are immense following the recent explosion, which has exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation in a country that is currently hosting the largest number of refugees per capita and is struggling with environmental and economic uncertainties,” said Fadi Joseph, President of LebNet Canada. Some of the most urgent needs on the ground include emergency medical services, shelter, food and water; and personal protective equipment as responders provide life-saving care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For US donations click here: https://www.seal-usa.org/BeirutEmergencyFund

For Canada donations click here: http://www.redcross.ca/lebanon/Lebnet-Canada

Featured image from Reuters.

Lebanese diaspora organizations allocate $2 million Dollars in the first round, to hospitals, medical support, shelters and reconstruction in the wake of the devastating and deadline Beirut explosion. 

The Beirut Emergency Fund 2020 coalition formed by US-based non profit SEAL, non-profit organization LIFE, LebNet, Jamhour Alumni (US/Europe) and the non-governmental, US-based Kuwait-America Foundation announced on August 18, 2020 that it will disburse the first batch of $2.0 million, which was raised by the Beirut Emergency Fund, to hospitals, medical aid, shelters and reconstruction in Lebanon, following the horrific explosion in the Port of Beirut. 

To date, the Beirut Emergency Fund has raised over $5 million in response to the August 4, 2020, explosion in Beirut that killed so far 170 people, injured more than six thousand, caused total material and infrastructural damage to the majority of Beirut, and left more than a quarter of a million people homeless. This devastating tragedy exacerbates the humanitarian and economic challenges already facing the impoverished nation. 

Transparency and accountability ensure that every dollar raised by the Beirut Emergency Fund 2020 goes directly to those in need. 

The first round of disbursement, totaling $2.0 million, has been allocated to the following organizations: 

• Hospitals: St George, Geitawi, Hotel Dieu 
• Medical Support: Lebanese Red Cross, Arcenciel, Lebanon Needs 
• Shelter and Reconstruction: AlGhina , Beit El Baraka, Nusaned, Offre Joie 

The Funds and the Needs

The Beirut Emergency Fund is focused on supporting non-profit, non-governmental organizations that are working to meet the humanitarian needs among vulnerable populations impacted by this tragic disaster. These include shelter, food, medical supplies, physical and mental health, as well as mitigating any environmental damage. 

The partners in Beirut Emergency Fund: SEAL USA, LIFE, LebNet, Jamhour Alumni (US/Europe) and the Kuwait-America Foundation are responding rapidly and effectively, using contributions to the Beirut Emergency Fund to address these core issues, while constantly assessing current and emergent needs. 

This is a time of uncertainty for all Lebanese. We are truly grateful for all our generous donors and dedicated partners on the ground, who are doing the work to help save lives. We are stronger together. 

For tax deductible donations, please visit the fund’s page here: https://www.seal-usa.org/BeirutEmergencyFund 

For any inquiry, please email us at [email protected] 

Emerging Problems (Natural Language Processing NLP Course Project)

 Students: Julia Zini and Issa Issa
Company: Asurion
Mentor: Peng Xie and Sundar Kuppuswamy

Extracting Insights (NLP course project)

Students: Mohamad Mansour, Fouad Khnaiser and Bassel Musharrafieh
Company: Simplr
Mentor: Harsh Tomar and Sundar Kuppuswamy

The Work:

The AUB team focused on extracting phrases of trends from collection of text data (emails) allowing the Customer Experience team to quickly identify and mitigate issues. The project was hosted by a startup incubated by Asurion, which had different IP regulations. This prohibited Asurion from sharing the data as they discovered they required different NDAs. Despite this, the team worked on a methodology to extract information from public data similar to what Asurion might have. The results were impressive enough to be accepted as a possible solution. It was a learning curve for the team because they had to apply NLP techniques to an industry-level problem and deal with real-data. 

The Experience: 

“The industry project provided a great opportunity for the students to experiment with real business problems. Where in an academic problem, students try to solve problems to get to the right answer via the right methods, in business problems, there sometimes isn’t a right answer, and oftentimes no “right method”.
The students broke the problem down into smaller pieces and attacked each piece sequentially with the easiest methods to get the outcomes. At each step, new problems emerged and so did several different ideas to solve them. Key steps from the students’ implementation of phrase extraction ended up being utilized in the working of the ‘Extract Insights’ project of Simplr.” – said Harsh Tomar.

Image Match (FYP)

Students: Hadi Ahmad, Hafez Jawhary, and Samir Saidi
Company: FADEL
Mentors: Rony Eid and Ziad Bassil

Image Match (FYP)

Students: Hadi Ahmad, Hafez Jawhary, and Samir Saidi
Company: FADEL
Mentors: Rony Eid and Ziad Bassil