Blog (51)

Official Blog of Banque du Liban Accelerate 2014, Lebanon’s 1st International Startup Conference

Q&A with Marianne Hoayek

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Q&A with Marianna Howayek

Marianne Hoayek
Director of the Executive Office, Banque du Liban
Beirut, Lebanon

Marianne Hoayek has a degree in Business Economics from the Lebanese American University, a degree in Law from the Lebanese University and obtained her Masters in Laws of Banks and Capital Markets from the Saint Joseph University. She is currently the Executive Director heading the Executive Office at Banque du Liban since its establishment in July 2007. The office directly reports to the Governor of the Central Bank.
 Marianne is member of the official Lebanese delegation to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings and member of several committees such as the Investment Committee and the Open Market Committee.

What has been the feedback/reactions to the Circular 331?

Since we issued circular 331 in August last year, we have had very positive feedback from all participants in the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem.

For the first time in Lebanon and I think in the Arab World, an innovative approach has been used by a Central Bank to create a platform dedicated to providing equity finance for Entrepreneurs through commercial banks.

Lebanese banks can invest in the capital of startups, incubators, accelerators, and funds. The Central Bank will guarantee 75% of that investment up to 3% of each banks’ capital.

This scheme made available around $400 million USD. Some were saying that the Circular will pave the way for Lebanon to become the Silicon Valley of the Middle East. We are keeping our hopes high… In all cases, once fully utilized we believe that this scheme will contribute to economic growth by 1%.

How is the selection process like? What are you looking for?

Well in terms of what we are looking for, as I said earlier, we are looking for investments in companies that will help foster the knowledge economy. The world we live in is directed by technology, and Lebanon has a big potential in this sector. We believe that the digital sector is a very promising one along with other sectors that are based on innovative and creative ideas. Supporting sectors where Lebanon has a comparative advantage could help increase competitiveness and create new job opportunities in particular to the talented youth.

The text of the circular specifies the conditions and the selection process; most importantly, the company should be a Lebanese joint-stock company with nominal shares, not a financial or an offshore company. Its work should rely on knowledge economy and aims at supporting creative intellectual skills. It has to have a positive impact on the economic and social growth in general and on job creation.

To date, we have had quite a number of companies that benefited from the circular. Presella through Al Mawarid Bank, was the first pilot project (June 2014). Since then we have approved the disbursements of funds for several venture capital and we have some other applications in the pipeline.

What are the next steps with the Circular?

In Lebanon in the past few years, we have been facing challenging circumstances that are putting a heavy toll on the economy’s ability to grow. The need to help the economy to face those challenges was one of the main reasons behind issuing the Circular 331. We will continue our efforts to help stimulate economic growth that can be translated into increased job opportunities and a better socio-economic position.

As for what’s next, we have been keen from the beginning to engage all stakeholders in a constructive dialogue regarding what we can do to help the economy. Last year in December we introduced the new platform to the banking sector and entrepreneurs alike in an event that we called: INNOVATE – Banking Outside the Box, and this year we believe that BDL Accelerate will help us shape the next steps needed based on the presentations of the prominent speakers regarding their experiences and best international practices. I believe that the discussions and interactions that will take place will be very useful to assess what more can be done… I am looking forward to learn from those interactions… 

What does Lebanon have to do to up its startup game?

I think we need to work on improving the business environment in general. In the World Bank’s latest report Doing Business 2015, which measures ease of doing business in 189 economies, Lebanon unfortunately slipped from the rank 102 in 2014 to 104 in 2015, a sign that we did not make any serious effort to cut red tape or introduce new regulations to improve the business climate. In the ‘starting a business’ category, Lebanon ranked 119 out of the 189 countries. If we would like to encourage entrepreneurs to start a business we need to make it as simple as possible and to decrease administrative costs. We also need to invest more in upgrading our educational systems and include entrepreneurial learning as part of school curriculum.

As for what concerns the Central Bank, we need to continue the work on improving access to finance for startups. Some work still has to be done on not only decreasing cost of capital for SMEs—this we have been doing for some time, and will keep on doing it for next year through our stimulation package—but we also need to make it more competitive and less burdensome.

We need to encourage banks to innovate in the tools they make available to SMEs in general and entrepreneurs in particular. We also need to work on encouraging the creation of incubators and accelerators in Beirut and outside the capital to be able to reach the largest number of entrepreneurs.

 

Q&A with Mark Haidar

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Q&A with Mark Haidar

Mark Haidar
Founder & CEO of Vinli
Dallas, Texas, USA 

Mark Haidar is a serial entrepreneur who combines advanced technological skills with astute business knowledge. Throughout his career, Mark was able to build more than 42 different notable products and grow several technology-based businesses. Mark started his first technology company in Lebanon at age 17. By the age of 21, he had built the first fully integrated web-based university management system in Lebanon, the first 3D game engine built locally in the Middle East, the first wireless application protocol based internet-to-home remote control system in Lebanon, and won a People’s Choice Award for Best Web Product in the Middle East for transforming municipality records from paper to digital. In 2006, Mark moved to the US and led the development of a state of the art research and development project for the US Army Tank Automotive Research Development Engineering Center (TARDEC). He was able to successfully create an original service-oriented intra and inter-vehicle communication system for transportation, robotic, and military systems that enhanced each vehicle’s situation assessment and awareness in military combats and have the potential to help create safer and more efficient highway systems.

With a huge demand for innovative and scalable technology solutions, Mark co-founded Dialexa, a global product-focused technology innovation and development company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dialexa has been growing at an exponential rate with clients ranging from venture-backed startups to Fortune 20 companies and governments around the world. In 2014, Dialexa started a division under the name of Dialexa Labs, a self funded venture lab that develops internal products or services that spins out new companies. In September 2014, Dialexa Labs launched Vinli, the first connected car technology platform at Techcrunch Disrupt. Mark is currently serving as the CEO of Vinli.

Mark has numerous journal publications, pending patents, and is a regular speaker at global technology conferences. Most recently Mark founded Peace.Report, an online news aggregator that focuses on current conflicts around the world. It collects news articles that promote peace and expose atrocities. Peace.Report is scheduled to go live early 2015. Mark is also working on launching LISA (Lebanese International Startup Association), which helps Lebanese startups launch and scale their companies in international markets.

As a Lebanese entrepreneur who has worked in Lebanon and also had a big break outside Lebanon, what advice do you give to Lebanese entrepreneurs who are starting up businesses in the country?

It will be hard but you can make it.

Here is why it is hard:

  • Instability: In Lebanon we have no idea when a war is going to erupt or when you are going to have electricity. This poses a real struggle in maintaining a stable operation.
  • Lack of capital: A lot of rich people and banks but no traditional VC or angel investment.
  • Small market size: The whole country of Lebanon is smaller than Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and the Lebanese GDP is smaller than some companies in the USA. So building a startup that scales to its potential is very hard when the local economics do not support it.

Here is why you can make it:

  • The most important capital for a startup is human capital. Lebanon has some of the most talented and educated people around the world in a really high percentage. People are what make a startup successful and not money. Startups are all about execution and Lebanese can execute.
  • The Lebanese mastered the most important art a startup should possess: survival. They don’t teach survival skills at schools; in Lebanon we live it every single day. Everything is an uphill battle and somehow we manage to make it. Yes building a startup is hard but managing to stay alive, go to school, go through poverty, and get a university degree in a country that has continuous sectarian and regional wars, high poverty rates, no electricity, and no public support is much harder!
  • In a country and a region that doesn’t have much advancement in technology, you have less competition.
  • The world is a global village. With technology, your startup can reach global markets and customers without the need for you to be there. The Internet and new business models broke the barriers.

Here is my advice to the Lebanese youth:

Do not give up and settle for a boring corporate job because it gives a steady salary. Do not join political parties whose sole job is to keep the status quo. Shatter your glass ceiling. Do not wait for your government or political leader to do you a favor. You are better than all of that. Join or create a startup and change the world and discard the noise that is telling you that you cannot make it. Don’t be afraid to fail because you will be facing failure every single day until you make it. Fear is a choice. And what is the worst-case scenario? Your company fails completely and shuts down. In which case you have gained experience and connections that allow you to leapfrog anyone else who in the corporate world. If you have the guts to create a startup and the stamina and persistence to pursue it to the end, you will always end up winning.

What are the limitations of the Lebanese ecosystem? What do you think Lebanon needs to do to up its startup game?

I think I covered the limitations in the previous question. But to summarize it: lack of capital, small market size, and the inexperience in launching and scaling a startup.

To be realistic, you cannot depend on the Lebanese government to fix this. This is wishful thinking; with all the politics involved nothing will happen. I think that for Lebanon to up its startup game, you need to focus on the strengths that Lebanon has and take advantage of them instead of dwelling on the weaknesses.

Lebanon is the probably the largest exporter of human capital in the world relative to its population. We have 12 million Lebanese living abroad and 4 million inside Lebanon. I can’t think of any other country whose 75% of its population is dispersed around the world. That’s the number one export from Lebanon. The Lebanese diaspora contributes directly to 20% of Lebanon’s GDP. So Lebanon is by definition geographically located in the Middle East but dispersed globally around the world. This effectively makes Lebanon a global country; and we need to apply the same mentality to our startups. Startups need to start local and then go global. This is part of the Lebanese DNA. We need to put the mechanics in place to connect the Lebanese technology ecosystem to the rest of the world and allow startups to grow beyond the boundaries of Lebanon and also connect talent and expertise from around the world to Lebanon.

That’s why I think what BDL is doing is a spark of genius. With the Circular 331 and BDL Accelerate, BDL became the catalyst for establishing this ecosystem and established itself as the epicenter of progressive change in Lebanon. Now, it’s time to build on that!

You are currently working on launching the Lebanese International Startup Association. Can you tell us a bit about this?

As part of building on top what BDL is doing and in line with solving the need for Lebanese startups to have global reach, we created LISA (Lebanese International Startup Association).

With the entire world coalescing into a single global village and the U.S.A. being the epicenter for startups, a global strategy and framework that is complimentary to Circular 331 is not only ideal, but also necessary. Lebanese startups cannot depend strictly on the Lebanese or MENA markets for big, continuous and/or sustainable successes. LISA will be an entity whose purpose is to enable the success of Lebanese startups in the global market in general, but with a particular focus on the US market, and will have the following mission:

  1. Educate the Lebanese youth and entrepreneurs on starting a startup that is positioned for success in the global market.
  2. Communicate with the Lebanese startup community and maintain statistics and data on what is happening in the Lebanese startup scene.
  3. Promote Lebanese startups and the community globally­­­—specifically in the US.
  4. Assist Lebanese startups with coming to and staying in the US.
  5. Help Lebanese startups in business development and introduce them to people in the US who may be able to help.
  6. Create a framework that will enable Lebanese startups to pursue and hopefully obtain capital from US investors.

In order to successfully access the US market, LISA will need to create a robust ecosystem and market demand engine to support the landing of new entities in the US. The key attributes here are as follows:

  • Awareness: Marketing and PR activities in the US that promote the great things going on in Lebanon and how technology startups are being born.
  • Advisement: Creating an ecosystem of advisors and mentors with a focus on the US for market development activities and to help these startups adapt to and operate in the US culture and market.
  • Office Space: Bring select startups to the US and provide a physical office space for them to work from.
  • Professional Services: Provide companies with services that all businesses need from credible service providers, such as legal, accounting etc.
  • Introductions: Connecting and introducing select startups with VCs, media and people who may be able to help.
  • Launch: Business Development and Marketing activity to help these startups with introductions and positioning of their solution to meet market demand and generate initial revenue.

LISA will start accepting applications from startups as early as December 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nespresso: Persistent Disruptive Innovators

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Nespresso’s global retail value may have grown exponentially in the past few years, with capsule sales well over $3.4bn, but that was not always the case for the market leader. What most people are not aware of is that it took Nespresso over 30 years to get to where they are today.

The story started off in the early 70s, with a simple aim by Nestlé R&D: to allow anyone to create the perfect cup of espresso coffee, the same way they would if they were drinking coffee made by a skilled barista at a restaurant. Nestlé wanted to deliver premium coffee that was easy to make without requiring the consumer to use complicated equipment.

Initially, Nespresso was only targeting offices until 1986, when Yannick Lang was hired to head the company. Yannick realized that consumers between the ages of 35 and 45 would enjoy drinking restaurant-quality espresso at home and wanted to tap into that market. Nestlé was hesitant to do so.

Finally, in 1989 Yannick was able to persuade the company to target households in Switzerland. The initial market tests did not look good but he felt that disruptive innovations were initially slow to adopt. Yannick remained persistent and it wasn’t until 1995 that Nespresso managed to break even prior to becoming one of Nestlé’s fastest growing business units with the help of his distribution strategy.

Nespresso became popular and the small targeted market eventually expanded, and continues to expand rapidly. Nespresso was ahead of any competitors, and it took them over 2 decades to become the major brand Nespresso is today.

Nespresso’s story is one that proves that intrapreneurships can be successful and that being passionate and persistent while taking a huge risk can pay off at the end of the day, no matter how long it takes.

 

Q&A With Jean Nehme

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Q&A with Jean Nehme

Jean Nehme
Founder & CEO 
Touch Surgery, United Kingdom

Jean Nehme is a plastic surgeon, CEO and co-founder of Touch Surgery. Having completed his undergraduate medical training in London he embarked on a career in academia and surgery, where he experienced firsthand the limitations of healthcare. During his surgical training he undertook a part-time Masters in Surgical Technology at Imperial College London. His work awarded him a distinction, academic papers, awards and presentations at a multitude of international meetings. His research at Imperial included the application of virtual reality simulation to surgery and robotics. This was a natural marriage of his greatest passions, technology and healthcare, driven by a desire to build globally scalable solutions. Upon completing his degree and whilst a resident in plastic surgery, he began building with Andre Chow the technology that was to become Touch Surgery. In early 2013 they were awarded a position at a leading accelerator program in New York City to build out a vision for Touch Surgery. Since then Jean has raised funds from leading venture capital groups in the US and UK. In 18 months Touch Surgery has grown to over 40 people, with diverse expertise from world class animation to game and data technology. The Touch Surgery Lab is based in London and New York City. Jean has raised an undisclosed amount of funds to build out technology that has the potential to change surgery and ultimately improve patient outcomes globally.

Touch Surgery is a really innovative idea. How did you come up with it? What were the challenges you faced in turning it from an idea to a real startup, and how did you overcome them?

I am a surgeon and so is my co-founder Andre Chow, so we are somewhat experts in the problems of our field. Touch Surgery was born out of experiencing these problems firsthand. Surgery lacks standardization, objective evaluation, and tools that can disseminate best practices efficiently and globally. Working with a Andre, we set out to use our knowledge of technology to build a solution that would address these problems.

 What was the biggest mistake you’ve done as an entrepreneur? What did you learn from it?

Turning an idea into a functional startup was really hard especially when I had spent 8 years of my life training to be a plastic surgeon. I had no real business knowledge and a wanting to build technology with the aim of improving surgical practice and patient outcomes. As you can imagine there was skepticism and resistance from surgical mentors and family when I said: “I want to build technology that can improve global patient care.”

 What advice do you give to Lebanese entrepreneurs who are starting out today?

Overcoming your fears is the first step. We have a great photograph in the Lab that we took in New York which says, “Remember whatever you believe imprisons you.” We did not believe we could build a company, we did not believe we could ask the right questions, let alone find the answers. Early on we sometimes hired out of fear, not fully understanding what roles we would be filling, but making ourselves feel better because we had someone with an MBA in the Lab. This was a mistake.

My advice to entrepreneurs is to be fearless. You are imprisoned by what you believe in and you can achieve what you want once you overcome these fears. Believe in the problem you are trying to solve and then the solution. Be your greatest critic, ask lots and lots of questions. Don’t believe in your own hype, and in those that love you find both the support and the grounding. That helped me through a lot of the challenges, as did having a co-founder that I have been lucky to work with. We complement each other and fill in each other’s’ weaknesses. Finally, I recently heard a great saying: “Love going to work but also love going home.” I am still struggling with the going home part.

 

Q&A with Henri Asseily

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Henri Asseily
Managing Partner, Leap Ventures
Lebanon

What is it that you’re looking for when funding startups?

We first look for a strong team encompassing vision, technology, marketing and management. The team must show operational expertise. Second, the market size must be substantial. And finally, the idea must not be bad. And that’s in order of importance.

What advice can you give to new entrepreneurs who are just starting out and preparing to approach investors?

Approach unknown investors only after building a prototype that demonstrates feasibility, operational strength, and knowledge of the space. The key point is that you’re unknown, you’ve never done this before, so you have to have an answer to the question: are you the one who can do it?

How many of the startups you’ve invested in have failed? What did you learn from that?

I’ve started and/or invested in many more startups that have failed than have succeeded, and that’s normal. I started 2 companies that failed even after raising good money, and I’ve invested in enough startups that failed that it’d be hard for me to remember them all. What I learned is that a strong team that has drive, dedication, knowledge of the environment and the technical skills will have the most chance to succeed. If the team is stellar, it will find a problem to solve, a willing market, and the solution to make it big.

What are the limitations of the Lebanese ecosystem? How can Lebanon up its startup game?

The Lebanon ecosystem is short on strong talent, and has an initiated investor community. Both need to be fostered and grown to international standards. We’ve gone a long way in a few short years, and there’s still a bumpy and hard road ahead, but we can make it happen. All the actors are pushing forward in the same direction, and I have high confidence we can get our community to have a big impact in our economy soon.

Elise Nebout – Le Camping – France

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Elise Nebout
Manager, Le Camping
Paris, France

Elise Nebout is the manager of Le Camping, a unique 4 month program to accelerate innovative startups powered by NUMA, the largest digital hub in the center of Paris where tech events take place daily. She graduated from Sciences Po Lyon and started her career as a journalist for digital and traditional press magazines such as Philosophie Magazine and Usbek & Rica. In January 2011, she joined Le Camping as Community Manager until she became Manager in November 2012.

Le Camping, based in Paris, started in January 2011 and has raised over $14 million in funds to date. It leads and builds French innovative startups and has already helped create several success stories. Sixty-two startups in five batches went through the program. Companies such as DocTracks, a solution allowing encryption and control over distributed documents, raised $2 million and was acquired by Intralinks for over $10 million. Another successful story is that of Mesagraph, a piece of software that analyzes millions of online conversations in real time to provide analytics and actionable insights. Twitter acquired it for an undisclosed amount.

Startups receive the assistance of exceptional mentors and professionals, and over $120,000 worth of services and resources in addition to the opportunity to meet and network with potential investors.

Today, Le Camping is a prominent French acceleration program based in the main entrepreneurs and digital hub in NUMA. Twelve innovative startups are selected every season to go through the intense 4 month program to develop and grow. Being located in NUMA provides the startups with a network of thousands of international entrepreneurs, investors, mentors and companies that would surely benefit them.

Q&A With Charlie Graham Brown

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Charlie Graham Brown
CFO, Seedstars World
Geneva, Switzerland

Charlie Graham Brown is the CFO of Seedstars World. He studied at the University of Leeds, UK with a year at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA and holds a Master of Engineering First Class Honors degree. He transitioned into finance following an MBA at the Collège des Ingénieurs, Paris and became a CFA charter holder. Charlie has six years of experience in innovative financial institutions. Working as an investment officer for four years at BlueOrchard Finance, he analyzed and invested in microfinance institutions across Africa, MENA and Asia. When he’s not working on Seedstars World, Charlie can usually be found in the mountains or doing a triathlon!

What advice do you give the applicants to Seedstars World?

This isn’t your typical startup competition so don’t treat it as such! We’re looking to add one Lebanese startup to our global network. Remember we invest in the top startups so we’re really interested in the traction. Get your timing right for the pitch. We’re Swiss so you know our timing will be strict!

What type of ideas would you like to see?

We like ideas that have the potential to be global (or at least regional). That’s where we can add the most value with our expansive network. As for the sector we are open. We like the diversity and if you look at the regional winners to date you will see a bit a broad coverage.

Has there been a trend towards certain industries/innovations? Are there any pitfalls entrepreneurs should be aware of?

Each region and country has had its own specialty. SaaS has been popular around the globe with services adapted to new segments or local markets. High social impact businesses have been common on our stages as we tend to cover regions with a large BOP population, which provides an interesting market where both financial and social returns can be found. FinTech startups in Africa was a clear theme and of course web/mobile startups have been well represented.

Q&A With Paul Papadimitriou

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Paul Papadimitriou
Founder, Intelligencr
London, UK

Paul Papadimitriou is the founder of Intelligencr, an innovation scouting firm. He advises companies on how to understand the new consumer and the technologies of tomorrow—most recently for the launch of a mobile ecosystem in China. Paul believes a new citizen is emerging, with emerging values, enhanced by emerging technologies. How we transact, learn, consume, communicate, work—how we live and love—is being altered. With a truly global outlook, he studies the key signifiers in this crowded space—economics, culture, behavioral studies, politics—and surfaces what is important, what isn’t and what it all means. He is a Swiss, a Greek and a Finn. His homes have included Tokyo, Manila and Geneva. Lobbyist turned storyteller, he has given keynote speeches on four continents, appeared on The Economist, ABC, TF1, ABS-CBN or the Japan Times. Companies like Microsoft, Fujitsu, Canonical, SABMiller, Criteo, Tumblr or Siemens have trusted him to challenge them. Paul resides in London, runs TheDigitalLoop podcast and loves chocolate.

Where is the next digital revolution happening? What will it be about?

You cannot connect the dots forwards, did Steve Jobs famously say. But the future is already here, just not evenly distributed, as William Gibson quipped: I can’t tell the future—no one can—but I can foresee multiple existing trends that will explode or continue to explode.

The technological shift towards mobile is an evidence. It is poised to continue at a rapid pace—it’s the race to the next billions, the populations in emerging and frontier countries that haven’t yet access to the internet. Everyone of us becomes a connected node on a massive network.

The generational shift is the undercurrent. Think of it this way, social media was kindergarten, we started to learn communicating in a distributed way. We are now learning how to consume with distributed marketplaces. We will soon learn how distributed networks can change all types of human transactions, from finance to education.

The power shift is the byproduct. The current hierarchical institutions, from government to corporations are in crisis, which explains a lot of clashes we’re seeing, from Uber versus the regulators to the political struggles seen around the world. The hardware is failing, the people software is upgrading and we’re all unsure what the next operating system will be, only that, enhanced by technology, by human invention, it will come distributed.

You say that a new citizen is emerging. Can you tell us more about him or her?

The emerging trends I mentioned above are feeding off each other, creating a new sense of identity.

When you’re born in a world of distributed power, the way you envision yourself, the way you define yourself is altered. What you see possible is changed. Your choices—from how you buy to how you wish to influence the future of the planet—have shifted. You understand that making sense information flows is paramount—communication is information, product is information, capital is information. Understand those flows and you acquire knowledge. Interface those flows and you can change the world.

Don’t misconstrue my statement. There’s no great equalizer. It’s not the rise of a single citizen bounded by sameness. It’s actually the opposite, a greater variety of citizens all armed with the tools that I’ve outlined, all leveraging ideas, the new capital. The more I travel in frontier and emerging markets, the more I’m comforted in this view.

You’re currently involved in a mobile ecosystem launch in China. Can you tell us more about this and what you’re learning from this experience?

There are tendencies of reducing China to the factory of the world, and to conflate everything we read about it—from IP laws to cultural artifacts—to create this monolithic image that drives suspicion. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s an immensely complex country that I’ve only started to comprehend.

In terms of technology, think of Japan in the 60s. There was mockery about their cars, their transistors. The “Made in China” suffers from a similar stigma. It’s intellectually lazy—and dishonest—to believe that China is just an on-demand factory copying everything. Innovation is about understanding your customer and I’m seeing tons of companies doing that more than well there. And trust me, Xiaomi, the handset maker that everybody mentions nowadays, is only one of the first brands that will appear globally.

As for my personal experience, China’s scale is beyond imagination—it gives you this exhilarating feeling of an enormous blank canvas to draw on. Thinking of strategies on such a scale is a fantastic opportunity. Having to imagine what you can do on platforms like WeChat is also really fun; there are tons of possibilities that you can’t play with in Europe or North America. The potential for hardware is another fascinating avenue. You can really scale fast, just visit Shenzhen to grasp this reality. Like any country, there’s more than meets the eye. China also more ideas than my brain can store. A land of opportunity.

 

Q&A With Nicolas Sehnaoui

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Nicolas Sehnaoui
Former Minister of Telecom
Beirut, Lebanon

Nicolas Sehnaoui was the Minister of Telecommunications of Lebanon from June 2011 to February 2014. After taking office, Sehnaoui successfully transformed Lebanon’s telecommunications infrastructure. Under his leadership, the Ministry upgraded antiquated copper backbone to fiber optics, replaced ancient EDGE cellular networks with 3G across the country and 50 Mbit/s 4G LTE in greater Beirut, and increased Lebanon’s international bandwidth tenfold, all while reducing internet & mobile costs by up to 80%. Later Sehnaoui turned his attention to Lebanon’s knowledge economy, more specifically its digital economy, by creating Beirut Angels, Lebanon’s first tech startup angel network, and actively supporting the creation of Banque du Liban Circular 331. He is now leading Lebanon’s Digital Roadmap Steering Committee to ensure its successful implementation. All these efforts where measured and confirmed by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union that ranked Lebanon 1st in progress out of 157 countries in the 2012 ICT Development Index Report.

What kind of policies or regulatory frameworks Lebanon needs to work on in order to facilitate investments? Is there anything that’s currently being done in this regard?

The new IDAL decree was extensively worked on during the previous government and is ready for approval by the Council of Ministers. It includes many improvements and additional incentives to the current regulation and will surely boost foreign and local investments. More specifically there is a special clause that will encourage investment in Lebanon Digital Cities and companies by significantly decreasing the investment requirements for such companies and allowing startups to benefit from the tax breaks and other incentives offered by IDAL.

What are the advantages of the Lebanese ecosystem? On the other hand, what does the country have to do to up its startup game?

Advantages: Young. Dynamic. Extremely creative. Benefits from the Lebanese expatriates network around the world. ICT is 9% of Lebanon’s GDP. Big investment in telecom infrastructure in the last 3 years. FO backbone, 3G nationwide and 4G on the coast. 400 million dollars available for startups in the form of equity through the circular 331. Lebanon ranked 1st worldwide by the ITU in 2012 on the progress made in ICT.

What needs to be done: Deploy Fiber To The Home and 4G. Adopt sector strategic vision (document prepared by Booz and Co for the Ministry of Telecom and sent to the Council of Ministers in 2013). Adopt electronic signature law and media law. Adapt educational curriculum in schools and universities especially in programming. Launch Media cities.

Adrianna Tan – WoBe – Singapore

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Adrianna Tan
Founder & CEO, WoBe
Indonesia

Adrianna Tan works on the intersection of tech, content and social. From founding and growing tech startups in Southeast Asia to starting and running non-profits in India, she believes strongly that technology and social good can and should go together. In 2014, she founded WoBe, an innovative take on financial services for low income women in Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Jakarta and Singapore, she also helps Silicon Straits, a Singapore-based innovation tribe, start and grow companies. In that role, she helped to start and run Ideabox Myanmar, Mobile Monday Yangon, and a slew of other community-focused movements in Myanmar. With a breadth and depth of experience across technology and social causes, especially in the emerging economies of Asia, she brings a unique cross-section of skills that help sell products, drive growth, and grow communities of passionate users.

In March 2014, Adrianna founded WoBe, a financial technology company focused on creating financial services for low-income women in Southeast Asia. Through her experience with non-profits and mobile technology, she saw that women in the lower-middle income bracket were the most under-served. Her aim with WoBe is to improve the lives and cater to this growing demographic group. Smartphones are becoming more affordable and available for reach by women in developing countries and that demographic will have to overcome technical literacy to be able to use the smartphones efficiently. Adrianna believes that to develop mobile products you have to adopt a user-centric design that would make smartphone use a lot simpler for poor women.

This is where the idea for WoBe came from.  The team is comprised of Southeast Asian women who are experienced veterans in development, tech, education, finance and content. WoBe is to develop and provide apps that can improve the lives of women as well as provide them with the power of making income through mico-entrepreneurship.

Through WoBe Adrianna is giving back to the society by supporting technology – an idea she feels extremely passionate about. Her in depth experience in tech and non-profit, allowed her to truly understand her customers which led to the recognition of the importance to adopt user-centric designs for an untapped female segment, thus empowering them.