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.
