Tag Archives: Wrap-up

Panel: Accelerators
Speakers: Gary Stewart, Stephane Gantchev, Ramez Mohamad, Mike Butcher
Moderator: Paul Bragiel

The panel started off by discussing whether there are too many accelerators today and got mixed reactions.  Areas such as Europe do have too many accelerators and emerging markets such as Lebanon do not have enough.

• All panel speakers agreed that some people have no business running accelerators. They are many accelerators out there who don’t know how invest properly so they possibly should be educated and trained, or work together.
• There was a debate on whether accelerators would last or become useless. An opinion was shared that if accelerators don’t start accelerating from universities, grass root, they shall become useless.
• Paul supported government investments into the sector however Mike disagreed and said he would rather governments put better regulatory frameworks and regulations instead.
• Ramez shared from his experience that at Flat6Labs, they have learnt that it is more essential to pick the team and not the idea. Teams stay, ideas change. Remaining panel concurred.

Paul summarized the panel with the following 3 points.

• Hopefully the bad accelerators will die out
• It’s all about the team
• Everyone has a role to play in the ecosystem.

Fireside: Shaping Entrepreneurs
Speaker: Kalina King
Moderator: Gary Stewart

In the fireside chat, Kalina shared some important advice and tips.

• Lebanon should be thinking very seriously about educating and providing the platform so there’s the tech talent to fuel startups.
• Stay hungry. Keep learning. Go online. Find like-minded people. Stay curious.
• Lebanon is very similar to Hong Kong in terms of education and community for startups.

Panel: Expats as Entrepreneurs
Speakers: Ivan Hernandez, Jonathan Giesen, Alina Gratschner and Rani Saad.

Moderator: Leen Segers

This panel discussed what lead them to become expats whether personal or business focused. They also discussed how being an expact impacted their personal relationships back home.

In terms of how challenging it is to move somewhere new and start from scratch, Ivan highlighted that you should identify the opportunities, network, engage, and learn all about the society you are in. You have to take the opportunity that you have, of where you are, and make something out of it.

Ivan added that if you want to have an ecosystem, you need to build it. You have to take action. You can build it gradually over a few years.

Jonathan emphasized that we are talking about a huge opportunity that is available in Lebanon where the ecosystem is rapidly changing and growing, however we have to work on our infrastructure. Also, BDL Accelerate has created something similar to a club where likeminded people have come together and networked but the challenge will be sustaining the enthusiasm.

Ivan concluded that BDL Accelerate 2014 could be the catalyst to create the momentum to build the Lebanon ecosystem.

Interventions
The intervention session consisted of 5 stellar speakers presenting topics they are passionate about within a total of 70 mins.

Gary Stewart presented The Case for Corporate Accelerators

Mario Berta presented Sell, Sell, Sell

Hafez Virjee presented De-Risking Startups

Till Ohrmann presented Connecting Entrepreneurs

Vitaly Golomb presented Blueprints for Success

Closing Speech: Blueprints for Success
Speaker: Marianne Hoayek

In the conference closing speech, Marianne summarized the 2 day events:

• More than 50 industry veterans shared success stories, insights, how to attain and retain talent, and more.
• In the past two days countless entrepreneurs met with Angels, VCs, Investors, and pitched to them.
• Lebanon will have soon have a stock exchange market dedicated to the industry.
• UK Ambassador Tom Fletcher revealed the Lebanon-UK Tech Hub.
• Entrepreneurs seemed eager to work and Banque du Liban will work to provide access to resources under one platform.
• She thanked all the prominent speakers who came from around the world, as well as the partners who made it all possible and the audience for fueling the enthusiasm.

Seedstar Competition

The 8 selected finalists pitched for 6 minutes each in front of the jury: Charlie Graham-Brown, Mario Berta and Hafez Virjee.

The 8 starts up were:

• Presella
• Feedeed
• Go Ijaza
• Ki
• Saily
• Tari2ak
• Yellow
• So7ati

The jury then took 15 minutes to deliberate and the results were:

The runner ups:

• So7ati
• Presella

The Beirut Regional Winner is:

• Ki

Congratulations to the startups!

That is a wrap from us! See you next year!

Keynote: Investing in Asia
Michael Lints, Venture Partner
Golden Gate Ventures

The second half kicked off with a keynote on Investing in Asia by Michael Lints.
Michael discussed the different reasons on why Asia is the new land of opportunity for entrepreneurs and also discussed how different ecosystems, currencies, languages, and mindsets all play a role in cross border challenges.

Panel: Asia’s Startup Ecosystem: Opportunities & Challenges
Speakers: Adrianna Tan, Kalina King, Darius Cheung, Mario Berta, and Elias Ghannam
Moderator: Michael Lints

The panel discussed the opportunities and challenges they have faced in Asia’s Startup ecosystem and shared some of their personal experiences and provided the audience with some tips.

Interesting stories:

• Mario once hired gogo dancers to convert taxi drivers in the Phillipines
• Adrianna shared that if you’re signing a business document with an Indonesian partner you have to take a selfie in front of the Indonesian embassy!
• Elias shared a story about how someone requested cash on delivery rather than online payment because of some of the online obstacles that are being faced.

Takeaway points from panel:

• Government funding is essential and great to develop an ecosystem, however the ecosystem shouldn’t sustain on it on the long term.
• Adriana advised entrepreneurs that they need to prepare for all the ups and down. To learn their business well and be well informed. You need to stop thinking about startups as a glamorous thing.
• Michael Lints ended panel with a quote by his friend “Being a startup is as romantic as chewing glass.”

Keynote: The Knowledge Economy
Jean Nehme, Co-Founder, Touch Surgery

Jean Nehme started off by informing the audience that most surgeons conduct their first surgery on someone.  Which really is why, along with his colleagues, they came up with the idea for Touch Surgery. Surgeons are about 25% technical ability and 75% content knowledge – he added that he would rather have a surgeon who knows what to cut rather than just how to cut.

He also showed how Touch Surgery is taking it to the next level with virtual reality.

Worth noting is that Touch Surgery is free since Jean believes that in the knowledge economy, knowledge is free. He told entrepreneurs that they need to create smarter business models and share content/knowledge for free.

Panel – The Other Knowledge Economy:

Speakers: Hind Hobeika, Hassan Slaibi, Antoine Saad, Jamil Corbani

Moderator: Mark Haidar

The speakers each started off by introducing themselves and explaining their inspirations behind their products.

• Hind Hobeika used to be a swimmer when she considered Instabeat
• Hassan said they funded on Kickstarter and ended up raising triple what they were asking for
• Hind and Hassan both agreed that being in Lebanon was not really challenging to create their products. Everything is accessible and it’s all doable, they agreed. IT would be better if the internet was faster though
• Jamil noted that the strongest asset that Lebanese have is instability – it makes Lebanese creative and disruptive
• Antoine Saad agreed and added that when you work in a chaotic environment and it succeeds, your product would succeed anywhere else.
• Hind noted that the Lebanse ecosystem supported her and does not see any issues with starting up in Lebanon. She is also optimistic about raising large funds in Lebanon such as $20 million thanks to Circular 331.
• Antoine Saad agreed and added that he has seen lots of progress in Lebanon during the recent years and is optimistic about the way forward

Keynote: Big Data and Business
Ramzi Rizk, EyeEm

The last panel of the day was given by Ramzi who started off by introducing EyeEm and how data plays a role in it. He then unveiled his ambitious aim to index the world, through algorithms that determine things like the person, composition, subject, event, etc in the picture.

Lightning Round:

28 exceptional startups took the stage for 1 minute each to pitch their startups as part of the Seedstar World Competition.

You can view all startups here.

Announcing Finalists:

The jury selected 8 startups to go to the finalist round tomorrow.

Cardio Diagnostic, Saily, Yellow, Ki, Presella, Go Ijaza, Feedeed, Tari2ak.

That’s a wrap for today. See you all tomorrow!