Ghassan Hasbani is the Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Health of Lebanon. Mr. Hasbani is on the board of Maxis Communications Bhd., Ojer Telekomunikasyon AS, VIVA Bahrain and BGSM Capital Sdn. Bhd. and Member of The Institution of Engineering & Technology.

Mr. Hasbani previously held the position of President Commissioner for PT Axis Telekom Indonesia, Chief Executive Officer-International Operations at Saudi Telecom Co., Vice President of Strategy& and Principal at Cable & Wireless America.

He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Westminster and an MBA from The University of Hull.

 

Born in 1967 and married with three kids, Nicolas Sehnaoui served as the Minister of Telecommunications of the Republic of Lebanon between June 2011 and February 2014. He successfully upgraded Lebanon’s telecommunications infrastructure rolling out 3G and 4G, securing redundancy on the international connectivity, launching a national Fiber Optic Backbone and Beirut Digital District to name only a few of his accomplishments.

His efforts were crowned by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union that ranked Lebanon 1st in progress out of 157 countries in the 2012 ICT Development Index.

Prior to taking office Sehnaoui successfully managed several companies across a variety of industries. He now chairs the UK Lebanon Tech Hub that aims at creating a corridor between Lebanon and England to allow Lebanese ICT entrepreneurs to access the world supply chain through the London platform.

In May 2018 he was elected member Parliament for the Beirut 1 district.

 

Marwan Hayek is a telecom veteran and award-winning executive who strongly believes in the human side of telco and the power of mobile technology in contributing to the happiness of people. Performance and goal oriented leader who sees in every challenge an opportunity for growth. Throughout his international career spanning over 23 years, Mr. Hayek has enabled mobile services to more than 120 million users. Under his leadership, Alfa grew by 3 folds to serve 2.1 million subscribers and has set itself as the leading digital telco provider being the 1st to launch 3G, 4G, 4G LTE-A, and test 5G in Lebanon in what is considered a significant and strategic milestone for Lebanon. In February 2018, Mr. Hayek become the first CEO of a Lebanese mobile operator to be elected on the Board of Directors of SAMENA Telecommunications Council. In 2017, he joined the UN Global Compact Lebanon SDG Council as Goal Leader of SDG #9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. Mr. Hayek has received 6 awards in recognition of his contributions to the telco industry, the most recent of which was (and for the 2nd time) the ‘Operator Telecom leader of the Year’ award by leading publication Telecom Review.

Education:

PhD, University Augsburg, Economics & Logistics

Mechanical Engineering, Technical University Munich

BMW AG (since 2001) :

Vice President Logistics Planning (since 04/2017)

Vice President Foreign Supply

Vice President Logistics, Engine Plant Munich

Vice President Inhouse Consulting Production, BMW Group

General Manager Assembly, BMW Motorcycles, Plant Berlin

General Manager Logistics, BMW Motorcycles, Plant Berlin

Salam Yamout is the Regional Director in the Middle East for the Internet Society since November 2016, where she is responsible for heading the Middle East Regional Bureau and promoting access to the Internet for the benefit of people everywhere.

Prior to joining the Internet Society, Ms. Yamout was the National Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Strategy Coordinator at the Office of the Prime Minister of Lebanon. She brings over 25 years of experience in the development and management of ICT systems and their impact on business, governments, and society at large. She worked with industry leaders such as Cisco Systems, and International organisations such as the European Union and UNDP.

Ms. Yamout is founder and executive board member of the Lebanese Internet Center, Women in IT, and the Lebanon Chapter of the Internet Society. She also serves on the board of various organizations including RIPE NCC (the Internet Registry for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia); MIT Enterprise Forum for the Pan Arab Region, and Lebanon for Entrepreneurs.

Ms. Yamout holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Ecole Supérieure des Affaires (ESA) in Beirut and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona.

 

Ramzi A. Haraty is an associate professor of Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Lebanon. He is the chairperson of the Arab Computer Society. He is also a program evaluator (PEV) for ABET. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from Minnesota State University - Mankato, Minnesota, and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from North Dakota State University - Fargo, North Dakota. His research interests include database management systems, artificial intelligence, and multilevel secure systems engineering. He has well over 110 books, book chapters, journal and conference paper publications. He supervised over 110 dissertations, theses and capstone projects. He is a member of the Association of Computing Machinery, Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, and the International Society for Computers and Their Applications.

Ziad is a multi-disciplinary engineer who specializes in building Municipal Recycling Facilities on the communal level going against the trend of a central Mega recycling Plant.  While doing research at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA his team developed a technology to accelerate the composting cycle of organic waste in an odorless manner to produce high grade fertilizer.

After returning to Lebanon in 1996, Ziad started Cedar Environmental, an environmental & industrial engineering organization that aims to build recycling plants to produce organically certified fertilizers and leave no waste material to be disposed of, but instead recycled into a new form of product to be used again and again.

Most municipalities in Lebanon and the middle east cannot afford to buy recycling plants, so Ziad worked out a three way contract where local banks give his company soft loans to build the recycling facilities and municipalities pay only for the service of recycling/composting in comfortable monthly installments not exceeding 5 US Dollars per household per month.

Recently, Ziad and his engineering team, after four years of research, developed a new technology which transforms plastic bags into solid plastic panels, dubbed ECO-BOARD, used in the outdoors to replace wooden and steel panels.  They have won the 2013 International Energy Globe Award for this revolutionary process. Currently, they are transforming that technology from using fossil fuels to generate the required energy to biomass a renewable energy source.

He is the recipient of an American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE) design award in 1993 for his design linking municipal waste management to agriculture. In 2001, he received the Ford Motor Company Environmental & Conservation award for the Middle East. In 2011, he was named Arab World Social Innovator by Synergos institute in New York City, USA.

In February 2014, he was awarded by the World CSR Congress the Green Future Leadership Award.

In April 2014, he was named to the fourth annual GOOD 100 list of global citizens and creative changemakers by GOOD Magazine, a US based publication.

In June 2003, he was awarded the certificate of appreciation and recognition by the Syrian Government for his overall plan to make Syrian Food industries compliant with Clean Production Protocols. He expanded his study to be implemented all over the Middle-East and North Africa region and received the certificate of recognition of the Arab League in April 2006. His work in the advancement of the Zero Waste Societies earned him a speaking slot at the TEDxBeirut conference in September 2011. He has made numerous TV appearances for his innovative social work promoting environmental protection and green jobs creation. He holds a patent in a technology to compost organic materials dynamically with no pollution and has written extensively on environmental policies, issues and future trends.
In 2016, he co-produced a documentary about the waste crisis entitled:  A Zero Waste Lebanon showcasing how Lebanon can solve “intelligently” the waste crisis while creating jobs and economic benefits.

In 2018, he produced a documentary about the workings of waste incinerators entitled: An Incinerator for Beirut?

Cedar Environmental

Cedar Environmental (CE) is an environmental/industrial engineering organization who has gained fame by developing the ZERO WASTE approach to Municipal Solid Waste treatment.  CE has developed local solutions for accelerated composting, slaughterhouse waste management, Plastic bags recycling technology dubbed ECOBOARD and management of expired pharmaceutical pills. CE is also very active on the social scene having launched the GREEN GLASS RECYCLING INITIATIVE for LEBANON (GGRIL) in 2013, established the 2 bag sorting system in the Black/Blue combination sorting, and currently working to roll out as many street recycling bins as possible all over Beirut and Mount Lebanon to facilitate recycling for all concerned citizens.  These bins were designed from Ecoboards which are manufactured from plastic bags pushing the zero waste agenda to a really cool equation: “using waste to manage waste so no more waste is produced”.

Another cool application for the Ecoboards is a vertical greenwall structure. Traditional Greenwalls are an expensive and have limited planting capabilities, the greenwall structure designed by Cedar Environmental uses only recycled materials mainly plastic bags transformed into panels which are fully waterproof, last for hundreds of years and have all the right properties to handle soil, water and roots without compromising the integrity of the planted wall.  What CE achieved here is diverting plastic bags from landfills while creating urban greenery. Another Zero Waste milestone.

In the July 2006 war, the only green glass manufacturing plant in Lebanon was completely destroyed and to date not rebuilt. The plant served the local beer and wine industries and used up all the green and amber glass from the Lebanese glass recycling stream. Since that date, about 71 Million green & amber bottles end up in Landfills or uncontrolled dumps EVERY YEAR.
The GREEN GLASS RECYCLING INITIATIVE – LEBANON (GGRIL) launched by Cedar Environmental addresses the lack of recycling of green & amber glass packaging by reviving the glass blowing artisanship which was invented by the Phoenicians.
GGRIL aims to divert as much as possible of green/amber bottles from ending up in landfills or forests where they are a major fire hazard.
All proceeds from the sales of these glass items will go back into the stream to provide more work for the glass blowing artisans and hence divert more colored glass from the waste stream and provide higher recycling & recuperation rates.

ALL components of the package (Glass, Box and Label) were made from LEBANESE recycled glass and paper.
Until June 2018, GGRIL had diverted 1,000,000 bottles from ending up in landfills by forwarding them to the glassblowers of Sarafand who have had more work in 1 year making GGRIL designs then they had for the last 5 years combined. New designs and new points of Sales are always in the pipeline of work for the GGRIL initiative.

 

Stephanie currently serves as Beirut Digital District's Programs Director leading ecosystem enabling programs around technology and innovation as well as all community management platforms and processes. She is an experienced manager in strategic design, corporate development and business transformation for both the private and public sector with a demonstrated history of working in the management consulting industry for 8 years with Strategy& (formerly Booz & Co). Stephanie is a certified Psychometric Test User by the British Psychological Society (BPS), and holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Bachelor's in Computer & Communications Engineering from the American University of Beirut (AUB).

Pierre El Khoury is the General Director and President of the Board of the Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation (LCEC), Lebanon’s national energy agency hosted by the Ministry of Energy and Water. El Khoury has been a member of LCEC for 12 years, starting as a UNDP officer and then as a founding member of the LCEC. Throughout his career with LCEC, El Khoury worked on the development of Lebanon’s national energy efficiency and renewable energy action plans, the NEEREA national financing mechanism, and the solar water heaters market strategy.

El Khoury is Advisor to the Lebanese Minister of Energy and Water since 2009, working on all issues related to sustainable energy. El Khoury is the secretary of the World Energy Council (WEC) Lebanon Committee and is also a Board of Trustees’ member representing Lebanon in the Regional Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE). He is the national focal point of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Lebanon.

El Khoury serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Lebanon Green Building Council (LGBC) Arz Rating System, a member of the Advisory Board of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the American University of Beirut (AUB), a member of the Advisory Board of the Electrical Engineering Department at Beirut Arab University (BAU), and a member of the Advisory Board of the AUB Pro-Green Diploma Program.

El Khoury holds a Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master degree in Engineering Management, both from the American University of Beirut (AUB). He is a member of the Order of Engineers and Architects in Beirut.

 

Mr. Tony Reaidi is the Administrative Director of Antonine University (UA) in Zahle/Bekaa and the Director of the Master of Business Administration (MBA) Program at the University. In those positions, he leads the University’s mission in the Bekaa to promote higher education and the development of the talents of young people in the joy of the truth. He is committed to expanding student opportunity, stimulating academic innovation, and encouraging students’ engagement and service to society. He is a member of the University’s Council, the Faculty of Business Administration’s Council, and he holds a faculty appointment in the FBA Curriculum Committee.

Prior to moving to Lebanon, Mr. Reaidi lived in California for 18 years, where he attended California State University –San Francisco. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with an emphasis on Physiology, a minor in Chemistry, as well as a Master’s in Business Administration with an emphasis on International Business and Marketing. He started his career in Marketing and Training for companies such as Red Bull, Forecast Magazine, State Farm Insurance and California State University as a Teacher’s Assistant. In 2002, he ventured into starting his own businesses in the Insurance and Financial Services industry. After spending almost a decade as an entrepreneur, he shifted his interest to academia and teaching. He spent years attending trainings and seminars, studying and analyzing, different teaching and learning methodologies at UC Berkley and California State University –San Francisco.

After moving back to Lebanon in 2012, Mr. Reaidi followed his passion to become an educator, so he became a Lecturer in the Faculty of Business Administration at Antonine University. He is recognized for expanding access to higher education through implementing merit-based scholarships at the University, while also strongly advocating financial-aid support to students in need. Through his visionary outlook, the Faculty of Business Administration pursued initiatives to enhance graduate students’ experience and professional education. While guiding the MBA program’s redesign efforts at the University since 2016, he brought to fruition the most ambitious case-based MBA program in the country. As an administrative director, Mr. Reaidi focuses on accountability and teamwork at the University’s Zahle/Bekaa Campus. He rebuilt the Campus’s culture in order to create engagement and focus on a positive and effective environment, which allowed his team to work together toward a single vision –continuously expanding student opportunity.

Mr. Reaidi is truly a proficient and dedicated educator and business professional with a background that reflects the ability to engage and educate individuals in the effective utilization of new skills and knowledge. He employs advanced teaching competencies to share new and innovative concepts in a practical method within his academic interests that range across Management and Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Marketing.

Mr. Reaidi is truly a proficient and dedicated educator and business professional with a background that reflects the ability to engage and educate individuals in the effective utilization of new skills and knowledge. He employs advanced teaching competencies to share new and innovative concepts in a practical method within his academic interests that range across Management and Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Marketing.

 

Bassem Hashash is an experienced Sales and Business Development Executive in the MENA Region with longstanding proven track record in successfully managing a sales and business development organization in the region for major international manufacturers. He has driven multi-million-dollar revenue growth in multiple channels including software, telecommunications, and SaaS.

He is now the Managing Partner and Regional Director of Proximie for the META region, bringing the Proximie value to Hospitals, Medical device manufacturers, and medical teaching institutions, as well as reaching out globally to the partner channels.

Proximie is an award winning augmented reality medical solution platform that aims to force multiply medical knowledge, offering the best health care to patients around the world.

 

Elias is a Lebanese entrepreneur with engineering background in Telecommunication and Micro Electronics. Elias is currently the CEO of AutomatiX Group as well as Vice President Design & Technology of NEUVATEK Inc.. Elias is dynamic, results-oriented leader with a strong track record of performance and achievements.

AutomatiX is an engineering firm specialized in Automation and Power and classified as official solution partner for SIEMENS and ABB in different fields, mainly the Power, Automation & Instrumentation . Moreover, AutomatiX is operating in Lebanon, KSA, Qatar, Iraq and R.D. Congo.

NEUVATEK Inc. is a technology hub for advanced product designs, microelectronics, embedded programming and simulation. NEUVATEK is operating in Austin Texas, USA and serving the states, France and Germany.

Throughout his career, Elias registered several US patented inventions and developed hundreds of control systems going from small wearable system to complete industrial plants. Elias is currently member of the LIRA (Lebanese Industrial Research Achievements) program and his main cause is the development of the engineering skills of the Lebanese graduate with his believes that this is the defined future of Lebanon.

Personal interest in Technology, Iconography, Photography, 3D Modeling, Painting, Poetry and Design.

 

Director of the National E-Health Program at the Ministry of Public Health with more than 20 years of experience in the fields of ICT and Health Management Information System.

Leading several E-Government and Digital Transformation projects to ensure modernization of the administration and to create increased public value with greater openness, transparency, engagement with and trust in government.

Member of several national committees working on Digital transformation Strategy, Good Governance and Simplification of administrative procedures, Unified E-Prescription, Drugs traceability and Fighting Corruption Strategy.

Ms. Abou Mrad is also a Lecturer at the Faculty of Public Health in the Lebanese University.

She holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in the Health Management field from Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne and a Project Management Professional (PMP) Certificate.

Received many Excellence Awards including Best Government E-Services and Golden Smart Applications.