Executive Magazine

Park life – finding Beirut’s hidden green spaces

by Nabila Rahhal March 21, 2014

written by Nabila Rahhal

It’s a sunny spring day in Beirut. Where can the little girl who wants to kick around a ball or the little boy who wants to ride his bicycle go? How about the mother who wants to enjoy a good book in the sun, or the father who wants to lie on the grass without spending any cash?

The obvious answer would be a public park, but do we have any in Beirut or does one have to leave the city to enjoy a few hours of greenery? Executive took up the challenge to help this family find functional parks in Beirut, but were disappointed. René Moawad Garden, otherwise known as Sanayeh Garden, is under renovation — a positive step for the near future but not for our current mission — and the largest area of greenery in Beirut, Horsh Beirut, is not accessible to children according to the security guard at the entrance, who denied us entry even after we promised him we would stay close so he could keep an eye out for any wrongdoings on our part.

Other parks in the city were in a sad state: no running toilets in some, dangerous conditions such as swings flying over traffic congested roads in others, and downright absurd rules in some such as a ban on photography inside the park.

Most city dwellers cry out for public green spaces and greenery, and Lebanese are becoming increasingly aware of the lack of them. Mohamad Ayoub, founder of Nahnoo, a youth advocacy NGO, says a survey they did in 2009 showed that the top need cited by Beirut residents was for public spaces to interact in.

Beirut Green Project (BGP), a collective dedicated to raising awareness and developing public green spaces in the city, launched their work in 2011 with a fresh initiative; they wanted to focus people’s attention on public gardens by covering Sassine Square in Ashrafieh with green grass and inviting passerbys to “enjoy their green space.”

“When more than 400 people attended this event and commended our initiative, we knew we had hit a nerve,” says Dima Boulad, co-founder of BGP. Beirut has 0.8 meters of green space per person when the minimum number should be 9 meters per person, according to the World Health Organisation.

Not to be thwarted, we dug deeper and found that all hope is not lost for public green spaces in Beirut. According to research by BGP, there are around 24 public gardens in Beirut. “People are largely unaware of how many gardens and parks we have in Beirut; they mainly know Sanayeh, Jesuit or Sioufi, but are shocked when we tell them how many there are,” says Boulad, adding that the number would have been higher had they relied on what the Beirut Municipality considered parks — BGP only included public spaces with benches and greenery, size aside.

Beautiful Beirut
As part of their effort to introduce people to such parks and encourage them to make spending time there part of their daily lives, BGP organizes “Green Your Lunch Break” monthly picnics, each time in a different park of the city. “It was very satisfying to see people’s reactions upon discovering parks they didn’t know existed in Beirut,” says Boulad.

BGP, in collaboration with the design agency Wonder Eight, also developed the Beirut Green Guide, an online interactive map that highlights the city’s parks and provides the user with the exact location, a brief description and photographs of each. “We are currently working on the best format and design to print it as a useful reference and the Beirut municipality has expressed interest in adopting it,” says Boulad, adding that before the public can ask for new parks to be built, the existing ones need to be promoted, used and renovated where needed.

Beirut’s Green guide is an interactive map to parks in Beirut

The Beirut Municipality has felt an urgency to revive Beirut’s greenery and so, last year, they launched the ‘Beirut is Amazing’ campaign, which according to Nadim Abu Rizk, vice president of the municipality, is “an open invitation for all independent organizations, private companies and educational institutions interested in public green spaces to work with the municipality and adopt a garden or park.”

The Beirut is Amazing campaign has three parts, the biggest being the complete rehabilitation of the major public gardens in Beirut. The second part is the minor repair and upkeep of the city’s smaller parks and includes fixing broken toilets, mending benches or adding a water system to a fountain where needed.

The final part is the adoption of roadside islands and roundabouts by private companies who would beautify and plant them — under the supervision of the municipality — and commit to maintaining them for a certain period in return for a plaque applauding their efforts. This part is in implementation, as is evident by the few green roundabouts with company logos spotted around the city. “Having a private organization adopt such spaces relieves the municipality from these maintenance tasks. This is one of our biggest challenges, considering that we are understaffed in this aspect,” admits Abu Rizk.

The restoration of the major Beirut parks was received with enthusiasm from design and architecture companies eager to leave their personal touch on their city by donating design plans of their vision for these parks, according to Abu Rizk.

The renovation plans for Sioufi Garden were developed and donated by Van Deusen & Levitt Associates, a full-service brand strategy and design firm, which plans to re-vegetate it with native Lebanese trees. For Mar Nicolas Garden in Ashrafieh, designed by Frederic Francis, the plan involves tearing down the fence surrounding the garden and cobble stoning the street between the garden and the church opposite it to create the feel of a plaza square. As for the long forgotten Karentina Garden, it’s being designed by Green Studios. Abu Rizk, himself an architect, offered the design for the Mutran Audi garden in Lebanon Street, in the Monot area.

However beautiful these urban design visions are, they remain ink on paper until implemented. “We favor these donations because, by Lebanese law, the municipality is allowed to take donations with no outside procedures. If the municipality has to hire a consultant from its funds, then we have to follow the public law and develop a rule book and criteria before opening the task up for auctioning which, aside from being a long process, also forces us to take the lowest cost option regardless of the quality offered,” says Abu Rizk, admitting that this bureaucracy and centralization of decision taking is a major challenge faced by the municipality.

Public-Private parks
Saint Joseph University has announced it will be sponsoring the implementation of the Saint Nicholas Garden plans and is currently in the process of identifying a contractor. Meanwhile, Azadea Foundation, Azadea’s corporate social responsibility arm, founded in July 2012, is in the final stages of renovating the René Moawad Garden and will be re-opening with the municipality by mid-May 2014, as the first public-private partnership park.

Marwan Moukarzel, Deputy CEO of Azadea, explains that the foundation chose the urban environment as their particular cause because they felt that it had been rapidly deteriorating over the past few years and feared that Beirut would soon be a concrete jungle without any organization fighting for it. “It is part of our corporate strategy and our customers will look at us differently when they know we are aiding a cause close to their heart,” says Moukarzel.

After deciding their project had to benefit the public, explains Moukarzel, Azadea Foundation approached the General Director of the Ministry of Environment, Berj Hadjinian, who welcomed the initiative and suggested the renovation of Sanayeh Garden. “It was perfect for us due to it being a perfectly positioned Beirut landmark and also because green public spaces are badly needed in the city,” explains Moukarzel.
Hadjinian then introduced them to the Head of the Municipality of Beirut, Bilal Hamad, who, happy with Azadea’s timing in the matter, went on to provide them with the design maps that were donated by ZMK Landscape Architects.

The estimated budget for the 22,000 square meter garden was $2.5 million and Azadea placed the cornerstone in November 2012. Azadea will also be funding the park’s maintenance — which includes security, upkeep and garbage collection — for the next ten years, a move which will cost them $250,000 annually, bringing the project’s total cost up to $5 million. “That way we know that we will continue to be proud of the work we have done and it will be maintained at the same level of quality for the next ten years,” says Moukarzel.

The René Moawad Garden will remain free and open to the public, and frequenters of that park will be happy to know the big fountain has been renovated and is functional. While the design has remained true to the original garden, a track for biking and running has been added, along with children’s play areas, an amphitheater where free events will be held, an exhibition space and more greenery. “We want to encourage people to visit the park through events and facilities that will increase footfall,” says Moukarzel.

For the public
Other municipality plans include increasing the city’s green spaces, a process which necessitated the acquiring of new land. The Mutran Audi Garden and the Beirut Municipal Stadium — where the field will be removed to develop a civic public space with several smaller fields, green gardens, a library and a conference center — are two such examples.

These two spaces, as well as the Jesuit Garden and the Mufti Hassan Khaled Garden in Verdun, will have parking lots underneath them. Though some see this as a solution to the city’s parking problem, others have been critical, claiming it will create more traffic problems and deprive the public of their green spaces while the project is under development. Residents surrounding the Jesuit Garden organized a sit-in in the park when the project was first announced and managed to get it postponed pending an environmental impact study.

Abu Rizk says the municipality carried out an environmental impact study before each project and that plans for the Jesuit Garden will go ahead on sections of the garden where the parking lot is planned, while other sections which have ancient trees will be left as is. He insists that all the municipality is doing serves the community, and does not harm it.

For the moment, the plan to increase green spaces in the center of the city is stalled with the Beirut Waterfront Park and the Garden of Forgiveness projected for Downtown Beirut on hold. “This is municipality land but Solidere has the vision and management for it. We are waiting for the land to be ready because it was a fill before,” says Abu Rizk.

“When it comes to public green spaces in Lebanon, progress is slow and sometimes planned initiatives don’t even happen so it’s not an ideal situation, but let’s try to remain positive and give credit where it’s due,” says Boulad.

March 21, 2014 0 comments

Comment

Ignore farcical Cabinet policy debate

by Yasser Akkaoui March 20, 2014

written by Yasser Akkaoui

If the rather outdated saying “you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them” were to be applied to Lebanese governments, it is today perhaps more valid than ever.

We waited eleven months for our political classes to negotiate a new government, as vicious infighting and polarization allowed the country to drift rudderless towards civil war. Yet, just a few weeks after they announced a new cabinet, we are already paying the price for it.

For the past two days Beirut’s already large traffic problems have been exacerbated by the arrival of dozens of MPs at parliament to debate the new Cabinet’s policy statement. For this farcical spectacle, large parts of Downtown Beirut have been blocked off, with dozens of black tinted SUVs guarding endless barricades.

For those trying to get to work in the key economic hub of the country, the situation has been unbearable. Hours stuck in traffic have cost companies thousands of dollars in man hours.

It may seem petty to moan about a bit of traffic when parliament is meeting properly for the first time since last May. I would certainly agree if there were signs that any of the parts of the cabinet statement would ever become reality, but that is patently not the case.

This government’s mandate is due to end following the election of a new president at the end of May – little over two months away. It took them a month to agree on a policy statement, so are we really meant to believe reform will occur in just eight weeks? Even if they stagger on until the end of the year, the compromise nature of the government means that each side will spend their time blocking the other’s moves.

These are the same MPs, let us not forget, who last year voted to extend their own mandates by 17 months and then crushed those who tried to show it was unconstitutional.

In the media, the television networks have round the clock coverage of these debates as minister after minister makes an irrelevant speech where they promise changes we know and they know they will never achieve. I would like to suggest three ways that we could improve this bizarre spectacle.

Put it on at night

Putting the debates on at night would have two major benefits. First of all it would ease the city’s traffic crisis as the MPs would only have to travel into the city in the evening – just when all of the country’s real workers are leaving.

The added advantage would be that we could all watch it while relaxing after work. It is clear that with the state of collective depression the Lebanese are sliding into, the country needs some more light fiction entertainment.

Move it to Tripoli

Alternatively they could do something radical and move the event to Tripoli. Around a dozen people have died in the city in the past week in fresh clashes that have been all but ignored by the political classes. Shipping our 128 elected officials for a walking tour around the city would surely focus their minds, while leaving those in Beirut free to work. And who wouldn’t want to watch a minister get up to give his speech on the frontline between Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabaneh?

Stop paying attention

My third and final suggestion is to the television networks. Perhaps they can finally see this farce for what it is and stop covering it. It is an insult to our intelligence to pretend this government will do more than any of its predecessors – so why do we continue to mislead our population?

We should just ignore them, pretend they don’t exist at all. No one report on it, no one talk about it. Maybe then we will realize we can live without them after all.

March 20, 2014 0 comments

Bike messengers are a new sight on Beirut's streets

Business

Deghri bike messenger service gaining traction on Beirut’s streets

by Nathalie Rosa Bucher March 20, 2014

written by Nathalie Rosa Bucher

After six months in business, Deghri Messengers s.a.r.l. – out to prove that bicycles are faster, cleaner and more reliable than cars and motorbikes – is firmly in the saddle as the first bike messenger company in the Middle East.

Deghri employs two full-time messengers, two part-time riders, and one dispatcher from their AltCity base in Hamra.

Starting with non-profit organizations as a core client base helped a lot, says Matt Saunders, one of the founders. “Particularly with Abaad, they turned out to be a very reliable client, and they introduced us to others so that we now have a fairly wide range of clients in the NGO field.”

The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), based in Hamra, started to rely on Deghri in October last year, switching from a scooter-based delivery to the non-motorised Deghri modus. “Our decision was based on the fact that Deghri are bicycle-based and environment-friendly and are a young company, managed and operated by young people,” Hala Acouri, Finance and Admin officer at the SDC explains. “For us, their commitment to deliver the documents on time at low cost is key,” she adds.

Deghri’s growth has mostly been through word of mouth and social media. The company has successfully broadened its client base and diversified to include businesses and private clients. “We’ve had the odd random person sending a laptop to be fixed, dropping off invoices and picking up checks. A trucking company, education centers, universities and increasingly private individuals … translators and lawyers call us,” Saunders says.

A standard delivery request (within three hours) costs 9,000 LL ($6), while rush service (within one hour) costs an additional 3,000 LL ($2), and chilled service for same day delivery when sent before noon or overnight costs 6,000 LL ($4). Customers must pay in cash. Deghri operates between 8 am and 6 pm during the week and half-days on Saturdays.

“Our main costs are dispatcher and messenger salaries – all of these work on a part-time, freelance basis and messengers are paid a commission for each delivery. Then come phone bills – we use WhatsApp as much as possible to save costs – and spare bike parts. For the insurance we have a generous sponsorship deal from Elite Insurance Consultants,” Saunders elaborates.

“Nothing got lost so far and we’re insured against loss or damage. We insured the riders with personal insurance and we’ve recently secured the items we carry up to $2,500,” Saunders explains.

It took the riders only one month to make back their $6,600 in start-up costs. After six months in business, Deghri has doubled its monthly revenue, Saunders said.

[/media-credit]Deghri’s bullet bike can carry up to 60 kg

And they are innovating, too, seeking to expand their services. ‘The Bullet’ (pictured above) is the latest Deghri member, donated by the Danish Embassy in January. It allows a messenger to carry heavy bulky items up to 60 kg. “We are still very flexible with it, it’s narrow, well engineered and we can get people’s packages out in time – only a tad slower. It also allows us to expand in other ways: we’re starting to reach out to businesses like restaurants and others within the gastronomy sector.” Deghri presently delivers for Achrafieh-based Roger le Boulanger, taking his artisan sour dough breads across Beirut. “We hope to be able to do more things like that,” Saunders says.

Deghri approached Souk el Tayeb and is now present at the Saturday farmers market. “Heavy things get sent home with our Bullet. The positive effect we aim for is for people to leave their car at home, walk to the market, save parking, shop and send their groceries home with Deghri.”

Plans for 2014 include overhauling the website, expanding work with the Bullet, increasing food deliveries, and attending the European Bike Messenger Championship in Stockholm. Deghri is also considering introducing accounts that would allow customers to pay at the end of the month.

March 20, 2014 0 comments

Society

In photos: The forgotten poor

by Greg Demarque March 19, 2014

written by Greg Demarque

Around a third of Lebanon’s population lives in poverty, in a society where lavish opulence and desperate hardship are often only meters apart. Those in need are consistently neglected by the state. Whether it be working families struggling to pay the rent for their crumbling homes, the destitute living on the streets, or the elderly making it through old age with little assistance – the country’s support networks are desperately lacking.

A woman sits in front of her home in the Bourj Hammoud district of Beirut

This family in Bourj Hammoud have two sons, the youngest of whom (pictured) is autistic

They survive on the money the father makes from selling bananas on the street - roughly $267 a month. In a country where rent is high, the only home they can afford is full of rot

This family are slightly better off, making $600 a month. Even still the house has damp - which aggravates their youngest child's asthma

On the streets of Beirut, the number of people begging has increased in recent years

Some have been begging for years, but many are newly impoverished

The influx of over 930,000 Syrian refugees has increased the number of destitute people. This family is among thousands that have lost everything

Some, like this young boy, drop out of school to work

As poverty bites, people take desperate measures. This man was looking through bins in the Ain El Mreisseh neighborhood of Beirut

There are, however, some services for the poor. The Darouna center in Furn el Chebbak invites elderly people to shower and eat breakfast in the morning

The Asile Maronite nursing home in Ain el Remmaneh offers shelter to elderly Lebanese who could not otherwise afford it

87 year-old Marie has lived in the home in Ain el Remmaneh for 20 years. She never married, but would have liked to meet the right person.

87 year-old Mokarami has lived in the home for the past 15 years

March 19, 2014 0 comments

Leaders

Facing poverty head on

by Executive Editors March 19, 2014

written by Executive Editors

Nearly a third of Lebanese are estimated to live below the poverty line. This phenomenon cuts across sectarian divisions: destitution knows no religion or nationality (see photo essay).

Many of these are not poor due to war, sectarianism or displacement: they are poor as they have been neglected by their society. Successive governments have failed to adequately identify and help those in need, while simultaneously forgoing adequate investment in health and education infrastructure. The past four decades have also seen a rapid increase in inequality (see article). Many poor have simply been left behind.

For the past two years, the country has been faced with an additional crisis in the form of an influx of Syrians fleeing the carnage next door. Competition for jobs has increased, while rents have risen in poor communities. The World Bank has estimated that in total 170,000 Lebanese people will be pushed into poverty by the influx, and there are few signs of a reprieve.

At the same time, expenditures have risen. The Bank estimates spending will have grown by $1.1 billion from 2012–2014, largely due to refugees using government services. At a macro level the effect was evidenced last year when Lebanon slipped into negative territory in its primary balance (that is, revenues minus expenditures other than debt repayment and servicing — the country has long had a deficit when you count debt handling).

But, as John F Kennedy once said, every crisis is also an opportunity, and Lebanon could use this chance to fix its domestic system. The newly minted government should formulate a strategy to bring social, health and education services up to par, leveraging the potential to tap international donors — an impossibility during the interminable months of a caretaker cabinet.

Ideally, the government could use the short-term relief money to invest in creaking infrastructure systems in a sustainable manner, while providing the breathing space to make necessary reforms. Services provided to refugees today should be sustainable for Lebanese tomorrow.

Without international donors, Lebanon has little chance of making the changes and investments desperately needed to fix its social safety net. But the refugee crisis has provided the best opportunity to remedy this — for Syrians, Palestinians and for the roughly one million Lebanese living in poverty. This government must not let this crisis go to waste.

March 19, 2014 0 comments

Economics & Policy

Aid agencies struggle to keep focus on Syria’s war

by Thomas Schellen March 18, 2014

written by Thomas Schellen

Three years on since the first protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and with the flow of refugees into neighbors countries in no way abating, aid organizations are struggling to draw attention to what they describe as the worst humanitarian challenge in a generation. Lebanon as host country of the largest number of refugee – close to one million – gets much less financial support from the international community than needed. Worst of all, Syrian children bear the brunt of the war’s impact.

These were take-home points from a press conference that two UN agencies and three international aid organizations held Saturday in Beirut. Stories about the suffering of Syrian refugee children and testimonials about their resilience were the main focuses of the press conference, which culminated in a call for justice by Anthony Lake, executive director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and a former US diplomat and national security advisor.

“Enough that diplomatic efforts to reach necessary compromises have failed; enough with denial of access by all parties to all children who need assistance; enough with destruction of schools and hospitals; enough with this catastrophe,” Blake said.

Appeals for funding by humanitarian organizations have been about 70 percent covered, however, international support for the Lebanese people and the Lebanese government struggling to cope “has been weak,” acknowledged UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.

Only small amounts have been contributed to a trust fund set up by the World Bank, Guterres said, adding that the level of financial support in areas such as infrastructure and the economy is still very low. “That support has to be strongly increased, for it is an absolutely essential condition for Lebanon to be able to continue receiving and supporting the refugees.”

The situation in Lebanon is exacerbated by the fact that the burden of hosting the refugees is falling to a large degree on areas that are the country’s poorest, added Lake. Thus the issue of trying to assess the cost burden on the country in the next 12 months is not only one of “trying to extrapolate the trends a year into the future – which I think is always very dangerous because things change – but also looking at the quality of the economy. With increasing inequities within the economy you are also reinforcing patterns that in turn have political and social consequences,” he warned.

The two high-powered UN officials and representatives of aid organizations Save the Children, Mercy Corps and World Vision had been paying a visit to Beirut to ring alarm bells for the sake of Syrian children on the third anniversary of the country’s unrest that erupted on March 15, 2011 in Daraa, southwest Syria. All three organizations are engaged in projects to support refugees, especially children, and internally displaced Syrians.

While appeals for funding were not a topic of the conference, the organizations emphasized that work for Syrian children is not getting enough of the world’s attention. The funding needs are hard to quantify as the situation is constantly evolving, said World Vision regional director Cornelia Lenneberg, “but what we have certainly experienced is that there is not enough focus today on the needs of children, on their protection and education. That is probably the area that is most under-funded.” According to Lenneberg, aid organizations have put a $1 billion estimate on education needs of the “lost generation” of Syrian children, without allocation of a time frame.

According to Andrea Koppel, vice president for global engagement at Mercy Corps, her organization has found it more difficult to motivate donor support for the Syrian crisis than it would be for a natural catastrophe. “We raised as much, $2.4 million, in three weeks after the [November 2013] typhoon in the Philippines as we did in three years for Syria.”

Lake and Guterres peppered their evaluations of the crisis with urgent appeals for an end to the war in Syria and for change in international behavior in dealing with Syrian refugees by opening borders and enacting visa programs. “It is absolutely unacceptable that we see people drowning in the Mediterranean because they have no legal way to come into Europe,” Guterres said. “It is absolutely unacceptable that we are asking Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, [and] Egypt to receive more and more Syrians. Countries should show that Jordan, Lebanon, and other neighbors will not be left alone and that they are ready to share the burden,” he continued.

However, even the best intended appeals for ending the conflict and solving the refugee crisis cannot hide the fact that the shifting in global attention to other problems, such as the Crimea crisis, has moved Syria down the ladder in international priorities.

As the UNHCR numbers show, the attempts at peace negotiations in January and February did nothing for visibly alleviating the flight responses of the beleaguered population: the number of more than 2.5 million registered Syrian refugees, 99 percent of whom left their home country in the past two years, has continued to grow with more than 210,000 persons fleeing between January 1 and March 15 of this year. This rate is practically unchanged from the net increase in refugees recorded by UNHCR for the period from last October 15 until the end of 2013.

Any estimate on the impact of the Syrian war on the economies of Lebanon and other Levant countries in the next twelve months would still be guesswork, according to Lake. The international aid organizations acknowledge that they cannot predict the funding needs to meet the humanitarian crisis and protect refugee children from harms, which range from avoidable amputation of limbs due to lack of medical options to the risk of a heightened propensity of child war victims to use violence themselves later on.

The outlook less than two years after the escalation of the Syrian protests into a civil war is thus more and more shaping into a heritage of conflict that may take a generation to clean up. For Mercy Corps’ Koppel, the corresponding financial needs are not quantifiable. “It is really endless,” she said. ”When you have close to three million refugees, over half of them children, and you have the needs of the host community, the need is so great that we can’t get too much [funding].”

March 18, 2014 0 comments

Retail

Stripped bare by technology

by Jasmina Najjar March 18, 2014

written by Jasmina Najjar

Have you ever dreamt of being a cyborg? Ever fancied strutting your stuff like a character out of a William Gibson cyberpunk novel? Wanted to be totally wired and experience connectivity like never before? Then never fear, wearable tech is here!

The brilliant thing about wearable tech is the usefulness and life changing potential it represents. A lot of the innovative delights popping up will make you wonder how you ever managed to survive without them! One example that comes to mind is the GER Mood Sweater. An LED light in the white turtleneck sweater changes color according to your mood — teal when you’re feeling zen, blue if you’re relaxed, magenta when you get excited, and red if you’re smitten with love. It takes the expression ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’ to a whole new level. Awkward social situations can be taken to a whole new level of embarrassment as well — since having a poker face and trying to exude the impression of control simply aren’t going to work if you’re sporting this.

Another groundbreaking fashion statement gone high tech is the Spider Dress by Anouk Wipprecht, fashion designer, and Daniel Schatzmayr, software developer and hacker. There’s nothing more aesthetically charming than a dress with six robot legs around the shoulders. This beautiful tribute to horror movies on acid reacts to nearby movement, protecting your personal space if someone gets too close. Wipprecht states that “technology combined with fashion creates new ways of communication between people, a new relationship between interface and the body, and a new connection of the body with technology.” This creepy-crawly creation definitely opens the path to communication. There’s nothing like robotic arms shoving people away to break the ice at parties!

Baring it all

The wearable tech fashion craze doesn’t stop here. The Intimacy dress line by Studio Roosegaarde takes a playful ‘now you see me, now you don’t’ approach to things. The white or black dresses are made with smart e-foils and when your heart starts to race from excitement the dress becomes transparent. The naked truth of your turn-ons are instantly revealed. Very practical attire to wear while walking around in public. Keen not to have men feel left out, Studio Roosegaarde is also developing a suit for men which turns transparent when they lie. This will definitely be a smash hit with politicians, businessmen and lawyers.

Japanese innovators Ravijour have joined the trend with The True Love Tester bra that, as the name suggests, only unlocks itself if true love is in the air. The company’s promotional video unveils the bra as the saviour women have been waiting for. It apparently protects us from the “animal, technician and flashy guy” who lurk around waiting to grope us at the first chance they get. While sexual harassment and rape are serious issues, how a bra, rather than lockable panties, offers protection is slightly bewildering. And why the bra is designed to seemingly burst open with great enthusiasm when it detects love, rather than discreetly, is another mystery. One can only hope it doesn’t decide to fling open at the wrong time in the wrong place. That might prove to be a bit too flashy.

Thanks to wearable tech like Durex’s Fundawear, couples in long distance relationships are no longer physically constrained by geographical boundaries. If ‘sexting’ starts to bore them, they can now opt for vibrating remote control underwear. Long distance partners will have the ability to control the how, the when and the where of the vibrations in their lover’s lingerie.

Not all wearable tech is as superfluous as the inventions mentioned. Some have more concrete uses, although they haven’t yet reached their true potential. Smartwatches, for the most part, don’t look very smart at the moment. There are none that will look spectacular with the little black dress. Nor is their functionality something to rave about. Some display notifications but do nothing else, while others suck the batteries dry with more gusto than vampires.

Looking in the future

Google Glass is no longer new news but apps being developed for it are still making the headlines. One example is the app created by Lebanese product design student Sherif Maktabi during the London Wearable Hackathon which lets a couple having sex see through each other’s eyes. If Google hadn’t taken the app down — Google is taking active measures to prevent sex apps popping up for Glass — women could have been staring in devastation at their cellulite in all its glory and men could have been up close with a certain face they probably didn’t want to see.

Beyond false eyelashes that can be used to switch lights on and off — let’s hope the wearer isn’t a compulsive blinker — and fingernails with tracking tags in them — a great way to ensure Big Brother can trace you — there lies a world full of necklaces with USB flash drives, bracelets that are actually mobile phone chargers and a vast array of other functional gadgets and gizmos.

There are also some wearable tech innovations that truly have the potential to improve lives. The ocular health monitoring smart contact lenses that Swiss scientists at ETH Zurich are working on and Google’s smart lenses that monitor glucose levels are prime examples of this.

For better or worse, our love affair with wearable tech is here to stay. While some of the creations seem like random flings, others are sowing the seeds for the long-term. This burning passion is driven by several market factors, including our affection for things that can spice up our love lives.

So get ready to wear your tech.

March 18, 2014 0 comments

Real Estate

Seeding for green communities

by Tiziana Cauli March 18, 2014

written by Tiziana Cauli

When Gilbert Tegho launched his green building consultancy business e-EcoSolutions in Canada just over five years ago, awareness of environmental and sustainability issues in Lebanon’s real estate market was nearly nonexistent. As Tegho and his team prepare to host the fifth edition of the “Build It Green Lebanon” conference tomorrow in Beirut, Executive took the opportunity to meet with him to discuss the sector’s progress.

The main focus of the 2014 conference is “green communities.” Can we see any examples of those in Lebanon?

A green community or a green city comprises more than just green buildings. This concept also involves transportation and the production of CO2, air pollution, waste and water management, parks and human life. In Lebanon we have some gated green communities being developed, one of the best examples of which is the Waterfront City project in Dbayeh. Now, by definition, a green community should be open, but this is at least a start. Some municipalities, especially in the mountains, are also trying to change towards this model even if not with a systematic approach. They are doing it with scattered solutions such as improvements in waste management.

[pullquote]Many developers are building green. Very few of them do it because they believe in it. Most do it for financial reasons, to access the green loans, which is still good[/pullquote]

Have you noticed any increase in awareness on these topics in Lebanon since you started your business here?

We have seen a great increase. Five years ago people used to think of trees when they heard about green building. Now they understand it also means water, waste and other parameters. Incentives to developers such as those promoted by the central bank have also created a lot of awareness. Banks are selling these loans and we know that banks drive the economy. Developers ask them for loans and they get told to build green.

Despite this increase in awareness, Lebanon only has five certified green buildings completed. What is preventing this sector from growing?

The reasons are both financial and related to market instability. In Dubai, when the economic crunch happened, the first thing to be dropped [in the real estate market] was green building, because it is just a feature and unless there is a law to impose it you will put it aside. When the market is unstable, real estate developers in Lebanon just finish their projects and sell. We don’t really expect the government here to do anything about it. Even if there was a law, implementation would be a different story. In the UAE, if the government says you have to build green, everybody builds green. Here it’s different.

[/media-credit]Gilbert Tegho is CEO and founder of e-EcoSolutions

Despite that, some developers are already building green in Lebanon. What are their motivations?

Many developers are building green. Very few of them do it because they believe in it. Most do it for financial reasons, to access the green loans, which is still good. Finance moves things and profit should be considered as part of sustainability.

How difficult is it to build green in a country facing major infrastructural issues such as electricity and water shortages?

It is definitely more difficult than elsewhere, but I see things in a positive way. Because of electricity shortages people have adopted energy saving lamps. This is not because they care about the environment but because they have a 5 ampere generator and they want to keep their house illuminated. In the UAE you have to go to IKEA if you want to buy energy saving bulbs, here you find them in grocery stores. Water is a bigger issue. You don’t pay per cubic meter but per subscription and consumption is not monitored. Even now that, due to the shortages, people have to pay extra money to get more water, nobody makes an effort to save it.

It is difficult for developers in Lebanon to obtain green certifications from international rating systems LEED and BREEAM. Is the Lebanese system ARZ more effective?

ARZ can only be applied to existing commercial buildings and not to projects. We need to work on it to extend it because it’s easier for developers to build green if they observe the parameters starting from the project phase. ARZ, though, is made in Lebanon and Lebanese people tend not to trust anything that is produced here, so we have to work very hard.

March 18, 2014 1 comment

Business

Looking out for inspiration

by Livia Murray March 17, 2014

written by Livia Murray

Lebanon lags behind much of the world when it comes to a favorable business environment, ranking 111th out of 189 economies in the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) 2014 ‘Doing Business’ report.

Political deadlock and a worsening security situation are the most recent drags on the economy, but these only exacerbate a more pressing problem, which is the lack of a far-reaching governmental vision for its business environment.

The public sector has taken some initiatives to remedy the situation. Internet speed is slightly faster than it was several years ago, the government-led initiative Investment Development Authority of Lebanon (IDAL) is working to secure foreign investments and improve regulations, and the Ministry of Telecommunications has joined with the private sector to set up the Beirut Digital District, a business hub in Bachoura. But this is still far from an all-encompassing strategy. Lebanon has yet to come up with a larger plan to target areas where it is lagging behind. “The problem is there isn’t one cohesive strategy for SMEs [small and medium enterprises] that the government has endorsed,” says Yasmina el-Khoury Raphael, head of the Improving the Business Environment in Lebanon program at the Grand Serail.

Oman and Jordan have managed to foster some programs that have had a wide reach. Both countries, like Lebanon, have also struggled with constraints facing their business environments. Since a cabinet was just formed, Lebanon has the opportunity to put forward something that will work in one direction toward concrete goals.

Data and Planning

Lebanon lacks the data essential for the planning of a sector-specific strategy. “We don’t know exactly where our competitive advantage is,” says Raphael. “We need to study what exactly we should be investing in.” Increasing data would help the country develop a coherent policy for its business ecosystem.

IDAL has been working on some projects to examine Lebanon’s SME landscape, but it is still unclear where the competitive advantage lies within each sector.

The Beirut Commercial Registry has thus far been disorganized. A pilot project to convert paper documents into an online database of companies was recently completed for Beirut, according to Raphael. This could be a stepping stone for more information on the sector, which could ultimately lead to a cohesive strategy for the industry.

Oman has managed to create a constructive policy for improving its business environment by targeting SMEs in its information and communications technology (ICT) sector. Despite ranking 47th on the Doing Business report, SMEs make up only 16 percent of the sultanate’s economy, owing to a dependence on government jobs. In fact, Oman has the lowest number of SMEs per capita compared to other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

In a move to privatize and liberalize the economy, the Information Technology Authority of Oman was assigned to oversee the development of an ICT infrastructure strategy for a digital Oman. In 2013 they prepared an ICT-related SME database. It is designed to give them insight into the sector, help diagnose its strengths and weaknesses, and facilitate awarding 10 percent of public and private contracts to SMEs. This knowledge of the sector should also allow them to get feedback from SMEs. The most recent project is Sas (meaning ‘foundation’ in Omani dialect), an ICT business development initiative launched in 2013 to promote SMEs in Oman and develop a competitive ICT sector. Sas offers workshops and seminars to entrepreneurs in every aspect of business management at the Knowledge Oasis Muscat technology park. By 2013 they were already incubating nine projects, with three more in the pre-incubation phase.

These programs are new, and it is difficult to measure their impact. “I think it’s too early to judge,” says Sharifa al-Barami, founder of Al Jazeera Technical Solutions and Training, and active player in Oman’s startup ecosystem. “I think it would be unfair to try to measure it now. In my opinion, any initiative in support of SMEs cannot be measured until three to five years have passed to see if it was successful or not.” Barami has been leading grassroots initiatives in the Omani ecosystem for the past three years. She was recently approached by the government and is now working with them to improve the ecosystem. The Sas program plans to replicate its model by opening incubators on university campuses outside of Muscat.

Overcoming the obstacles

The business environment in Lebanon faces many infrastructural and legal barriers, but it is not alone in combatting a difficult commerical terrain. Jordan has also struggled with this, actually ranking lower than Lebanon at 119th on the Doing Business report in 2014.

Although its rankings indicate that there are many obstacles to be overcome in starting a business in Jordan, this has not stopped the country from investing heavily into a startup ecosystem — and seeing results. The Jordanian government and the royal court have played a key role in promoting entrepreneurship from the outset. In 2003, through its Higher Council for Science and Technology, Jordan’s government established iPark — the country’s first ICT incubator — after being approached by Omar Hamarneh, who ended up founding the project. They also helped to fund two incubators, one in Jordan University and another in the Royal Scientific Society. According to Hamarneh, iPark’s success rate is 85 to 90 percent. Jordan’s entrepreneurship scene has since garnered international attention. The Jordanian company Maktoob was bought by Yahoo! in 2009. It additionally led to further investments in the entrepreneurship sector to replicate the success of Maktoob. Startup accelerator Oasis500 came out of the economic office at the royal court in 2010.

According to Hamarneh, since 2000, the business environment in Jordan has “evolved dramatically, in the sense that entrepreneurship was seen as a career path.” In 2012 alone, the ICT sector grew by 25 percent and, moreover, accounted for 14 percent of the country’s gross domestic product according to the ICT Association of Jordan.

According to the regional director at the World Bank, Lebanon would need to create 23,000 jobs per year over the next decade to absorb those entering the job market. A more focused policy targeting the business environment — specifically SMEs — would make the process of starting a business more straightforward and would increase the number of much-needed jobs. While no country in the region is quite like Lebanon, it is worth considering replicating the initiatives that governments in other countries have taken, and in whose footsteps the Lebanese government could be following.

March 17, 2014 0 comments

Business

Reaching for the stars

by Yasser Akkaoui March 17, 2014

written by Yasser Akkaoui

Last month Leo Burnett was named Network of the Year at the MENA Cristal Festival; the Beirut office won two Grand Prix, five gold, three silver and nine bronze awards and was named Agency of the Year for the third consecutive year. Executive took the opportunity to congratulate Nada Abi Saleh, Leo Burnett Beirut’s new managing director, in person and learn some of the secrets of the firm’s success.

From an industry perspective, what has been the trend in the last three years?

There are three buzzwords: digital, integration and innovation. These are the trends. At the same time these are the big challenges that we need to face and work against. Most articles summarize the digital revolution as either digital or data. Today the digital transformation is part of our daily life in how we do business, how we live, how we book things – it’s everywhere. So this is the big challenge and it has many consequences.

One of the biggest consequences of digital is the integration. We used to look at advertising as the binary approach: above the line and below the line. It was easy. Now we look at it in a more global way as through the line. It’s integration of any touch points that you can think of. So this makes the challenge even bigger. It’s about PR engagement, digital engagement, social media, real marketing, and e-commerce. And in the end it’s of course about brand building.

The reaction of people today is preceding the marketing strategy of the brand and a communication agency because they are on the net, on social media, to spot on any situation, any problem, any crisis. They are here and they react. If you don’t have any kind of real marketing approach to things you’re out. You’re dead.

The third layer to this is innovation. Today innovation is not only using the new media, not only being open to new trends, not only considering innovative marketing strategy, but also being at the core of product and client and brand innovations. This is where it starts. Today an agency should not wait anymore for a client to come to us and say, “I have this product, I have this service, come up with an ad.” With the digital activation, the agency can go to the clients and tell them, “For this kind of product or service this is what you have to do,” and it starts there. The biggest campaigns are product innovative-related. Today it’s not about communication, it’s really asking your consumer to act and interact with your brand – engage in the conversation. It’s not news; it’s a one-on-one conversation.

So it makes it at the same time broader. It’s very broad because you can engage with millions of people but at the same time it’s one-on-one communication.

But what you’re describing is heavy on the balance sheet and the cash flow. To keep progressing, you have to follow international best practices or trends in your industry. How is it justifiable in the Lebanese market today?

Very challenging. As far as Leo Burnett is concerned, whether it is on the network or global perspective or when we come to Lebanon, we are looking at it. We can add a fourth layer to this – profitability. This is the big challenge that we are facing, along with integration and going digital and innovation. Because at one point you have to invest in talents, upgrade your talents, and integrate new specialties that you probably didn’t have, and you have to make them work together in a profitable way because today performance is the name of the game. Specifically for Leo Burnett where we are part of a bigger holding and we are liable to our stakeholders. We are a public company. Profitability and our balance sheet come first even before winning awards, before anything.

Lebanon as a market, it’s very difficult if not impossible. The market is small. The budget is small. We have many socio-economic and political challenges, and we know that we have to look at growth opportunities, whether we have to make things differently, transform the agency, restructure, or look at growth opportunities outside Lebanon within the region. This is how we can look at it in a more positive way and keep going.

How has the performance of Leo Burnett been over the last three years? Have you bee able to grow your client base?

Yes, we have been able to grow our client base in a significant way. For instance just last year we have included Gandour in our portfolio. That is a big account. It is not a trend in Lebanon; we know the market is much smaller. I can name a few clients like Gandour and Liban Post, but this is not what can help the agency grow significantly. We know that the market is limited. We have the international accounts that we still can bank on, and these, as far as Leo Burnett Beirut, have been significantly growing, and you have the regional accounts, which we don’t handle directly. The local accounts are small by nature but give another kind of opportunity.

So basically as far as agency performance is concerned, we’ve been doing well, and we’ve been growing year-on-year.

Now we have a new government. What is your wish list for this industry to progress? And what would be your role in making sure that this progression will happen?

It’s not a wish list. It’s an objective to come back to this position because we’ve been there. It’s no secret that Lebanon used to be the le joyau de la publicite regionale (the jewel of regional advertising).

It was a source of talent, a source of innovation. Advertising was spearheaded by the Lebanese brains and Lebanese agencies, which developed regionally. This primary position has been eroded over the years because of the limitations of the market, and because of the sociopolitical and economic situation that Lebanon as a whole, beyond the advertising industry, has been suffering from.

If you were face to face with the communications minister, what three requests you would make?

Definitely a bigger reconstruction in terms of communication, telecom and digital empowerment, which we are still lacking and suffering from. Even 3G is not totally 3G.

These last two years were really great in terms of improvement, but we’re still not there. We know that the infrastructure needs a lot of money, and this is from a communications perspective when you talk about telecom or the infrastructure in terms of facilities – we’re not there yet. It’s up to each and every industry or institution to overcome the limitations of the current situation. This would be a primary objective.

What about talent retention? We’ve seen a lot of talent leaving Lebanon and eyeing Europe or the US or the Gulf…

This could be a very big objective or wish that I would eventually address to the prime minster, but I don’t know what we can do in six months. The erosion of talent, the scarcity of talent, the migration of brains – we’ve been suffering, particularly in our industry, because we were the receptacle of this from a communication perspective. And today the brain drain is across all categories, but specifically in the advertising and communication business. So my wish would be to encourage those people to stay. How? I don’t know.

From a micro perspective we’re working a lot on this, but from a macro perspective I think it’s an issue that all Lebanese and all industries are suffering from. So basically this could be a second big wish – to encourage the youth to stay. Not only to stay but to grow and develop. Because some people, some youth, stay here because they have no means to go abroad. So they will work, and we will invest in them for years, and then at one point they reach a status – whether in terms of growth or promotion and salary – when they are obliged to look elsewhere.

What have you been doing internally to curb or at least to minimize the effect of this high turnover?

At Leo Burnett we are the ‘human kind’ company. Human kind doesn’t mean that we are human in the charity sense. It means that we invest a lot in people, and we understand the motivations of our people, and consumers, and it also starts with understanding this behavior and the psyche of people. On the other hand, internally, it means we believe in training people, in growing them, in motivating them, in inspiring them, and we give them many tools, whether it is from the philosophy of human kind, or pure training opportunities or growth opportunities – even if they are not really related all the time to salary promotion. It can be, but we think about it as more horizontal growth and motivation. The good thing also about Leo Burnett is that we have a very strong reputation in the market, whether in the region or in Lebanon in particular, we are viewed by the youth as a school. And whenever you look at someone as being like a mentor, or being someone you can gain experience from, you tend to drive these talents more than other agencies or industries. So basically we have this kind of attraction that even people who question staying in Lebanon and consider leaving, they join Leo Burnett because of this aura, this reputation, this performance in the market, because of our ethics and because of our performance across the board and our international aura as well.

There is another strategy that we are investing a lot in – the internship. We provide opportunities for internship that are systemized. We have a developed strategy of internship where we have deals and associations with the major universities, and we provide this opportunity on a yearly basis, not only in summer, for people to come and train and learn. And this constitutes a big reservoir of talent because once they graduate; they tend to look at Leo Burnett as their first professional encounter. So they know how we think, how we operate, and they are inclined to come and stay. As for the existing talents that we have it has become more and more challenging. Because I mean the youth today look at their CV as a commercial commodity to put “I work at Leo Burnett” and they can use this as a step to go elsewhere. Now we face a tough situation whereby some of our best people want to leave the country. It had nothing to do with Leo Burnett. We can help them, we can convince them, we can give them some qualitative reasons to stay, but whenever they decide they want to emigrate it is something that we cannot really change.

Today the youth are much more aggressive. They say, “I can make it on my own. I don’t need to be part of a big structure.” We always argue the contrary because there is a lot of learning and learning is continuous at Leo Burnett. They appreciate that we give them opportunities to look beyond Lebanon. I mean with all the international rules and all the campaigns and brands that we have, we give our talents the opportunity to think big, and you know the world is open to them.

The Lebanese advertising industry in general, and Leo Burnett in particular, has been very successful in winning a lot of prestigious awards. Only a couple of weeks ago, at MENA Cristal awards, Leo Burnett again was among the leaders in getting these awards. How is this an integral part of your strategy? What is the value added from getting these awards?

Winning awards is not a strategy for us. It’s the result of excellent work. It comes hand in hand. Awards are not an end, but they are part of the game. Whenever you do good work you get rewarded.

Now I must acknowledge that we’ve been good at it, because it’s also part of the culture of winning and being aggressive, whether it is in the marketplace with our brands or with growth, and it’s part of what we do as well. It is true that lately Leo Burnett as a network has had a fantastic performance, and it’s not only this year.

We look at advertising or communication differently and we’re able to do it in many of our brands, whether it’s current brands or NGOs. And we’ve succeeded. We were among the first agencies, if not as a local agency, to win in Cannes. Three years ago we were the sixth creative agency in the world. Awards have been coming naturally and consistently at Leo Burnett Beirut. It’s something that comes with hard work.

How are you going to differentiate yourself through your own management style and leadership skills in order to contribute to the growth of the agency? What is your personal touch that you will be remembered for in the future?

As a manager, I tend to look at delivering ‘Best in Class – Creative’. Whenever you have this, growth will come, awards will come, and brands will come to you because they know that you are here to give them ideas. Ideas will be the name of the game. Whether it is ideas to transform the agency strategically, or to transform the agency from a managerial standpoint, the beauty of our industry is that whenever you become a managing director, you know you have the numbers, you have the balance sheet – you have this, but it’s not as thrilling. I will give my ideas as I always have. My touch has been what I have given to this agency and it will remain even more so on the creative ideation level. Perhaps because of the challenges ahead, I look at my philosophy and the Leo Burnett philosophy in a more tangible way. Our motto is “When you reach for the stars you may not get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.” I think this will be my touch. This will be my strategy.

I do not look at this position as totally new. Leo Burnett has been part of my DNA. I’ve been part of this agency and part of this family and network since 1988. Leo Burnett is who I was, who I am, and who I will be. I’m so proud, so happy to be part of this network because it’s a totally different way of doing things. The other side is that the people we work with – I mean, we work hand in hand, it’s not you know, some people look at a managerial position – it feels lonely at the top, I think it’s totally different. I look at it as a total partnership as we’ve always had at Leo Burnett.

Whether it is on a global basis, at a regional level, or particularly in Beirut, it’s not the success of one who will make it. It’s the success of all of our talents. I look forward to working even more hand-in-hand with everyone at the agency, whether it is from the PR perspective, planning, digital, creative, or the communications people, it’s all of us that will make it.

March 17, 2014 0 comments