Reading Time: 3 minutes Fostering a supportive culture is key for entrepreneurship. The government needs to create policies that enable entrepreneurship, such as tax incentives and intellectual property rights. Universities in Lebanon need to include real-world, hands-on engagement within entrepreneurship programs. With the current hardships and challenges Lebanon is encountering, the government needs to look to new ways to…
Lebanese entrepreneurship requires a robust regulatory framework
Reading Time: 3 minutes Regulation is key for the success of entrepreneurship initiatives. Tax breaks, a regulatory sandbox, and access to finance will aid investment in small and early stage startups in Lebanon. The Banking Control Commission of Lebanon could play a pivotal role in kick-starting the fintech sector through a regulatory sandbox. The High-Level Lebanon-UK Tech Forum, held…
New programs offer business, financial help to entrepreneurs
Reading Time: 9 minutes New accelerator, incubator, and grant programs for startups demonstrate a nichificiation of the ecosystem. Many entrepreneurs rely on these programs for financial support and in-kind services, such as office space and mentorship, to develop their young businesses. The ecosystem still has gaps that will need to be addressed to develop further. Since 2013, and the…
Lebanon needs fintech regulation to keep up with regional growth
Reading Time: 6 minutes Lacking regulation or access to licensing, fintech in Lebanon proves challenging. While there are fintech-adjacent paths entrepreneurs can pursue, these require partnering with licensed entities, such as banks and financial institutions, which are limited in the number of partnerships they can undertake. Other countries in the region have opened up regulation and created regulatory testing…
Houmal Technology Park
Reading Time: 5 minutes Houmal Technology Park (HTP) can be an example of tech manufacture and fruitful entrepreneurialism. Export orientation of tech companies can be realized independently from the Lebanese entrepreneurship ecosystem that relies on Circular 331. First-mover disadvantages of pioneering tech companies need to be compensated by state and municipal partners for creation of productive clusters. Risks pertaining…
Technology and agriculture meet in Agrytech
Reading Time: 8 minutes There is a need for innovation and R&D in the agro-industry sector in Lebanon and the region. Agrytech, a program by Berytech focusing on innovations in agriculture, was created to address this need. It has four major pillars including an accelerator program and an agri-food innovation cluster. Agrytech was promoted to university students and graduates…
Entrepreneurship in times of systemic change
Reading Time: 9 minutes October 2019 events have hallmarks of systemic shocks. Risks are unfathomable and early economic impact evaluations are necessarily inadequate. The future may depend on extraordinary courage, discipline, and daring visions. Entrepreneurship has the potential to be a key ingredient in building national prosperity. These are times when a discussion of entrepreneurship—Executive’s traditional focus in the…
Challenging misconceptions about Lebanese wine
Reading Time: 5 minutes There is a negative perception of Lebanese wine that views it as overpriced and headache-inducing. This perception may even be shared by some readers of this piece. Luckily, those in the retail and hospitality industries who sell local wine say that this misconception is changing over time. There is a vast range of Lebanese wines…
Lebanon must learn from New World wines’ successes
Reading Time: 7 minutes Lebanon has one of the oldest wine heritages in the world. It has been producing and trading wine for the past 6,000 years; is home to the world’s largest Bacchus temple, dedicated to the god of wine; and one of its cities, Botrys (Batroun), was named after the ancient Greek for grape bunch. Under Ottoman…
In search of Lebanese wine’s identity
Reading Time: 8 minutes Although Lebanon has a rich history of wine production, dating back to the Phoenicians who used to trade it, it has only recently reached a high level of maturity that often leads to introspection and a questioning of identity. The last decade saw the number of wineries in Lebanon go up from about 20 to…