Good morning everyone,
It is a pleasure to welcome you to this timely and really necessary convening—an important step in
bridging minds and markets. Today’s theme speaks not only to the urgency of Lebanon’s economic
and technological future, but to the real work needed to build stronger, more purposeful connections
between academia and industry. We are not here for platitudes—we are here to ask difficult questions,
share real experiences, and move forward together.
This is not a new conversation, and it is certainly not one we are starting from scratch. But there is
something unique about this moment that many of these opportunities, I believe, can and should start
to be realized. AUB has taken serious steps over the last decade to bridge this divide. Our Maroun
Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (MSFEA) Institute supports enterprise competitiveness
through R&D, prototyping, design thinking, and capacity-building. LEAF, our full-service environmental
and food testing lab, provides trusted analysis for everyone from the Ministry of Public Health to the
United Nations to the Lebanese armed forces. Programs like SAIL for Change, and collaborations across
technology, health, and industry have put AUB at the forefront of academic intervention. The Faculty
of Medicine has already launched not only patents, but a company that we now have established in
Nebraska. The Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences has innovated several technologies that can
and will make a difference for the people of Lebanon and the region. And it all starts in the Faculty of Arts
and Sciences. This is where almost all of our students come to start their creative journey through AUB.
But we have to admit this is not enough. These efforts, while meaningful, are still scattered across a
wider landscape of missed opportunity. The distance between our universities and industries remains.
On the one side: companies striving to develop new technologies, attract talent, and remain competitive.
On the other: academic institutions rich in research (and not just AUB, but Université Saint Joseph (USJ),
the Lebanese American University (LAU), Beirut Arab University (BAU), and others), ideas, and bright
young minds, but the connection—what the engineers call the impedance fit—has not been intentionally
developed enough. But the synergy is clear. Our systems still continue to speak different languages, and
we need to move past that to speak one language.
We have to build lasting bridges, and to do that, we need to start with honesty. There are structural
divides: academia and industry operate at different speeds, with different incentives. Where industries
prize responsiveness, scalability, and readiness, universities reward depth, publication, and exploration.
Beyond structure, there are cultural gaps: misaligned expectations, limited shared spaces, and too few
opportunities for shared dialogues.
I do not believe these gaps are insurmountable, and I have seen this come together before in different
ways, and it needs to come together in a unique way here in Lebanon and at AUB. We can see what
happens when alignment is intentional. At AUB nine years ago, we convinced the late Maroun Semaan
to give the largest donation in the history of the university to endow the Maroun Semaan Faculty of
Engineering and Architecture. The condition was that we would transform that faculty, and that
endowment has transformed that faculty. Industry Program 3.0—bringing together nearly 200 students
and professionals from global players like Amazon and others—has tackled real-world challenges,
generating both insight and experience. It is not just a success story—it is a template. But it is not an
identical template to what we are proposing. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is different; it is the most
diverse faculty. It touches on the humanities, the natural sciences, the social sciences. Creativity is a must
for people in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, yet the opportunities are enormous and largely untapped.
Academic intervention has played a critical role here and there. Faculty do not just assign tasks—they help
shape the process. They guide students in framing complex problems, applying theory, and reflecting on
impact. When universities position themselves not only as knowledge creators but as problem-solvers
for industry and for the world, the outcomes are far more powerful.
The faculty help guide students not only in framing complex problems, applying theory, and reflecting
on impact, but the university—the undergraduate and graduate experience—is a time for people to
explore their boundaries, including their creativity. When universities position themselves not just as
knowledge creators, but as problem-solvers for their communities, the outcomes are far more powerful.
This conference is our call to move beyond scattered initiatives and toward more systemic changes and
a formal infrastructure for collaboration and acceleration. For two years now, I have called for us to focus
on excellence for the greater good. That does not mean there is any less need for excellence, simply for
excellence—for fundamental research. But we need to develop a formal infrastructure for collaboration
and acceleration in order to create a better life for the people of Lebanon and the region. When we
intentionally link academic excellence and creativity with industrial demand and market access, we can
unlock enormous value: for businesses, for society, but also for students—many of whom now, post-
pandemic, post everything that has happened in Lebanon, and even post-war, want to stay here, want
to have their most productive and creative portions of their lives here instead of coming home to retire.
There are international models that offer inspiration for the path forward, and I am going to start with
Germany. If you consider where Germany was after World War II, it was a devastated country. Most of
the houses were destroyed. All the industry was destroyed. I recently read a book about the ten barren
years between the end of the war and 1955-56, when Germany was starting to emerge again as an
industrial power. You see that this can be done for different people in different ways. Sweden offers a
more peaceful but equally successful model. In all those cases, academicians collaborated with companies
to solve pressing challenges, and students graduated equipped, not only for innovation and discovery,
but for production. Curricula often reflect national economic priorities. And the curricula that matter are
the five or six leading universities and our great public university, the Lebanese University, but also the
curricula of the schools. We need the curricula of the schools to start to create a space for creativity and
for citizenship. It astonishes me, having spent 33 years away from Lebanon, how few people know the
full three stanzas of “Kuluna lil Watan.” I still remember them. But now, most students just learn that first
stanza. In our era, you could not graduate fifth grade without knowing them.
Can we build a similar ecosystem in Lebanon? We believe so—but only if we create stronger structures
for creativity, for industry, but also for citizenship. That means embedding industry liaisons within
universities, building national frameworks that reward collaboration rather than competition, and creating
policies that support joint work—from research to prototyping, recruitment to strategy co-design.
Here, I am talking specifically to our Faculty of Arts and Sciences. For so long, we have rewarded you only
for a solo effort. But Provost Dawy and I are studying this, and we want to reward rich collaboration—
collaboration that has signatures. As someone who has defined an entire career through collaborative
work, I can say it is far less lonely and far more rewarding. Working with others who bring different skills
is incredibly valuable. Do not stop your individual work, but find partners; we will reward that, not punish
it. This will help us respond more effectively to industry.
That collaboration, internal and external, will help us anticipate your needs. From agriculture to ICT, from
energy to healthcare, we have to deploy our research capacity to confront real-world pain points, and
we cannot do it alone. From my first month here, I have reached out to other universities to establish
bridges. AUB is not a hovering, snobbish, condescending older brother, but a loving and equal partner
to other universities and to the schools of this country. Faculty must be empowered to co-lead applied
projects. If someone else has the lead at a sister university, there is nothing wrong with that. Reward them,
work with them. Students need the space to prototype, test, and iterate alongside industry mentors.
Some of this is already underway: partnerships through MSFEA’s Corporate Program, consulting work
with SMEs through the Suliman S. Olayan School of Business (OSB), and joint research supported by
institutes like LEAF. Programs such as “Women in Data Science,” which bring outside universities like
Stanford into the fray, make a tremendous difference. We should not be too proud to work with younger
universities, nor too humble to approach institutions with greater resources and prestige.
One of the greatest tools we have is aligning academic content with the realities of the market. That means
inviting industry into the classroom: co-designing curricula, shaping capstone projects, embedding
challenges into student work. It also means refining the model through pilots, feedback loops, and
continuous learning.
To our industry partners—many of you likely have “back-burner” projects. What if we matched those with
student teams? It is a win-win: fresh thinking, dedicated effort, and market exposure for students from a
university that ranks 35th worldwide in employment outcomes. You gain valuable insight and innovation.
We have seen it work. Moodfit, the region’s first online interior design platform, began as a student project
and grew into a thriving business. Our collaboration with Pansoft Technologies is shaping Lebanon’s tech
talent pipeline by equipping students with in-demand cloud-computing and DevOps skills. There are so
many more examples; if you’re curious, come to Demo Day next Tuesday at our iPark—it is less than five
years old and has already exited more than 20 companies.
These are not isolated successes; they are proof of what is possible when academia and industry meet
with purpose. But they must scale. Too much research still sits unpublished, untested, unused. We must
champion application—through tech-transfer offices, incubators, industry fellowships, and seed funding.
National coordination is critical. The triple-helix model of public, private, and academic sectors has proven
highly effective elsewhere. Lebanon must shape its own version, grounded in our context, but driven by
shared ambition and a conviction that we can build a sustainable, fairer, and more inclusive country.
Let us not forget the heart of all of this: our students. They are not observers—they are our future. For
almost two centuries, Lebanon has expelled many of its best and brightest. Today, they are hopeful but
hesitant. If we can show them that education leads to opportunity and leadership here at home, more
and more will choose to stay.
As Neemat Frem said, “The ingenuity of students is one of Lebanon’s most valuable resources. Investing
in them is not charity. It is strategy.” And as Philippe Ziade reminded us, “We can’t wait for miracles. We
must create ecosystems of opportunity—and we must do it now.”
I have two warnings as we translate discoveries into application and attract working capital. First, we
cannot constrain research for its own sake; fundamental research must thrive. Second, this is a unique
moment in Lebanon’s history. We must rally around this opportunity, avoid the circular firing squad, and
lead with constructive, purposeful criticism.
In closing, I recall a softball game nearly 50 years ago when my team came from far behind to upset the
Marines. Afterwards, I asked their captain about the motto on every Marine uniform: “Semper Fi”—always
faithful. Now is the time to be faithful to a new Lebanon: creative, open, inclusive, and propelled by will
and momentum.
Thank you.