L’Orient Le Jour news paper conducted an interview with two Lebanese women entrepreneurs – Hind Hobeika and Talin Assi who presented an overview of their journeys in the field of business which lifted them to high ranking positions in world markets.
Hind Hobeika is a mechanical engineer, an alumna of the American University of Beirut. She designed ‘Instabeat’, a small device that is added to the goggles used by swimmers to register their pulse during swimming with the aim of improving their performance. Hobeika thanked the reality TV show of Qatar Institute ‘Stars of Sciences’ that assisted her in developing her prototype. Hind was the only woman who reached the finals of TV contest thus occupying the third position and gaining an award of USD 100 thousand.  To continue her journey, Hind launched a fundraiser on Indiegogo which is an international website that supports innovations in business and economics through which she was able to raise USD 60 thousand.
As for Talin Assi, she is one of the pioneering women entrepreneurs who launched the concept of e-commerce in Lebanon. In 2003, Talin designed the website ‘Mosaic Marble’ with a capital of USD 1000. The website which is an e-store to sell mosaic, is available now in 13 languages and employs 10 persons and 48 craftsmen/women, and has succeeded in generating USD 205 millions in funds. Talin declared during the interview that her ambition remains to reach the second place worldwide in mosaic production.

Source: L’Orient Le Jour 30 May 2013)

The Modern University for Business and Science (MUBS) organised yesterday its 2013 job fair at the university campus in Hamra with the participation of around 40 companies including banks, advertising agencies, food industries, restaurants, media, education, tourism, travel and ICT.  The Fair was heavily visited by students and graduates from all of MUBS campuses including: Damour, Aley, Baakline, and Hamra.  Visitors perused brochures and information material and completed employment questionnaire with the hope of finding jobs following graduation.

Source: Al-Nahar, Al-Diyar  31 May 2013

On the occasion of ‘International Women’s Day in the field of Information Technology and Communication’ CISCO Systems hosted an initiative, as part of its social responsibility, and aiming towards strengthening the future vision of women in Lebanon. Within that framework, CISCO is offering professional training to prepare women students to become full active members of the labor force through the development of their ICT skills.
Thus and in commemoration of the international day, 16 young 11th grade women students from the International College (IC) were invited to visit the company’s offices in Casablanca – Morocco and to spend one day with the local leaders of CISCO, so as to enable women students to acquire better knowledge of future opportunities provided by the ICT sector. (Al- Diyar, National News Agency 29 May 2013)

Kafa Enough Violence and Exploitation, launched the day before yesterday a videoclip of a song ‘I will rise up, I will shout’ for Souar Rouhana at her own Youtube channel, thus achieving a quick dissemination on social media site. The song is a cry voiced by a number of women against all forms of discrimination, persecution, and exploitation that women are exposed to within the Lebanese society. A group of activists performed that dance at the conclusion of the February 24th demonstration that was called for by the National Coalition to Legalize Protection of Women from Domestic Violence’ under the slogan ‘lives of women are more important than your chairs’.
In an interview with the Akhbar newspaper, the media coordinator at Kafa Ms. Maya Ammar indicated that the idea started from an initiative by a group of women volunteers who decided to perform the song and the video clip, noting that the melody accompanying the words if that of the song ‘Break the Chain’ of the campaign ‘The One Billion Rising’ which is the largest grassroots movement to end violence against women in human history. It is noteworthy that Alexandre Paulikevitch choreographed the dance for this song while Wafa Halawi directed the video clip with participation of the Lebanese actress Nada Abou Farhat.
Source: Al Akhbar, 29 May, 2013