AUB Initiative to Help Increase Lebanon's Productivity

Partcipants at the workshop in College Hall B1

At a time when political discord and national instability are prompting people to lose faith in their country and leave for greener pastures, AUB has started an Industrial Technology Initiative (ITI) aimed at helping increase innovation, productivity, and job opportunities, thus wooing young talents to stay in Lebanon.

Made possible through a partnership with the National Council of Scientific Research, the Association of Lebanese Industrialists, and the Arab Research Institute in Science and Engineering, the initiative was launched at a workshop grouping industrialists, academics, and technology suppliers in College Hall on November 16.

"The relationship between educational systems and economic development has been proven," said Fuad Mrad, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at AUB, and the driving force behind the initiative, which also includes a team of eight other engineering professors from AUB.

"In Lebanon, we have invested heavily in education, but unfortunately, have not been able to capitalize on this investment," added Mrad. "We are, in fact, good at exporting our educated and skilled people."

The concept of the new initiative is to establish a framework to support local and regional industry through applied research, consulting services, and training programs. ITI will harness technologies and deploy knowledge for enhancing the competitiveness of enterprises.

The Lebanese industrial sector is mostly made up of small to medium-sized technologies, which have proven to be a source of entrepreneurship and a core of economic growth, noted Mrad. But to enhance their competitive edge in a region filled with cheap labor, they need to keep on upgrading their production process through the latest technologies. "The benefits of technology include increased savings in total costs of operations and productivity, as well as the efficient production of quality goods that can compete internationally," said Mrad. Moreover, students will learn a lot from their hands-on experience in creating technological solutions for real-life problems in local industries.

This marriage between technology, industries, and academia was considered a "win-win-win" situation by the participants of the workshop. Indeed, according to Victor Mieres, National Instruments vice president, technology suppliers cannot do anything without the industrialists, who need that technology and who also need the academics and researchers to understand and adapt the technology to their needs.