Antwork, the hub for the independent workforce, celebrated its first year anniversary to a full house of its community members and special guests on Tuesday, March 27th. The anniversary was a celebration of Antwork’s milestones, that culminated in it becoming the thriving coworking space it is today. More than 300 people attended the event, with a surprise guest appearance by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who expressed his support to a growing ecosystem in Lebanon in which Antwork has become a key player.
Throughout PM Hariri’s visit, he took a tour of the campus before joining the festivities and live performances in Antwork’s garden. As he engaged with several of the community members, he showed a great interest in the ecosystem that Antwork is nurturing and developing off and on the campus. Walking into The Makers’ Lab (one of Antwork’s many bookable spaces) alongside Antwork’s Founder and CEO Zina Dajjani and COO Rania Malas, PM Hariri expressed his appreciation as he was impressed by the wide range of companies that make up Antwork, the intricacy of its spaces, and the high tech innovation elements of this one of a kind Co-working space in the region.
Zina Dajani gave a moving speech about Antwork’s purpose and future projections. “We’ve built a space with a vision and a mission to support the growing ecosystem in Lebanon,” she said. “To be honest, the biggest challenge was ensuring that the right mix of start-ups, entrepreneurs, and freelancers were identified, as opposed to just filling up the space without purpose. And we managed to do so! Today, your presence makes us really proud and it’s very rewarding to see our community grow after all the work that we’ve done.”
Dajani also spoke of Antwork’s future plans. “As we go forward in 2018, we have plans to grow and expand to other locations. We have 2 other spaces up and running today and hopefully, 6 more are joining our workspace family, including new offerings.
Antwork has certainly achieved many milestones this past year. They managed to grow their community to more than 3,500 members, all of which are active on its digital platform and therefore have access to Antwork’s services.
They were also the first coworking space in Lebanon (and the region) to introduce the “powered by” model which provided them with the necessary tools to power underused spaces in different parts of the city, namely Geek Express and touch Lab, turning them into growth centered spaces.
It was an evening of motivation, of reflection and most importantly of celebration for all in attendance, where the antwork community were able to connect and take stock of their year of successes and to look forward to a new year of challenges.