The first day of the Beirut Innovation Week for 2017 took place on Tuesday, 9 May at Antwork, Beirut’s newest tech hub, in partnership with UK-based ecosystem accelerator Resolve, the UK Lebanon Tech Hub and AltCity.
The main theme of the event was Fintech (Financial Technology) and financial inclusion, currently viewed as a highly lucrative and untapped potential in MENA. Influential speakers from both Lebanon and the UK discussed the opportunities and challenges of fintech in the region.
The first keynote speaker was cofounder of Resolve Melissa Jun Rowley, who emphasized that Lebanon has the potential to create fintech solutions, and spoke of her own experience in Lebanon. “After coming to Lebanon a number of times in the last six months, I fell in love with the entrepreneurial ecosystem here, and saw the potential for tech-driven, social impact solutions to come from this country. After sharing the synergies with my team, we decided to make Beirut the city of our pilot program.”
Another keynote speaker was Walid Mansour, managing partner at Middle East Venture Partners, who highlighted the crucial process of reaching the target audience for fintech solutions. “These [users] are underprivileged people that you don’t see every day, like cab drivers and construction workers. They don’t have a bank account, and they don’t trust transactions,” he said. “You have to convince them with your service; look at Uber; they’re doing very well with drivers and helping them make profit.”
Later during an expert-led panel, Fadi Bizri, partner at B&Y ventures, seemed optimistic in the ability of Lebanese youth to drive success. “We need more youth to go and pitch to investors, and go to places like Antwork and Berytech, to get the help they need,” he said. With an innovative and state of the art campus, Antwork was the perfect kick off venue to emphasize Mr. Bizri’s point of view of allowing youth to thrive in an environment that pushes the brightest self-starters to succeed.
A vital set of challenges pointed out by CEO of PinPay Omar Bader were the problems of theft and identity and data integrity. “Bank bureaucracy and slow processing are another threat,” he added during his talk.
Over eight startups participated in the workshops organized by the Resolve team, among them Handiss, a platform for engineers and architects, Jaleesa, a platform for trusted child care, Herlayers, an ecommerce platform for affordable women’s clothing. Several teams were formed at the idea stage including: a mobile app that connects people based on mutual needs (needlead), a platform for hiring disabled people (IamHired), and a platform that connects football players with one another (offside).
The event ended with some keynote remarks from the coaches who presented the workshop. “We were impressed at the speed with which the teams understood and planned their exercises, and their pitches as well,” Resolve co-founder and startup coach Andy Dennis said.
“The culture in Beirut is very cooperative, where people care about helping each other more than making a profit,” shared Suki Fuller, CEO of Salaam Ventures.
About Resolve
Resolve is a specialist accelerator and global ecosystem builder that identifies startups in transitioning regions, and helps them scale globally, while aiding business hubs in extending to emerging markets. Based in London, the fintech capital of the world, Resolve’s first program is focused on creating deal flow between investors and companies with a vested interest in financial inclusivity and economic empowerment.