A lot of friends, colleagues, and family have decided that August, particularly the last two weeks, is the time to get out of Beirut! Some are going to their villages outside of the city, however the majority of expats and Lebanese that left, left the country. Despite this fact, I am giving August the title, “Month for Survivors,” because those of us left behind to survive the heat have been hard at work!
I am going to share some more about our progress with local partners, and Lebanon’s potential. However stay tuned, some time in the next two weeks I will be profiling several entrepreneurs.
*Confidential*
Friday, August 19th
This morning I had a wonderful meeting with one of VilCap’s strongest partners in the region. We are getting very close to moving forward with signing an MOU together and building a marketing plan and call for social enterprises.
Thursday, August 18th
In Beirut’s trendy, and incredibly fun Gemayze district, I had the wonderful fortune of a happy hour meeting with two of Beyond R & D’s 15 partners, Gilbert Doumit and Carmen Geha.
Gilbert focuses on social enterprises that have a strong impact on political structure (or lack thereof) in the MENA. He had just return from Benghazi, an experience which he described as ‘surreal.’ He has taught courses on social entrepreneurship at AUB, and gave me perhaps one of the best general definitions of the social enterprise/social entrepreneurship I have ever heard. He should be speaking at TEDx, Beirut this year…
Carmen and Gilbert gave me a number of fantastic leads to social entrepreneurs in Lebanon. They confirmed something that FMS Director Dean Yuwei Shi has alluded to for a very long time, which is that many entrepreneurs don’t know it, but they are actually social entrepreneurs. This is another consequence of the lack of awareness of social impact investment, social entrepreneurship, etc. I look forward to showcasing a number of these enterprises in the coming weeks.
Monday, August 15th
Dave Munir and I discussed the potential of launching a Fall workshop series around social entrepreneurship. VilCap and Alt-City would cobrand the effort, the main goal being to raise interest around Social Entrepreneurship. Within this, perhaps one of the best services we can do the industry is to ‘define’ what social impact is, and more importantly to approach the falsities that naturally present themselves where social impact is (brand) new (because it is ‘new’ almost everywhere). One of these negative assumptions, is that some how social entrepreneurs are ‘burdened’ with another dimension. “It is enough work just to reach profitability, entrepreneurs in this environment can possibly be burdened with yet something else they need to get off the ground…” I heard from someone locally. David and my goal is to create a great awareness around what social entrepreneurship is and isn’t. I will provide the perspective in the context of ‘highly scalable social impact,’ and venture investing.
Potential BoP Vil-Cap program, Palestinian Camps, Lebanon 2012
Friday, August 12th
Today I discussed the viability of a VilCap program in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps (It is a misnomer to say “Palestinian” Camps, since the low cost of living has attracted refugees from Iraq, and else where in the region). His background has been with a number of multinational NGOs and governmental development agencies at work in the camps. As a Lebanese citizen that also carries a Spanish passport, he was faced with a hard decision in 2006. As Israel was indiscriminately bombing much of the South of the country (the camps included), and Beirut’s majority Shia suburbs, he was faced with the choice of staying or being evacuated with other European and American citizens. He decided to stay, and has since served in a wide range of development capacities in the camps.
We foresee the biggest potential being for investors and donors to make loans at the $5,000 to $10,000, in businesses that seek to grow, creating more jobs, and enhancing the local economy. This would be a majorly scaled down version of the VilCap program, since these are not necessarily venture scalable businesses. However, the culture of lending in the camps is that loans are gifts- changing this could be a huge hit for the local economies, and VilCap’s programs might just have the right dynamics to do that. Any future scouts interested in working in that environment? Email me directly, and we can start the conversation of how a program like this could unfold.
Start Alliance
Wednesday, August 10th
I had the pleasure of speaking with Jamil Wynne, remotely today, and we discussed his work in Jordan. Jamil is half way through a Fulbright in Jordan, researching start ups and entrepreneurship in Jordan. He has built a network of entrepreneurs, Angels, and incubators in Jordan called the Start Alliance. Jamil has a fantastic list of contacts, including founders and investors from among the MENA’s biggest start up enterprises. I look forward to figuring out ways to connect the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Lebanon and Jordan through social impact.
