Impact Stories

​“We are living in a world that is constantly evolving,” noted Dr. Moussa Mathieu Ammar, senior director for strategy and technology at Inkript, a subsidiary of Resource Group​, “and while technological advancement is bettering our lives, it is also putting our personal data at risk every day.” Ammar made his remarks during his keynote speech at the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (MSFEA) Pitch Marathon for the Resource Group Entrepreneurship Awards in cybersecurity and information privacy (CSIP) on April 23.

The establishment of these student awards is the result of a multi-year partnership between AUB and Resource Group, a regional investment group that is, in the words of Resource Group Chairman and CEO Hisham Itani, committed to “empowering youth with knowledge and providing them with the needed tools and support to bring their start-ups ideas to reality.” Dr. Ayman Kayssi, professor of electrical and computer engineering at MSFEA, noted that the Resource Group award program “builds on MSFEA’s strengths in creative human capital, state-of-the-art facilities, a strong mentor and alumni network, and access to seed funding.”

Before pitching their ideas to a team of four judges (Ammar; entrepreneurship expert Elias Boustani; MSFEA assistant professor Dr. Ibrahim Issa; and Antoine Vincent Jebara, CEO and co-founder of MYKI, an award-winning cybersecurity startup), students had a chance to listen to an inspiring presentation by Jebara who described the journey he and his partner, AUB alumna Priscilla Elora Sharuk, had traveled and the challenges they had overcome along the way. Jebara had some very helpful advice to aspiring entrepreneurs stressing the importance of “finding a market for your product.” He concluded his remarks by urging the AUB students taking part in the pitch marathon to get external validation for their ideas.

You can read the full text here.