Impact Stories

“Studying at AUB was a dream,” says Hany Anan (BE ’21). “Thanks to the support of scholarships from the Husson Halabi Yassir Foundation, the Unite Lebanon Youth Project, and the Abdullah Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, this dream became a reality.”
A Palestinian refugee, Hany was born and grew up in Beirut with his sister and two elderly parents. He began his AUB journey in 2017 when he enrolled in the undergraduate program in electrical and computer engineering. It was at AUB, he says, that he was introduced to the world of entrepreneurship. It was a world that he quickly embraced. He started ToRead, a social enterprise that provides equal access to educational opportunities in Lebanon and the Arab world in 2019. In 2020, Hany won the MasterCard Excellence in Technology Award and the Soraya Salti Best Company in the Arab World Award. “I thought that opening a business was just something that rich people did,” he remembers. “However, with the mindset, opportunities, and connections I gained at AUB, I was able to register my first company ToRead SARL at the age of 21.”
Hany has been involved in efforts to support students who want to continue their educations since he was in high school. At the age of 17, he started an initiative that helped other high school students by providing them with scientific videos explaining the Lebanese curriculum. The videos were a great success reaching more than 75,000 students on social media. While an undergraduate student at AUB, he organized training and mentoring programs, using technology for social good, with Riyada for Social Innovation. He also worked as an elective course teacher at International College and with the United Nations Development Programme, where he supported more than 800 youth enabling them to start their social enterprises and become community leaders under the Youth Leadership Programme. Hany is currently working with Kiron Open Higher Education, a German education technology organization that provides free access to high quality online courses for refugees all over the world.
Hany plans to continue his education by pursuing a graduate degree and PhD in engineering/business management or a related field. He wants to use the knowledge he gains to make quality education accessible for everyone – everywhere. Hany credits the scholarships he received at AUB with enabling him to build a better future on a personal level – and for enabling him to help build a better future in which education is accessible for everyone. He is guided by his motto: “Let’s us all give the help we wish we had.”