On Wednesday June 30, 2010 Berytech organized a Breakfast Discussion on Innovation &Investment in Technology, with the collaboration of Lebanon Creative Cluster, featuring top tier technology executives Messrs. Edgard Masri and Ra’ed ElMurib.

The session, attended by dozens of community members and as well as guests from various creative and technology related sectors, started with a welcome word by Chairman Maroun Chammas.

Edgar Masri’s discussion focused on technological innovations, with an emphasis on the gyroscope and the new iPhone, and how sensors in phones will allow many new applications to have better picture quality for image taking and how to improve the gaming experience as well as the way to enhance navigation capability.

On the other hand, Ra'ed ElMurib spoke about company growth in an ever increasing R&D cost the corporate dilemma and how Lebanon can capitalize on technological opportunities, mainly through human capital development.

After a substantial Q&A session, the participants had one-to-one interactions with the speakers exchanging business cards and promises for maintaining future contacts.

About The Speakers:

Edgar Masri - currently president and CEO of Qualtre, a Massachusetts startup, funded by Matrix Partners and Pilot House and focused on commercializing the next generation of motion sensors (iPhone gyroscopes). Prior to Qualtré, Mr. Masri was President and CEO of 3Com, a leading global data networking company. Prior to that, Edgar Masri was with Matrix Partners,a leading venture capital firm in 2000.

Ra'ed ElMurib – VP and GM of the Microprocessor and ASIC Division with P&L responsibility and a focus on 1) investing in the right technologies, 2) anticipating and responding to the behavior of competitors, suppliers, and customers, 3) keeping organizational capability aligned with changing market strategy to deliver profitable growth. Division's focus has been Embedded Platforms as in Printers, Video surveillance, Network Attached Storage (NAS) and communication market place, servicing these Markets with ASSP, and custom SoC's, coupled with a Software platform.