As part of Ericsson’s mission, innovating to empower people, business and society, an Innovation Day was organized by Ericsson Lebanon for region North Middle East on July 19th, to discuss hot topics in the ICT industry inline with Ericsson’s strategic direction for networked society. The Networked Society is Ericsson’s view on the rapid transition of the world with IT and telecom, with its effects on the dimensions of people, business and society.
 

The participants were professionals from Ericsson, customers, universities. Dr. Nicolas Rouhana, Director of Berytech, was invited to participate in the panel discussion in this forum to share experience in innovation and how to support bright entrepreneurs in the region. Issues that governed the discussion were:

• How to contribute to the ultimate goal of a networked society?
• How to collaborate with governments, universities, and entrepreneurs to reach there?
• How to help rural areas get connected? Connecting the unconnected?
• How to bring connectivity to our daily life (traffic, electricity, education, health, tv & media etc.)?
• How is the effect of ICT growth on economy (GDP growth) and vise versa?

Lars Birkstedt, Ericsson Lebanon Country Manager, started by exposing Ericsson's vision and accomplishments.

Dany Assaf, Ericsson Strategy and Marketing manager for NME, then showed market surveys & trends and how Ericsson  was positioning itself to cope with these trends.

Ms. Dana Sleiman, Business Innovation Manager, Ericsson RMEA, explained the role of this new unit that entices internal employees to innovate and come up with new fresh business ideas to introduce to market.

Dr. Rouhana stressed on the need to "innovate or die" and to use social media to engage a bigger community to croud-source ideas and innovations.

Dr. Jad Attallah, Assistant Professor, department of Electrical and Computer and communication engineering, NDU, discussed sample applications that can be developed to solve day-to-day challenges using mobile technologies.

Rami Assoum, Head of Value Added Services, Alfa, exposed the importance of government role in orchestrating a national innovation policy, and that Alfa was ready to open up their service platform for innovators.

Charles Sarraf, Head of Observatory Supervision Board at MoT, called upon the attendees to look for opportunities beyond the telecoms in offering Ericsson's services, but in other sectors such as energy or health.

Lots of interesting follow-up ideas were like setting up an "innovation center" or creating a "mobile innovation initiative for universities" to stimulate innovation and new ideas, in partnership with Ericsson, Berytech, Universities and mobile operators.