WINTER/SPRING NEWSLETTER 2022

“L’enseignement signifie la jeunesse, la culture, la rigueur” - Mireille. “I teach to make a difference in children’s lives.

I teach because I want to create opportunities for kids to positively impact the world.” - Reema “Teaching means believing that my students can do anything! Also it means learning from my students too!”-Nadine. “L’enseignement pour moi fut le vent que je respire et le sang qui circule dans mes veines.

L’enseignement pour moi n’était pas seulement d’apprendre aux enfants mais aussi d’apprendre deux. Je le ferai jusqu’au dernier souffle de ma vie. C’est un domaine qui na pas de limites”- Carole. ‫التعليــم مســؤولية كبيــرة ج ـدًا ألنــه‬ ‫تربيــة لجيــل كامــل ســيكون مســؤوالً عــن صناعــة المســتقبل وإننــي أحــاول‬ - ‫جاهــدة أن أشــجع تالميــذي وأنمــي شــخصيتهم إلــى جانــب تعليــم المــادة‬ ‫“ ليلــى‬Teaching for me is helping my students become the best version of

themselves” -Joelle.“I teach to feed my soul, it makes me feel like I’m making a difference in the hearts and minds of a generation that will one day run ّ ّ the world.” - Neveen. ‫ألتعلــم! فتعليــم األجيــال بحــر فــي أعماقــه ألغــاز ال‬ ‫أعلــم‬ ّ ‫ُتحـ‬ ‫ ســيلڤانا‬- ...‫ـب الغــوص‬ ّ ‫ وأنــا أحـ‬،‫ـل رموزهــا ّإلا باغــوص فــي أســباره‬

“L’enseignement est une vocation: on travaille avec des enfants qui vont construire un monde meilleur.” - Nada

IC Newsletter WINTER/SPRING 2022

INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE Board of Trustees Don J. Selinger, Chairman Imad Taher, Vice Chairman William H. Turner, Treasurer Anthony Jones, Assistant Secretary Elizabeth (Lizzie) Adelman Anwar Al Mulla ‘63 Mona Barwashi ‘67 Selim Bassoul Wael O. Bayazid Jonathon (Jon) A. Conner Frederick O. Crawford Walid Daouk ‘76 T.M (Mac) Deford Bayard Dodge Amal A. Ghandour Yusuf A. Kan’an ‘71 John Khabbaz Marwan A. Marshi ‘79 Safwan Masri Theodore May John G. McCarthy , Jr. Maher Mikati ‘98 Karim Nouheid ‘94 (Ex Officio) Mirna B. Noujaim Ian Reed Matthew A. Reynolds Mu’taz Sawaf ‘69 Talal K. Shair ‘83 Issam Shammas ‘63 Dr. Rabih Shibli Ahmad Tayeb Maya Tohme (Nassar)

Trustees Emeriti Makram N. Alamuddin ‘61 Raymond W. Audi Said S. Darwazah ‘76 Peter H. Gerard Aida Reed (Luce) Mohammed S. H. Soleiman ‘59 Khalid Al-Turki ‘61

Image credit: Rayan Saoud

Administration Joel Peinado -President Paula Mufarij - Vice President for Academic Affairs Moufid Beydoun - Vice President Major Gifts & Director of Alumni & Advancement Talal Jundi - Vice President & Chief Financial Officer Zeina Abou Khalil - Director, Preschool/Lower Elementary, Ain Aar Jean Christophe Breillad - Director, Upper Elementary/Middle School, Ain Aar Tania Hayek - Director, Human Resources Wadad Hoss- Director, Middle School Kathy Khayatt -Director, Secondary School Ghada Madloun - Director, Preschool Mahmoud Shihab - Director, Educational Resources Center & IT

EDITORIAL TEAM: Editor/writer: Isabelle Houghton Layout: Tala Tabbara Contributing Photographer: Dory Khayatt

WINTER/SPRING 2022

Contents FEATURES Letter from the Vice President ..................................................................................4 For the Love of Teaching: Why Supporting Our Teachers Matters!...............5 Q&A with Don Selinger ...............................................................................................8 Nafda: The innovative coalition ‘deep-cleaning’ Lebanon’s education system. ............................................................................................................................ 10 Young Alumni Spotlight: Malak Yacout ..............................................................14 Bringing Beirut to the World: Q&A with Rabih Fahkreddine ....................... 17 Photos for the People: How widening the lens landed this IC alumni on Forbes 30 Under 30.......................................................................................................19 Hot Off the Press: Roula Khalaf is taking the Finacial times to new heights ............................................................................................................................ 28

CAMPUS NEWS IB Art ............................................................................................................................... 23 Yalla Cougars: The Return of IC Athletics ........................................................... 31 Winter Wonders (Scenes from IC Winter) ........................................................... 34 ALUMNI NEWS Alumni Updates .......................................................................................................... 36 Letters to the Editor ................................................................................................... 38 IN MEMORIAM........................................................................................................39

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WINTER/SPRING 2022

Letter from the Vice President Dear parents, alumni and friends, The unprecedented situation in Lebanon has taken a toll on all our citizens, however IC has held its head high, aiming to remain the prominent institution it has always been. Joy, optimism and cheerfulness are what we see on our children’s faces when they enter the green gates. Hope, success and prosperity is what we wish for our graduates as we send them off into the world.

IC has shown support to its faculty and staff during these dire times. Teachers are a second family to all our students and they deserve to be compensated properly to lead a decent life. This support allows IC to retain the finest educators who are rewarded for their efforts. The Solidarity Fund that was established in July has raised almost 70% of its $1,200,000 target. A partial bonus was distributed on Teacher’s Day, and another one will be granted at the end of the school year.

At IC, the creation of a new strategic plan has commenced. Parents, alumni, faculty, staff, and students participated in virtual meetings to share their views on what they really value about the school that they wouldn’t want to change, the most important qualities our students gain from IC, and the changes they would like to see in the school’s practice regarding present and forthcoming opportunities. This will help IC move forward in its decision making to better serve its students in the future.

Student support persists through the allocation of tuition assistance to families who are experiencing financial difficulties. Our tuition assistance program ensures that every qualified child can benefit from an IC education, and that no student has to leave IC, their home, for any financial constraint faced due to the extraordinary circumstances we are living through.

Our children are our hope! We aspire for them to lead the way to build a better future. By empowering them and bolstering their spirits, IC arms its students to face unorthodox situations and envisage creative and innovative approaches to tackle our most imminent challenges.

IC is here to stay! For a stronger Lebanon!

Best regards, Moufid Beydoun ‘64 Vice President for Major Gifts and Interim Director of Alumni & Advancement

WINTER/SPRING 2022

For the

LOVE of Teaching

Teachers are superheroes. Really. I think we all do appreciate our teachers, however the gravity of the job is seldom understood. As someone who, for the first time this year, has dipped my toe into the shallow end of education, it has become painfully clear just how admirable, and hard, of a job teaching is. I am in awe of all the teachers around me who bring so much energy, passion, and selflessness to their classes - at 7:00am, nonetheless! Despite mounting hardships and personal struggles, discussed in hushed tones behind closed doors of the teachers lounge, their classrooms have remained colorful havens of learning, positivity, and creativity.

At IC, teachers do not just educate children on reading, writing, and arithmetic - though these are hugely important and by no means an easy task. They are responsible for modeling and instilling values of kindness, community mindedness, confidence, leadership, teamwork, creativity, patience, discipline, critical thinking, organization, and social justice. Children are the future, and teachers impact not only the lives of individual students, but the society that these students will one day lead.

Why, then? If it is such a challenging, exhausting, and undervalued job, do teachers choose to teach? Rather than tell you - we asked them.

To make it short: I teach = I breathe… Teaching for me is more than anyone can ever imagine, it is what makes me who I am.

Yara Cheikho, Arabic, Preschool Ras Beirut, 5 years at IC

Éduquer les citoyens d’avenir.

Chamaa, French, Elementary School Ain Aar, 28 years at IC

‫التعليــم مســؤولية كبيــرة جــدا‬ ‫ألنــه تربيــة لجيــل كامــل ســيكون‬ ‫مســؤوال عــن صناعــة المســتقبل‬ ‫وإننــي أحــاول جاهــدة أن أشــجع‬ ‫تالميــذي وأنمــي شــخصيتهم إلــى‬ .‫جانــب تعليــم المــادة‬

‫ لغة عربية‬- ‫ليلى جعفر‬ Middle School Ras Beirut, 1st year at

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I teach to feed my soul, it makes me feel like I’m making a difference in the hearts and minds of a generation that will one day run the world.

I teach first because it is one of the most noble professions, and second because I love the look on the kids’ faces when they learn something new.

Neveen Ahmad, Homeroom, Preschool Ras Beirut, 1st year at IC

Khalil Chahine, Mathematics, Middle School Ain Aar, 8 years at IC

Teaching is an opportunity to learn from this generation on a daily basis. To share, reflect, think, and mostly connect with a desire to share and partake in something bigger than ourselves. We teach because we believe what we do matters and has purpose Tracy, Arabic, Middle School Ain Aar, 5 years at IC

C’est une mission sacree Hana Kabbani, French, Middle School Ras Beirut, 5 years at IC

L’enseignement est une vocation: on travaille avec des enfants qui vont construire un monde meilleur.

Teaching, caring and nurturing my students is my way to fight for a better future for Lebanon. I know that with the tools given to my students by IC, they will be the change we want to see in this world.

Nada Malas, Preschool Ras Beirut, 30 years at IC

Lea Hedary, Homeroom, Preschool Ain Aar, 8 years at IC

Teaching is an opportunity to make the world a better place by shaping the next generation. I teach because I believe what I do matters and has purpose.

C’est la formation de la génération prometteuse du futur. C’est donner sans retour.

C’est la satisfaction.

Maysa Barakat, Elementary School PE teacher, Ras Beirut, 19 years at IC

Juliette Bikhazi, Mathematics, Middle School Ras Beirut, 42 years at IC

WINTER/SPRING 2022

It is my way to contribute to the community. Teaching and education are the roots of society.

Raghda Mouawad, Drama, Secondary School Ras Beirut, 13 years at IC

‫أن التعليــم مهنــة نطلــب مــن خــا لهــا العيــش الكريــم‬ ّ ‫مــا ال يمكــن نكرانــه هــو‬ .‫المتواضــع والزّاخــر بالقيــم واألخالق ّيــات ا ّلتــي نأمــل أن تنعكــس إيجا ًبــا علــى التالمــذة‬ ‫ رســالة‬،‫مــن ناحيــة أخــرى كان التعليــم وســوف يبقــى رســالة متناقلــة مــن جيــل إلــى آخــر‬ ّ ‫وكل ذلــك فــي إطــار المحبــة والن ّيــة‬ ‫تحمــل فــي ط ّياتهــا اإلنســان ّية والعطــاء والتربيــة‬ ‫الصافيــة‬ Secondary School Ras Beirut, 6 years at IC ‫ أدب عربي‬- ‫سيلڤانا دياب‬

L’enseignement pour moi est une vocation qui me permet tous de communiquer avec les jeunes générations et leur inculquer des valeurs authentiques Randa Kazan, Enseignante Titulaire, Elementary School Ain Aar, 12 years at IC

‫ال ّتعليم باب واسع اآلفاق‬ Loulou Abdelahad, Social Studies, Middle School Ain Aar, 17 years at IC

I love teaching because every single day we make a difference in someone’s life, which goes far beyond knowledge.

Hanan Khansa, Arabic, Preschool Ras Beirut, 38 Years at IC

To see a change in the future of Lebanon we have to count on today’s children. What’s a better means to achieving this than being a teacher, a mentor, an educator to those young women and men? I teach to enlighten their budding souls, to be honest, principled, and ready to take responsibility for their actions.

I teach them to open their minds to others and encourage them to seek different points of views. I teach to be critical thinkers who question and inquire in order to seek the truth. I teach them to show respect, empathy, and compassion toward others. I teach to let them realize and value their strengths and weaknesses. I teach to help them recognize our interdependence with other humans and organisms. I teach because I want a better future.

Mirella Estephan, Biology, Secondary School Ras Beirut, 1st year at IC

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WINTER/SPRING 2022

“Teachers are our Greatest Asset”: Q&A with Don Selinger, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees Many may wonder, how did a man with no previous ties to IC, or Lebanon, for that matter, become so invested in and passionate about the school? Since joining the board in 1993, the US-based Mr. Selinger has led IC through major periods of growth and development, and is the force behind the recently launched Teacher’s Solidarity Fund.

He kindly spoke to us about his journey to IC, efforts since joining the board, and near term hopes for the school.

Q: How long have you been involved with IC? A: I joined the IC Board of Trustees as Treasurer in 1993.

Q: How did you first hear about the school? Why did you decide to join the board?

A: I first heard about IC in 1975 when traveling to Beirut, and often thereafter from Bill Turner who was and remains a friend and colleague. He has served on the Board since the mid-1970s and was chairman for over 30 years. I succeeded him as chair 5 years ago.

I lived in Cairo from 1976- 1978 and in Bahrain from 1983 - 1991, where I met many IC graduates and learned more about the important and prominent educational role the school has played in Lebanon and the Middle East. It was an honor for me to be elected to the IC Board of Trustees.

Q: Why are you passionate about supporting education in Lebanon?

A: The high value of an American-style education and the success repeatedly demonstrated by IC, quickly generated my enthusiasm for this wonderful country.

Q: What, in your opinion, makes IC such a renowned and unique institution?

A: IC developed a unique culture that has been amazingly successful and has been handed down over the years since its founding in 1892. This culture is

WINTER/SPRING 2022

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often referred to as the IC Spirit. I have had the honor of seeing it exemplified in our current students and with our alumni and parents that I have met at IC receptions all over the world - from Lebanon, the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

Q: How has the school evolved since you first joined the community? What remains the same?

A: Perhaps, one of the most important evolutions was the decision in the mid-1990’s to raise funds for a building program. Initially, this idea met with some reservations as there was no clear precedent for doing something of this nature among private schools in the region. Fortunately, our president at the time, Gerrit Keator, was an experienced head of school and fundraiser. With his determined efforts, and invaluable help from the board, we successfully raised about $9 million. We then started to grow these funds through an active investment program.

In 2010, after many years of discussion, we purchased our Ras Beirut campus from AUB. We were then in a position to begin our building program. With continued fundraising efforts and generous donor support from alumni, trustees, parents, and friends we raised about $85 million. This allowed us to build a new primary school, a new indoor gymnasium, and a new auditorium.

A new middle school followed and most recently a new pre-school.

On our Ain Air campus we built a new lab, added a sports facility, and attended to other improvements. We were in the process of moving forward with a new gymnasium and auditorium when Lebanon was hit with its financial crisis.

Unfortunately, those projects and the related fundraising remain on hold.

Q: Where did the idea for the Solidarity Fund arise?

A: As the ongoing financial crisis unfolded and the school’s budget drifted deeper and deeper into repeated deficits, it became increasingly clear to me that our teachers needed to be provided with additional support.

I knew this appeal would find support in our community. It is a community that deeply values education. We have faithful parental and alumni involvement that has consistently demonstrated an enduring commitment to IC’s wellbeing.

Q: Why is supporting IC’s teachers so important at the moment? Why have you made it a priority as board chair?

A: One cannot value education without having a deep appreciation for the special role teachers play in shaping successful students. In fact, the secret to thriving students is teachers. They are our most important asset. Nothing is more important in education than the power of good teaching.

As Henry Brooks Adams once suggested, “Teachers affect eternity; one can never tell where their influence stops.”

Our teachers truly support the IC community and, in my view, they now need the abiding support of our alumni, the broader IC community, and especially our parents, whose children they nurture and educate on a daily basis.

NAFDA NAFDA 10 WINTER/SPRING 2022

The innovative coalition ‘deep-cleaning’ Lebanon’s education system.

“Nafda - It means, ‘spring cleaning!’” Maria Hibri ‘82 says, animated, as she begins talking about the new education initiative that is empowering school communities to implement innovative, participatory approaches to education in Lebanon.

I initially met Ms. Hibri to discuss her own life and career. As the co-founder and designer of Bokja, an artisanal textile and design studio who’s fresh and bright take on traditional methods of embroidery has garnered worldwide fame, she is a grande dame of the Lebanese design scene.

Though Hibri kindly spoke about Bokja’s founding and its many accomplishments in the 20 years since, it soon became clear that this was not really the story she wanted to tell.

“What I really want to talk about is Nafda. Bokja, you can Google it. The story is there,” she states bluntly. This is true - there are plenty of articles detailing the studio’s story and successes over two decades.

“I feel I owe it to myself to be involved in things that really matter to me.”

Hibri reflects.

Maria Hibri

To be clear, Ms. Hibri has not been on the sidelines for the past 20 years. She has long been involved in community organizing and is an outspoken advocate for a number of social and political causes. Most of Bokja’s collections are, for her, a vehicle to “speak her truth.” Carefully woven into the aesthetically stunning textiles, pillows, and robes, Hibri states, are “our aspirations, our anger, our questioning of things.”

The design duo has created pieces that take a stand on the extinction of bees. They wrapped tires in fabric to protest political frustration in lieu of the usual burning of tires

which causes pollution. During the 2011 Arab Uprisings, they worked with Bokja’s artisans, who are from all over the Arab world, to create two tapestries, upon which each craftsman expressed their story and views. The tapestries are now on permanent display at The Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Post-port explosion, they turned their studio into an ER for damaged furniture, mending upholstery tears with a red thread, tending to the city’s wounds.

Nafda, however, is cut from a different cloth. It began from the many virtual Thawra WhatsApp groups that Hibri was a part of during lockdown.

She was exhausted and frustrated that the uprising’s momentum was dwindling. “It seemed this was as far as we could go as Lebanese, that there was no united voice, or bigger picture” she recalls.

Enter Nadim Matta ‘76, a veteran of the development world who possessed both the will and the way to tackle some of the country’s toughest problems. Maria (re)connected with her fellow IC graduate on one of these many Zoom calls - one of the few other people she met who was thinking critically about how to take action.

Matta has been based in the US for a number of years, where his organization, the Rapid Results Institute (RRI) is headquartered.

Building on his years of experience with Save the Children, USAID in Lebanon, and in private sector social impact consulting, RRI is a different way to think about development.

WINTER/SPRING 2022 Nadim Matta

Its bottom-up approach is centered around the idea that peoples’ problem-solving capacity can be unleashed when they are given the tools, resources, and confidence to set and pursue very ambitious, shortterm goals in creative and innovative ways.

Maria also brought an old friend, Fawzi Kariyakos, into their conversations. He, too, was frustrated with the lack of tangible change he had witnessed and was looking for a more radical approach to address the crisis. Together, the three decided it was time to act.

Through all of their brainstorming, the trio kept returning to the same questions, Hibri recalls. “Why is it that the concept of citizenship in Lebanon is so diverse from one person to another? How can we make our diversity what is rich about us, instead of our weakness?”

In retrospect, schools are the perfect place to start. What better way to effect bottom-up, sustainable, transformation and instill common values of citizenship, communitymindedness, leadership, and social justice, than to encourage these ideals in the malleable minds of young children?

They began at the top level, focused on governmental reform, but they quickly realized systemic overhaul might be more digestible in bite-sized pieces.

A general idea arose. If citizens take over a sector, and design and build alternative modes

of governance through a participatory approach anchored in values of good governance, shared citizenship, and social justice, then they can address some of their most pressing challenges without the need for traditional government intervention and thus build a self-sustaining system.

It was not until they connected with current Nafda team member, Fahd Jamaleddine, that the education sector came into view.

Fahd was already familiar with the sector through his own work on sustainable education reform, and he organized an introductory call with the emerging Nafda team and six principals from public, private, and semi-private schools across Lebanon.

“To me,” Nadim recalls, “the real ‘aha’ moment came on that Zoom call. I realized that there is a possibility here, because there are people on the ground who haven’t given up, who are not only being resourceful and creative in how they are trying to salvage this sector, but are also doing really cool and innovative things Nafda’s network

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in the midst of the worst possible circumstances.”

They decided right then and there to build their movement around these agents of change. The bet was that these six principals were not just a one in a million example, but were part of a larger collective of educators and administrators who were interested, committed, and believed in the idea, and necessity, of creating a better education system.

Thus, Nafda was born. The ‘Jedis,’ as Maria jokingly refers to her fellow advisory board members, mostly of her generation, recruited a team of passionate, and highly qualified individuals who have extensive experience in education and development to help actualize and lead the project.

Ghia Osseiran ’00 is one of these bright, young, experts. A graduate of AUB and Columbia, Ghia worked for the UNDP and ILO before pursuing her PhD in Education at Oxford University. Though her research is focused on graduate labor market outcomes, her extensive knowledge of the economics of education and experience in development at both the international and grassroots level, means she is keenly aware of the importance of education and participatory approaches to sectoral reform.

“At first I thought the project was overambitious,” Ghia admits. “But, also, really exciting. I really liked that it was a citizen-led initiative.

I could not not be involved, because it’s such an important sector and I want to help in any way I can.”

Despite being a country that strongly values high quality education, World Bank statistics reveal that Lebanon’s education systems are performing very poorly compared to global standards. It’s estimated that for every 10 years a student attends school, they will only reach the learning outcomes of 6.2 years

12 WINTER/SPRING 2022 of school – four fewer years of actual learning on average. That’s a number from before COVID and the economic crisis, meaning there is at least an additional 1-3 years of learning lost, Ghia estimates.

“The education sector cannot be left behind.” Ghia adamantly states. “It’s your human capital, your future. The ramifications if it is forgotten are huge. And it’s already happening.”

Furthermore, education is the place to start because change stems from within the classroom. “Democracy starts within the classroom.

Empowerment starts within the classroom. Modeling good citizenship starts within the classroom,” Ghia says. “Ways of teaching and learning and the culture of the school, in terms of how inclusive decision making is, can have a huge impact.”

of the crisis, but public schools in particular are buckling under the weight of fuel prices, transportation challenges, and supporting teachers.

They have had to be incredibly resourceful, especially without government support.

Since selecting the first cohort in January, they have surged full steam ahead. During the first weekend of February, they held a two-day conference,where schools got to know each other, and the program’s ground rules were established.

Ghia recalls one principal in Mount Lebanon who raised funds within her community to make sure all her teachers were paid their salaries in full last year. Though the government covers permanent teachers’ salaries, most teachers are on fixed-term contracts and have not been paid at all. This principal made sure they were.

They also began preparing for the ‘Community Visioning Process,’ where members of the wider school community - from teachers, parents, students, administrators and townspeople - come together to establish what the school’s priorities and goals are, which will ultimately inform the School Transformation Projects.

Ghia Osseiran

To support the sector’s immediate needs and promote systemic change, Nafda provides technical and financial support to schools.

Nafda has selected a first ‘cohort’ of 20, distributing up to 30% of funds to address immediate needs, before embarking on long term reform initiatives.

On the first Zoom “information session,” 200 schools from across Lebanon were present. Ultimately 33 schools submitted applications, which the team meticulously reviewed, including site visits to each of the candidates, before selecting the official 20 participants.

These site visits and related conversations with school leaders were particularly insightful, humbling, and inspiring.

“It was personally very eye-opening,” Ghia reflects. “There were certain public schools that really surprised me in terms of how participatory and innovative they were despite limited budgets. It totally changed my perceptions about the public school system.”

All schools are suffering at the hands

Maria was similarly in awe of the schools she visited and educators she met. She went to a public school on the border of Syria where she met an incredible principal who was changing her entire community through her work on early marriages.

“Many girls there marry around 14 and 15, so she was making funny videos and skits about early marriage and the importance of prioritizing education. She also made a huge effort to re-enroll girls after they had gotten married, to continue their education.”

The innovation, effort, and dedication from school actors all across the country is there. What would the education system look like, then, if all of these schools started working together? This is what Nafda aims to tap into.

These projects can be anything, as long as they have been determined by this participatory process. The Nafda team, however, strongly encourages schools to think about how to incorporate the core principles of good governance, citizenship, and social justice into their projects.

Once the schools decide on the transformation projects, Nafda divides participating schools into “labs,” where they will work together based on stated project plans. Let’s say, for example, that three schools want to work on increasing inclusion.

These three schools will be placed into one “lab,” where they will be connected with solution providers, or NGOs who have already developed a framework for inclusivity.

This is Ghia’s main responsibility - building a coalition of NGOs and service providers. The idea is to tap into Lebanon’s rich civil society and existing efforts. There is no need to start from scratch when you can connect existing programs. Ghia is researching what programs and initiatives are already out there, connecting with the NGOs, and bringing them into Nafda’s sphere.

At the time of writing, they had partnered with over 20 organizations.

The “labs,” with the support of the Nafda team and related NGOs, will then work together to determine what goals they want to set and how

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contribute to the project’s efforts.

As Ghia affirms, “Change is not going to happen unless it’s like this - when you have all these different schools coming together. Collaboration and exchange is very enriching.”

they want to approach the final step the 100 days project.

The point of the 100 day project is to set overly ambitious goals to see what institutions can accomplish within a limited time frame. Stimulating this “shock” to the system gets people to think through very different, creative ways of approaching issues and organizing themselves, in terms of more equitable leadership and selfgovernance. It is a strategy employed

by Mr. Matta’s RRI, which has garnered huge success globally.

This first cohort will likely be working on their project through June. The hope is that, not only will these pioneering schools achieve their goals, but that their projects will stimulate similar transformation projects in other schools around the country. The ultimate goal is to reach 1,000 schools in 3 years.

“It’s overambitious, but that’s the point,” Ghia asserts. “We need to try things differently. If we are able to successfully use the participatory approach and it spreads to other schools and sectors, I think that’s really groundbreaking and a different way of doing this in this country.

That has a lot of power.

In the meantime, 50% of the grant funds for immediate needs have been dispersed. But it’s not the money, necessarily, that has really excited the first cohort. Rather, it’s the human capital. For many school actors, this is the first time they are connecting with other directors from very different areas and backgrounds over shared experiences, struggles, and most importantly, solutions.

Directors are very eager to support each other. During their meetings, if one school mentions they have a problem with something, another director will likely jump in and say, “Give me a call after. I have figured this out.”

The Nafda team has realized they don’t have to sell the notion of good governance and social justice.

“Directors keep coming back to it in our discussions. I think it’s because it was on their minds. It’s not like we came in with something new. We just gave them a platform,” Nadim relays.

It is important to emphasize that this project is not just focused on underfunded schools. In fact, it’s essential that elite institutions participate as well. At present, even if a school is already teaching principles of citizenship and social justice, only those graduates will benefit. As Maria states, “It’s like putting salt in the sea.”

IC is participating in this first cohort, which the team is very excited about. IC does have the knowledge and resources to help build up other communities around them. To this end, IC has been in conversation with the Nafda team to discuss how best to

Success is far from guaranteed. As all three admit, it’s a hugely ambitious project. But they strongly believe in it, and understand the potential for return is huge. To Nadim, “success is that our organization is no longer needed in 3 years.” It means a selfsustaining movement, with directors and educators pushing themselves, and each other, towards principles of good governance, engaged citizenship, and social justice, and better integrating the school and community writ large.

Back in Maria’s studio, discussing Nafda’s potential brings a smile to her face. Despite her measured outlook, her self-proclaimed “endless well of optimism” can’t help but shine

through. “I believe in the magic of Lebanon, in its human capital, and in this group of people,” she asserts.

What makes Bokja so attractive is how unique, bold, and fresh its textiles are - a mix of the repurposed old and the new, to construct something rooted in tradition yet also entirely modern. Unique, bold, and fresh are perhaps exactly what Lebanon needs. And with a team of passionate experts scavenging and stitching the scattered pieces of Lebanon’s education sector together, this new tapestry is starting to tell a very exciting story.

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Young Alumni Spotlight:

Malak Yacout, Co-Founder and CEO of The Volunteer Circle Malak Yacout

Malak Yacout ’15 initially planned to pursue a career in marketing. She had the degree, the skills, and the experience. She had even just gotten a job at her “dream company.”

But the minute she got the offer, she declined it.

“I realized, I don’t want to age and then later regret not having done the thing I knew I was really passionate about. It would have killed me working for a company, knowing that there was an idea on the backburner, left untouched, untapped.”

A gamble? Perhaps. A challenge?

Definitely. But Malak would not have it any other way - and many are grateful she took the road less traveled.

within; however, her unparalleled communication skills and community-mindedness are something she credits to IC. From 6th grade on, Malak was a class representative at IC. She had to navigate the complex student-teacher student-administration relationships, communicating both parties’ opinions and making sure all needs were met. Not a particularly easy task at a school of 3,000, but one that undoubtedly prepared her well for her current job, where she similarly navigates relationships between individuals and organizations.

“I’d rather be a millionaire

Malak’s involvement in student council, as well as the emphasis in the number of lives I’ve in Secondary School on touched and the number of learning outside the classroom, her to a world beyond people I’ve met than have a exposed the ‘IC bubble’ and prompted Today, her social enterprise, The million dollars in my bank her to think more critically Volunteer Circle, works with 6,000+ about her privilege. Mr. Riad volunteers to match their skills with account.

Chirazi in particular, the head the needs and demands of 230 NGOs of the Council of Student across all regions and sectors in Lebanon. It fills a huge Representatives, helped nurture this sense of community. gap in the country’s third sector. The demand for help

”

exists, but the capacity to coordinate, organize and source volunteers who actually understand the country’s context and have the skills to address an organizations’ specific needs, is lacking.

As the young start-up was founded in mid-2019, when a series of crises crippled the country’s environment, society, and economy, Malak has worn many hats as its founder, CEO, first responder, tech wizard, marketing expert and mentor. Her admirable drive to have a positive societal impact and resourcefulness definitely stem from

“He always emphasized that, whatever activity you want to do, think about how to give back as well,” she recalls.

“He reminded us that outside this gated community, there is a whole world with so many layers to get to know and understand.” Despite limited opportunities to volunteer, Malak was still deeply ingrained with a desire to be involved with Beirut beyond the tree-lined walkways and red-shingled roofs.

The summer after her freshman year at AUB, Malak began searching for volunteer opportunities around Lebanon.

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With the governmental, environmental, and refugee crises escalating around her, she was shocked that she couldn’t find any open or accessible volunteer positions.

“I found a few opportunities, but it turned out the listed positions were long overdue. There was just no update or proper communication. It didn’t make any sense to me. I thought, ‘the demand must be very high, how come there were no opportunities, or mechanisms to get involved in a safe and meaningful way?’” she recalls.

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her head, into a concrete, viable, business plan.

Luckily, she had just met someone who was similarly as passionate about advancing volunteer opportunities in Lebanon, her future business partner Nadine Makarem.

They met through common friends and immediately connected over shared frustrations and beliefs surrounding Lebanon’s development sector.

After a small crowdfunding campaign, Malak and Nadine officially launched The Volunteer Circle in March of 2019.

Malak ultimately spent that summer volunteering in They got to work immediately, designing a user-friendly Tanzania. She gained a lot from the experience. Yet the platform that transforms notion that getting a visa, traditional approaches to buying a plane ticket, and volunteering.

Interested traveling to a completely volunteers create a profile that new country that she had outlines their availability and no real connection to, was skillset, then apply to open easier than volunteering in volunteer positions listed by her own backyard, did not sit NGOs. AI analyzes the profile comfortably. She didn’t feel and application to determine she was really a volunteer. if the individual is a “match for “I was a traveler, for sure, the organization.” The process but the program was very A TVC Restoration Initiative is very personal and case commercial. The programs specific, and unless there is an are pre-designed. They are 80% match of volunteer profile happening with or without and organizational needs, the you and you don’t really parties will not connect. have a huge impact. You are benefiting more from the The organization has grown experience than the people substantially in size and you are supposedly helping,” capacity since it first began. she asserts.

However, it has not been without road bumps. Today, This discomfort lingered in social entrepreneurship is a TVC Volunteer at Work - Quality Control the back of her mind as she buzz-word in start-up circles, continued her studies. She but at the time The Volunteer Circle began, the notion of did a semester abroad and was shocked (and equally “social enterprise” was still very ambiguous to investors, frustrated) to see just how easy it was for European or companies, and organizations. The few people whom they American citizens to volunteer in their own countries. knew had done something similar were much older and When she returned, a more concrete idea began to had established careers and capital. take shape. Why not develop a platform that helps On top of that, they also launched at the onset of a organizations find volunteers who fit their needs, and in very tumultuous three years. That September, the turn help people who want to have a tangible impact find environmental crisis came to a head in a series of organizations that benefit from their specific skills and devastating forest fires. In October, the Civil Uprisings, and talents? in the months following, the financial meltdown, COVID, As a business major at AUB, she had the opportunity to and the Beirut blast, one after the other. Operating as a pilot the burgeoning concept as a final project, for which sort of “middleman” between the third sector and civilians she applied concepts and skills she learned in her degree. looking to get involved, they have very much been on the She received constructive feedback from her professors. It front lines. enabled her to turn what had, for so long, been an idea in

16 WINTER/SPRING 2022 regional organizations - expanding their model into Egypt and Jordan. It’s important to note, Malak emphasizes, that they will not be simply replicating the same model, but making sure it’s structured around the context and needs of the local environment.

Malak’s accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. But as she steadily climbs the ladder, she is always sure to reach back down and lift up others.

Neighborhood Cleanup

This perhaps forced them to be resourceful, innovative, and rapid, in their approach and development. The crises did help build and strengthen their community and expand the volunteer base. “It’s good that we had something like this to mobilize in times of need,” Malak reflects.

Furthermore, operating on the front lines has allowed them to build very rich knowledge around community needs and productive ways to address them- which they have monetized as a service for interested companies and organizations.

However, as Malak relays, they were operating in triage mode. They didn’t have the time or resources to focus on the long-term mission and vision or to implement and improve things like their AI system.

“We were so consumed in humanitarian relief and emergencies that we had to deviate from our main vision.” “she states. “All the investments were targeted at basic issues that should have long been fulfilled. That was our main challenge during this time, navigating the crises and optimizing our agility and rapid response.”

Today, they are close to their original vision: connecting skilled volunteers to opportunities in demand, not only at a local level, but on a regional level as well. They’ve had more breathing room to develop new, smarter technology, which will soon be released on their upcoming mobile app.

They’ve worked tirelessly to make the app as inclusive as possible, with features for people with disabilities, like hearing and sight differences.

They also have plans to collaborate with different local and

In 2020, Malak was the youngest candidate nominated for EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women Network. Through this, she was exposed to the #IamRemarkable initiative, a campaign that empowers women to talk openly about their accomplishments and attempts to break the glass ceiling through workshops and mentorship programs. For Malak, now a mentor and program leader herself, it’s not just about supporting women but all underrepresented groups. She has worked with people from many different communities all over the country. However, She holds experiences with women at the Bourj el-Barajneh refugee camp particularly close to her heart “I always like to lend my voice,” she says with a smile.

“Mentoring is what I enjoy the most - honestly. I was mentored, and I’m still being mentored. We all need mentors in our lives. Transferring knowledge is so impactful. Seeing where the people I have coached are now, is the biggest reward.”

The Volunteer Circle is just the beginning for Malak and she is in the early stages of developing two other projects.

However, she doesn’t see herself ever pursuing a career that doesn’t have some sort of social impact. “I will never work unless it matters to other people -not measured in terms of recognition, but in terms of change, and its impact on the lives of others. I’d rather be a millionaire in the number of people I’ve touched and the number of travelers I’ve met, than have a million dollars in my bank account,” she asserts.

With everything she has accomplished, it is heartwarming that Malak is so proud of her roots at IC and so passionate about engaging the wider IC community. She emphasizes “I want to encourage students to volunteer and alumni to get in touch, whether they are in Lebanon or abroad.

There is so much we can do together! I would love to hear from fellow alumni and to read their stories – the IC community is incredibly diverse and rich with people across all different sectors in all different corners of the world. I hope to see more projects with purpose.”

For more stories and testimonials from the Volunteer Circle, please visit https://www.instagram.com/ thevolunteercircle/

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Bringing Beirut to the World:

with Rabih

Fakhreddine Rabih Fakhreddine ‘02 is on a mission to put smiles on peoples faces and make moments memorable through unique, fun, and exciting food, beverage and entertainment experiences. The force behind some of Beirut’s most beloved restaurant and nightlife ventures, the hugely successful entrepreneur is taking the world by storm. A trailblazer in the Food and Beverage (F&B) industry, his rapid expansion in the GCC with ventures like Seven Sisters, Antika, and the Theater, has landed him a spot on Caterer Middle East’s Power 50 2021.

He kindly spoke to the newsletter about his journey to success in F&B, challenges and resourcefulness during COVID, and offered words of wisdom for IC alumni and students interested in the industry.

Rabih Fakhreddine

Q: What sparked your interest in the F&B industry?

A: I have always been passionate about food and entertainment. I used to do a lot of cooking and was considered a bit of a ‘foodie.’ At AUB, I was actively involved in organizing events like Ramadan Suhoors, the football World Cup, and various other parties for different clubs and organizations. This sparked my interest in the industry.

In 2008, I joined British-American Tobacco (BAT) where I handled the HORECA accounts and was responsible for company events and hospitality relations in the Levant. On the side, however, I began silently investing in several bars and restaurants in Beirut, and in 2011 I opened my first bar, Faces, in Hamra.

My journey started then. I started opening one bar after another, from Bigshot, to Checkpoint Charlie, to Walkman.

In 2014, I decided to quit BAT and pursue a full-time career in F&B. I started 7 Management and opened Seven Sisters Beirut. That was our first mega project - followed by Antika Bar and Cafe Beirut. In 2018 we decided to expand outside of Lebanon, opening our first Seven Sister franchise in Dubai.

Now, we have eight concepts in Dubai, three in Beirut, one in Doha (with three more launching there soon), and two in Riyadh.

Q: Did your time at IC help stimulate your interest in hospitality and management?

A: Of course! I’ve been passionate about food and cooking since I was young. I still remember very well how we used to organize Kermesse, Carnivals, and bake sales at IC. I remember helping my mother bake cakes and selling them for Kermesse in particular.

This sparked my interest in food and entertainment.

At AUB, this interest became more of an opportunity, as I put more time into organizing events and parties and made some pocket money from it. I put that money into my savings, which eventually enabled me to invest and start my business.

Q: Many of your concepts, like the recently opened Cafe Beirut, are centered around bringing Beirut to the world… What makes Beirut’s food and beverage scene unique and exciting for you?

A: All of my brands are homegrown concepts. Most of them were started and launched in Beirut. Beirut, in terms of its food and entertainment scene, is one of the leading cities in the world. Lebanese cuisine is incredibly rich and diverse, and is beloved around the globe. This definitely inspired me a lot. Beirut is a city of aspiration, which has inspired me to approach my work creatively, resourcefully, and from multiple perspectives.

18 WINTER/SPRING 2022 Q: How, in the midst of your outward expansion, are you bringing the world back to Beirut?

A: I feel I have a duty towards Beirut to highlight all of the city’s positive aspects. This is why I’m always trying to spread the concepts that started in Beirut all around the world.

People have a lot of amazing memories in Beirut.

Wherever I go, people tell me stories about how much they enjoyed the city’s food and nightlife scene. We are now in four cities and hopefully are entering Egypt, Greece, and the UK as well. It’s an exciting time. I’m helping people all over the world relive these memories, and experience Beirut’s vibrance and energy by giving them the best food and entertainment experience.

Q: How did COVID-19 impact your businesses? How did you leverage these challenges for your recent success and major expansion?

A: Our industry was one of the hardest hit by COVID. Especially at the beginning, people assumed the structure of our industry would completely change, that people would no longer eat out, sit at tables, or enjoy nice dinners. I strongly believe, however, that in every challenge there is an opportunity.

Historically, people have always gathered around the table. It’s been part of our lifestyle since the beginning of humanity, people sitting and enjoying social gatherings. It always has been, and will remain, a foundational part of our human experience.

I was also lucky enough to capitalize on the opportunities in Dubai specifically. We expanded aggressively and bought six new locations because we managed to get great deals and commercial terms given the situation.

I signed when most people had not yet seen the light at the end of the tunnel. I believed that life would eventually return to normal - and it slowly has.

Now, we are witnessing the rebound of our industry and we are really benefiting from this boom- not just in the UAE, but globally.

Q: What advice would you give to young IC Alumni or current students, interested in getting involved in the F&B and entertainment industry today?

A: Keep dreaming, because the sky’s the limit. Especially for those interested in the F&B and entertainment industry, there are so many opportunities in the market.

The scalability of our business makes it very attractive and interesting, and the potential is huge. Post-Covid in particular, people are hungry for concepts that stand out.

The game has changed. People no longer want the traditional restaurant or entertainment experience.

They are looking for lifestyle experiences. I call it ‘Netflix Syndrome.’ Previously, when we wanted to watch a movie we had to check movie times, book the tickets, and go to the cinema. Now you sit in your own bed, with Netflix in front of you, and can watch whatever you want, at the click of a button. People today want the ‘one stop shop.’ They want to go to places with good food and good entertainment, all in one. This is what 7 Management is now focused on and what all our new concepts are centered around.

That was the driving factor behind our latest ventures, The Theater and Lucia’s.

Lifestyle brands are the name of the game, as they say!

As long as you have imagination, creativity, drive, and commitment, nothing is impossible.

That is my belief since day one. I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved as a self made entrepreneur. I’ve always dreamt I would get here some day, but it was not by luck. I worked hard for it and I believe that everyone who is willing to work hard and dream, can achieve anything in life.

Q: What are you most looking forward to in 2022?

A: I’m looking forward to expanding and scaling up my business. Now that we are actively present, and dominant, in the GCC region, I’m looking to enter the European market and expand to London and Athens.

This is something I’m very excited about. We have a big team at our Dubai headquarters (‘the ‘kitchen,’ as I call it), and we are all ready to conquer the world with amazing experiences that put smiles on faces. This is what we aim to do - to put smiles on people’s faces wherever they are and whatever they do.

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PHOTOS FOR THE PEOPLE: How widening the lens landed this IC alumni on Forbes 30 Under 30.

2020 was a rather indescribable year. In fact, Oxford Dictionary’s famous “word of the year,” was left blank, as, “it became apparent that 2020 was not a year that could neatly be accommodated into one single word.” Where words failed however, pictures and images filled the gaps.

As the old adage goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Photos allowed us a privileged window into the lives of others and connected us through shared experiences of isolation, devastation, alongside hope and togetherness.

“There was a lot of fear and isolation at the beginning of 2020, but then people came together to protest the injustices that were revealed during the pandemic.”

Nour Chamoun ’09 reflects. Her upcoming book, “The Year Time Stopped: The Global Pandemic in Photos,” is a collection of images and stories from the past two years, and is being published with Harper Collins in June 2022. She calls it “a testament to the human spirit, and how it rises above everything that works to bring it down.”

Chamoun was well positioned to document, share, and elevate what could not be articulated Nour Chamoun with words, throughout these tumultuous two years. The book is just the tip of the iceberg.

For the past five years, her digital photography marketplace and creator hub, Scopio, has tapped into artistic communities across the globe with a goal of creating the world’s largest and most accessible collection of authentic and diverse images that photographers everywhere can contribute to, and any individual, company, or organization can access. Their mission is to connect the world through visual storytelling, which they have been doing quietly and quite successfully for some time. Their digital library currently contains 700,000 + images from 14,000+ creators across 160 countries.

The company’s reach, innovative technology, and commitment to authenticity and diversity earned Nour a coveted spot on the esteemed 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 Media list. The panel of judges, which included media heavy hitters like CNN host Don Lemon and Vox cofounder Melissa Bell, selected an elite 30 who have found success through serving audiences and telling stories that are often overlooked by traditional institutions, and who leverage technology to solve media’s biggest challenges.

Nour undoubtedly fit the bill.

The child of two documentary filmmakers who dedicated their lives to filming stories of marginalized communities during Lebanon’s Civil War, Nour has always been keenly aware of the importance of visual storytelling and the power of the arts to expose and highlight people and places often overlooked and misrepresented in mainstream media.

Nour pursued her artistic side at IC, where her favorite course was visual arts class, in which she focused on painting. Her love of visual arts drew her to LAU’s graphic design program where she completed her undergraduate degree before moving to New York to pursue a master’s in Design Technology from Parsons School of Design.

“I wanted to do something at the intersection of art, design and technology, as well as something that has social impact. I kept thinking, how am I able to combine design and technology and affect some sort of social change?”

Nour relays.

This question guided Nour through her studies and later pursuits. As part of her masters, she created a database for Arabic fonts, called Tarkeeb. The typewriter and the computer were originally developed for Latin fonts and English scripts, and Nour saw a huge gap in the number of

20 WINTER/SPRING 2022 different font choices available to the millions of Arabic users online. She wanted to help advance the Arabic language on the internet.

Chamoun and her Scopio co-founder, Christina Hawatmeh, began working on the concept in 2015. It was originally called “Protestify.” As two Arab women emboldened by the impact of the Arab Spring and related social movements reverberating around the globe, they noticed a gap between the images and stories that were being shared on the ground, through social media, and what news outlets and organizations were using.

“Social media was a very new way to document what was happening on the ground, so anyone with a smart device could take pictures and share stories.” Chamoun states.

“This is the gap we saw. We wanted to use technology to connect news organizations to the people who were

documenting these events in real time.”

The idea was to create a Googlesearch type of platform that used AI to search and aggregate social media posts (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) of these movements from around the world. The software looked for certain keywords trending among journalists and news organizations and cross-referenced them with images on social media, so they were more accessible and easier to find. It searched for captions, not just hashtags, which broadened the scope and depth of content available.

They secured funding from grants, accelerators, and private investors that allowed them to build and grow.

However, delivering content in real time for news organizations was, as Chamoun says, “probably one of the hardest things you can do.”

Because social media was so new, they essentially had to create cutting-edge technology like natural language processing and machine learning for the platform. It needed a lot of capital, as well as a level of digital fluency that clients just didn’t possess at the time. So, they decided to adapt the platform to become a marketplace that shares photos and stories submitted by a growing community of thousands artists and photographers.

“The reason why we pivoted was the technology was very complicated for the clients, and we saw an opportunity to create something that’s not just a stock photo site that sells commercial photography, but instead highlights diverse images that represent every community, every human identity.”

Nour emphasizes, “As an Arab woman, I didn’t see myself fairly represented in any visual medium whether photography, video, illustration, especially in the West. So, I wanted to make sure that our platform did that.”

As they transitioned away from its focus on a tool for news outlets and their community-based platform grew, Protestify became Scopio (which stands for Scope it Out). It operates like a stock company on a basic level - individuals and companies who don’t have access to original, high-quality content, pay a small fee to subscribe to the platform for access to royalty free images for their websites, publications, and social media.

Scopio aims to provide organic images of real people that accurately reflect the world around us. The images found on the website are art – breathtaking, creative,

WINTER/SPRING 2022 and honest. Both professional and amateur artists and photographers from across the globe can submit their images, which, if selected, are uploaded to Scopio’s digital library.

visual storytellers and creators.

Scopio is free for creators to join. And, they don’t just target professional photographers with high-tech cameras. “It’s really for anyone with a smartphone that takes decent photos and has an interesting story to tell about their community,” Nour emphasizes.

Images by the people, for the people.

Scopio is also a tech company.

They use an Artificial Intelligence (AI), developed by the team, to help center the stories that they believe deserve more media attention.

The AI processes, tags, and prioritizes the thousands of images that are submitted each day, prioritizing images with diverse people in them and other underrepresented communities and demographics. Their team puts a lot of time and energy into implementing ethical AI practices. Because AI was created by largely white and male dominated tech companies, it’s built around and trained to recognize a database of white men. Scopio is doing things differently.

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This opens the space up for artists and creators who might not have had access to certain equipment or education, but who have equal talent and crucially, important stories to share.

Nour and her co-founder, Christina Hawatmeh

AI helps them stay in line with their mission: highlighting images that are in line with the trends, but also telling stories that might still be “controversial.” “Whether politics or protests, we very much prioritize social movements and identities that are still not very much talked about.

Take Valentine’s Day, for example.

If a company were to use Scopio to source an image of a young couple for a seasonal marketing campaign, they would find a collection of images very different from the typical Hallmark white male/female couple holding hands. Scorpio’s selection thoughtfully highlights LGBTQ+ love, Black love, love between people with disabilities, love between friends, self-love. Despite one’s perceptions or biases, these images show that love

is love, no matter of your race, sexual preference, gender identity, shape, or size, and they help humanize different identities, experiences and worldviews.

It is an incredibly subtle, yet incredibly revolutionary act. Representation matters, and the fact that Scopio is channeling its knowledge and resources to make sure that every human experience is portrayed, is poignant. There’s an old saying: “An enemy is a person whose story you haven’t heard.” If a picture is worth a thousand words, then photos must be a pretty powerful way to spark dialogue and foster cross-cultural understanding.

Beyond increasing representation and sharing stories through the images they choose to highlight and share, they also are working to increase access and equality for

Contributing photographers get royalties every time their photos are downloaded off the subscription.

Furthermore, the Scopio team works to elevate creators’ voices through their podcast and YouTube channel.

“We get to know the photographers,” Nour emphasizes. “We do a lot of interviews and get to know their life, their drive and what their story is. We want to highlight their stories through our platform.”

They’ve also started an NFT (NonFungible Token) feature. NFTs are types of digital ledgers that represent real-world objects like art, music, and videos, that are bought and sold online. It’s essentially an opportunity for photographers to sell their digital images as “legitimate” art pieces.

Because each NFT gets a unique identifying code, it creates a kind of digital scarcity that allows the item to be sold at a higher value. It enables artists to claim ownership over the image as they can track, publicly, who buys and sells their image.

Nour explains, “What’s different about NFTs is that photographers get royalties from secondary sales, so they can make recurring revenue from the same artwork every time someone buys it. And because the

22 WINTER/SPRING 2022 idea of NFTs is to create a limited number of editions of the same artwork sold, their art appreciates in value over time. It’s a way to bring artists and photographers into the digital art world and help them monetize their work.” Scopio also creates materials to help creators learn about this opportunity by explaining what NFTs and cryptocurrencies are, and how to set up their digital wallets, and facilitate sales. Apparently, this is the future of the art world.

in a newly “woke” world. Scopio’s staunch social consciousness was a major factor in their recent success and recognition.

“I think we were one of the few, if not the only photography platform that had most of our content on the homepage related to the Black Lives

It has not been an easy journey to achieve the success and accolades Scopio now enjoys. As an Arab female-led company with a small team of nine, they have worked incredibly hard to carve out a space for themselves in the very white, maledominated tech and start-up space. As both a young entrepreneur and woman in tech, Nour says, “I definitely felt that I was tokenized a lot of the time by not being given the same level of trust and capital that my male counterparts are.”

Global Pandemic in Photos”, features 200 images and stories handpicked from their archives, documenting prevalent themes of isolation, hidden heroes, love and togetherness, and protests that arose during 2020. The first part depicts how people across the globe dealt with the isolation and fear. The second part focuses on how people came together to protest the injustices that were made more apparent during the pandemic - like BLM protests and resurgent Palestinian resistance to occupation and global solidarity (a story Nour is particularly passonate about highlighting).

The past two years are marked, not only by immense growth and success for the Scopio team, but also by a poetic return to their roots in sharing stories of social movements. “It reminded me of the important stories that needed to be elevated .

Scopio’s upcoming photo collection

Failure has been another challenge in Nour’s entrepreneurial journey. But it is also, she believes, the key to success. “The more you fail, the more likely you are to succeed, because the more you are trying things. I’m still getting comfortable with this, but I have to put myself out there and take more risks. If I can fail faster, success will come more easily and be more gratifying,” she illuminates.

The Scopio team’s talent, hard work, and dedication to its mission and vision, however, has allowed it to grow, develop, and thrive, particularly

Matter movement when the protests first started in June 2020,” Nour reflects. “We wanted to show our support and amplify these stories to bring mainstream attention to this issue.”

Aside from Nour’s Forbes 30 Under 30 feature, her partner Christina was also named a Top Entrepreneur to Follow

by NY Finance. Their community and client base is rapidly growing and they currently serve more than 25,000 businesses. Their upcoming book, “The Year Time Stopped: The

We all have the power to amplify stories. Even if we are without a camera or major social platform, these conversations around different human identities and experiences can start around your dinner table, in the classroom, or at the pub with your friends. Institutions like IC, in particular, have a responsibility to highlight these issues and topics, Nour reminds us.

Its photography 101: widening your lens broadens perception and depth.

For more information please visit: https://scop.io/

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IB DP 2022

Visual Art Exhibition

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Grade 12 Students of the IB Visual Art program presented their portfolios during a two day exhibition from March 16th-18th. The portfolios are the culmination of two years work - two years in which their lives as they knew them turned upside down. These stunning, challenging, mixed-media pieces touch on themes of isolation, mental health, fragmentation, collective memory, age, female power, and the metaphysical. Come, take a tour of some of the highlights!

Pictured Above: Asil Serhan, Isabelle Sayegh, Malek Halwani, Nour Fawaz, Chiara Tabet, Ilana Tabet, Lynn Domiati, Mira Mourad, Rayan Saoud and teacher Joumana Bou Khaled

Asil Serhan

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Chiara Tabet

Isabelle Sayegh

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Lynn Domiati

Malek Halwani

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Mira Mourad

Ilana Tabet

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Nour Fawaz

Rayan Saoud

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Hot Off the Press: Roula Khalaf is taking the Financial Times to new heights After graduating from IC, Khalaf spent a year at AUB before transferring to Syracuse University in New York State, where she completed her BA at the P.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication. She received an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University before launching her journalism career with Forbes Magazine in New York.

As she recounts, “I began my career at Forbes. I started off as a fact checker, then wrote a column about accounting, finding stories where there was fraud or other accounting games played. Then we moved to the UK, so I applied for a job at the FT and I was hired as a North Africa Correspondent.”

News travels fast. So does Roula Khalaf’s ‘83 schedule.

True to character, she has approximately 15 minutes to discuss her life and career before dropping her son off at school and beginning what will likely be a very busy work day.

What Khalaf omits, however, is that her stint on the accounting column included one of the first public takedowns of the infamous “Wolf of Wall Street,” stockbroker Jordan Belfort. Her article was so impactful that a fictionalized Khalaf is portrayed in Martin Scorsce’s popular 2013 film of the same name.

In the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, pandemic, and the compounding effects of these major world affairs on global markets, as the Editor of the Financial Times, it is a miracle Ms. Khalaf has any time to speak at all.

Beyond securing her legacy in popular culture, Khalaf’s 27-year career at the FT has been incredibly rich and rewarding - for both her and the publication.

Yup. The Financial Times.

Whether or not scanning its pinkpages is synonymous with your morning coffee, most are familiar with this leading newspaper. Not only is the publication considered the world’s most important business read consulted by senior financial decision makers - but it has also gained increased recognition for its internationally-minded politicaleconomic analysis, data-driven journalism, and rich cultural coverage. And, since January 2020, Roula Khalaf is in charge of it all.

After joining the FT in 1995, Khalaf was sent to cover the Algerian Civil War, “a big story at the time, especially for European audiences,” she notes. Over the years, her sharp coverage of socio-political and economic developments in Algeria, Iraq, Iran, and the Arab Spring, catapulted her up the ladder. She rose through the paper’s ranks - from a regional correspondent to Middle East Editor, to Foreign Editor.

“If you are interested in the

world, if you are interested in public service, if you are interested in making a difference, this is a great path.

”

Growing up in Beirut with a view of the iconic Le Commodore Hotel, the preferred outpost of the wayfaring journalists covering the country’s Civil War, Khalaf was exposed, and drawn, to the enigmatic and adventurous life of a foreign correspondent. Despite the instability around her, she remembers her time at IC fondly, stating, “I still think of high school at IC as some of my favorite memories.”

Her work has also garnered her much acclaim and global recognition. In 2009, Khalaf was awarded the International Media Awards “Peace Through Media’’ Award for her high quality news reporting and analysis. Her 2013 series, Qatar: From Emirate to Empire, won the Foriegn Press Association’s Feature Story of the Year, and in 2016, she was named the Foreign Commentator of the Year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards.

2016 was also the year Khalaf was promoted to deputy editor of the FT by her predecessor, Lionel Barber. The

WINTER/SPRING 2022 promotion “was a surprise,” she states, but clearly, she was up to the job. As deputy editor she led a network of over 100 foreign correspondents and oversaw a range of awardwinning editorial projects and newsroom initiatives.

Perhaps one of her most notable actions as deputy was a comprehensive and data-driven gender diversity campaign. Khalaf relays, “I was part of a focus group at the FT that was looking at why we have a lot of women subscribers, but women were not engaging with and reading our content.” A related study asked readers to conjure an image of the FT in their minds. The majority of participants described a man in a suit, or even a man with his back turned. Ultimately, intimidating and unwelcoming - particular for its female audience.

Khalaf explains, “The study revealed that the FT was intimidating to women because it was essentially seen as a man. So, we started to think, how can we change this perception of the FT? We started to pay more attention to pictures and tracking which topics our women readers engage with.”

To do so, they developed the JanetBot, a programme that analyzes the images on the homepage to ensure enough women are represented, and the “She Said He Said” bot, which tracks how many women are quoted in articles.

The issue is larger than the newspaper of course. The business and financial spheres that the FT largely focuses on are male heavy - particularly the senior leadership who is often the focus of media attention. But female voices are there, and Khalaf pushes her staff to find them.

Since these targeted efforts began, the average proportion of engagement from its female subscribers has risen by 4% and the percent of women featured in its columns rose from 20% - 30% over the course of 2020. These efforts are quietly seeping into the culture of the FT. Khalaf notes that staff now are self-monitoring gender balance on the homepage, before the bots alert them.

Now at its helm, Khalaf is determined to further diversify the newsroom itself. “I am very keen to work on gender diversity,” she states. “For a while, we have been hiring more women than men at the entry level, especially amongst our young talent. But our issue is that, because people tend to stay at the FT for a very long time, as you go up the echelons, there are far more men than women. I have made it a point to broaden the pipeline and promote more women to senior positions. I’m hoping that within

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the next two years we will have 50/50 representation on all senior leadership levels.”

When Khalaf was named editor in January 2020, her appointment as the first female editor in the paper’s 131year history garnered unprecedented media attention.

She is not the first woman editor of a major “legacy” news publication, but, with the newspaper’s reputation as the preferred source for the predominantly white, male financial elite, her appointment was a surprising, but very welcome, breath of fresh air.

Gender aside, Khalaf’s hands-on management style was exactly what the publication needed when COVID-19 swept the globe less than eight weeks after her promotion.

The FT’s position as a global newspaper covering the virus’ initial outbreak in China and its arrival to Europe and ensuing chaos in Italy, granted Khalaf and her team some foresight in preparing for an inevitable halt to normal operations. They had a chance to practice some “dry runs” before their offices moved completely online.

The biggest challenge was not necessarily adjusting to a new leadership role in the midst of the pandemic, but was navigating how to manage a widespread and disjointed team.

“I think the biggest challenge I found was that you had to manage in a very different way,” she states. “The journalists had a huge story to cover - the biggest story of their lives. On one hand, everybody was very motivated because it was an incredible privilege to report on.

But at the same time, everyone still had to deal with their personal lives, juggling their children and homeschooling alongside their jobs.

The pandemic also took a toll on peoples’ mental health and you had to be conscious of that. It required different types of management. To me, that was a really new and unexpected part of the job.”

“Perhaps my management style was good for that time,” Khalaf states upon reflection. “I push very hard but at the same time, I always try to understand people’s circumstances. It’s more of my style to be very hands-on and try to think of the staff’s wellbeing.”

Pushing prescribed stereotypes and gendered assumptions, Khalaf has shown that thoughtfulness, care, and human perspective are not incongruous to hardhitting, high-caliber journalism and competitive financial growth. Very much on the contrary - she has led the paper through a hugely tumultuous period towards some of the

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Khalaf leads the morning meeting

biggest growth it has experienced. She is razor sharp in her assertions, visions, and goals for the newspaper’s future.

“On the business side, it was very hard at the beginning of the pandemic. Economies essentially ground to a halt and there was total paralysis. But as time went on, we got more readers.” She recalls. In 2020, page views increased by 42% and subscription revenues were up by 16%.

Though Khalaf asserts that the core of the FT “is and will always remain business and finance,” she notes how the pandemic also led to increased recognition of the newspaper’s broader coverage and analysis and her hopes to push the paper in different directions.

“We have always done a lot more than just business coverage. I just don’t think it was as well-known or recognized. Take culture for example - the FT Weekend is, in my opinion, the best cultural product on the market.

We also discovered that we were really good at science and health reporting. It was a real moment for our data journalism, and our journalists did extremely well in covering the pandemic. Some of them have really become stars who are followed all over the world now. The past two years have highlighted that our high standards of reporting do go beyond business and finance.”

At the same time, Khalaf states, “I have also tried to take the FT in new directions that are relevant to our core readership. One of the first things I did as editor was to

start the Climate Capital Hub to expand and deepen our coverage of climate change. In many ways, it was the perfect moment because it has become an increasing concern for businesses. So I think we always have to keep in mind what is relevant to our readership, while staying attuned to broader issues.”

Ever an example of both innovation and sound judgment.

It is both a precarious and exciting time for journalism today. Social media has changed news consumption as we know it, and the proliferation of both fake news and harsh censorship has made many reluctant to trust even the most reliable and high-quality news sources. At the same time, the challenges of modernity underscore the necessity of great journalism to provide credible information and to hold power accountable.

“I think Journalism is still the most exciting and most relevant field, because it’s an extremely fulfilling career,” Khalaf states with a glimmer in her eye. “It’s very demanding, and you have to work very hard to make a name for yourself and to make an impact. But if you are interested in the world, if you are interested in public service, if you are interested in making a difference, this is a great path.”

It seems that IC’s global-minded approach to education and drive to instill values of service may have rubbed off - just a bit.

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Yalla Cougars!: The Return of IC Athletics

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As the students of the newly minted American Boys School in Smyrna indifferently passed by the popular store where the list of events and enticing prizes for the school’s first ever “Field Day Athletics Sports Day,” were displayed, their headmaster, Alexander MacLachlan, was dismayed. The promise of a day filled with marbles, leapfrog, kite-flying, pole vaulting, running, tug of war, and sack races, garnered about as much excitement, it seemed, as a math test.

A longtime athlete himself, MacLachlan was determined to foster a similar love of sports and competition in his students. He figured a field day filled with prizes was the perfect solution, but something was clearly still amiss.

Ultimately, that field day did happen. Not only was the day itself a huge success, a lively event with 4,000 spectators from all over Smyrna and the surrounding suburbs, but it established a precedent for interscholastic competition in Turkey and the region. Inspired by its success, the Pan-Ionian Association of Smyrna began their own annual sports competitions. And just four years after MacLachlan’s first field day, the first modern Olympic games were held in Athens in 1896.

A mere coincidence? Perhaps. Though, as MacLachlan states in his memoir, Potpourri of Sidelights and Shadow from Turkey, “We will leave it to the research experts of the future to trace back to its original source the modern little spring from which trickled the stimulating life spirit of athletic revival in modern Greece.”

Fast forward 130 years, MacLachlan would likely be overjoyed to hear about how, from the ‘modern little spring’ in Ottoman Smyrna to present day Beirut, that athletic spirit has trickled into the souls of the 1000+ students who showed up for IC’s extracurricular sports tryouts this Fall and Winter.

Today, IC’s robust athletic program, led by Omar Shmaitilly with the support of Karine Naji (Athletic CoordinatorRas Beirut) & Jennifer Chehade (Athletic Coordinator - AA), is beloved by its athletes and onlookers alike for its competitive nature and as a beacon of IC spirit. IC participates in eight different local leagues, as well as different national and international tournaments, and is recognized across the region as a very competitive, highcaliber program.

During the 2019-2020 season, IC athletics were on a roll.

The Boys Varsity Basketball Team won first place at a regional tournament in Izmir, and in March 2020, the JV Boys and Girls Basketball and Football teams traveled to Dubai and Greece for a NESAC (Near East Schools Activities Conference) tournament. They returned triumphant, with first place for girls football and boys basketball, and second place for boys football. In fact, this was the last time any team traveled, as panic around a well-known virus was quickly growing.

It was the beginning of the end, Mr. Shmaitailly recalls.

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“Some parents had fears, ‘should we send our kids, should we not send our kids?’ We had to buy face masks, and it was the first time any of us really had worn them. It was so weird. We returned back from Dubai and Greece with trophies in hand. Then, everything shut down.”

Like all other aspects of our daily lives, sports too, transitioned to the virtual world. The athletics program organized Google Classrooms to share videos, tips, and exercises to keep student athletes engaged. They had every coach prepare videos for mobility skills, strength and conditioning, some of which even featured the beloved Cougar mascot demonstrating the exercises.

“We kept students engaged through our Google Classrooms and social media platforms. We shared new challenges every week. We tried to somehow keep the new spirit of belonging, especially as we were all so far away,” Omar notes.

In lieu of the usual athletic awards ceremonies,

The

athletic Department surprised each awardee of each sport with Most Important Player, Most Valuable Player and the Cougar of the Year and Male and Female Athletes of the Year at the students’ homes. They coordinated with parents, so the athletes were in complete shock when the Cougar knocked on their door and presented them with their trophies. Festivities at their respective homes followed, and the 2019-2020 athletic season formally concluded.

During the summer months, The athletic department prepared as they normally would - who knew what to expect the coming year? They hoped it might return to normal.

Sports are not only essential to kids’ physical and mental health, but they also foster qualities in line with IC’s values. They help develop self-esteem, teach about success and loss, maintain discipline, and encourage teamwork. “Sports build character. They also build a spirit of belonging and a healthy community. From the first day I joined the Cougars Family, whenever there was a game, you would see students, parents, and friends coming together to cheer for us. This what we seek, the spirit of belonging and loving IC,” Mr. Shmaitilly asserts. In an ideal world, athletics would be prioritized in school’s pandemic reopening plans. Sports is everything!

Unfortunately the high-contact nature of many sports makes it very difficult to control and mitigate the spread of the virus, especially when concerning unvaccinated children.

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rallied those first IC students around McLaughlin’s Field Day. The boys rushed to sign up for events and practiced rigorously after the Reverend invited other schools in the area to participate in the event and prizes were at stake.

So, the pitches and gyms remained empty for the 20202021 school year. Save for two weeks in October where they were able to operate on a recreational basis, the athletic program was stagnant.

As students returned for in-person classes this year, however, so too, did athletic programming! In early October, they began Phase 1: Football, Track and Field, Archery, and Ultimate Frisbee tryouts for Grades 5-12. A record 550+ students took part. The department started offering private tennis sessions for the students as well.

They launched Phase 2 in early February (indoor sports for the same age group) - Basketball, Badminton, Swimming and Taekwondo. 520 students joined this round of tryouts, alongside 200+ grade 4-9 students from Ain Aar, in basketball and football. Phase 3 will be launched the first week of April, expanding the offerings to Elementary students. They have also started a new Zumba program, to encourage more female participation in athletics.

The kids are especially thrilled. “We have noticed a big impact on student’s morale and mentality. We saw the smiles and noticed a change of mood when they started athletics again. The spirit is back,” Mr. Shmaitilly notes.

Teachers & supervisors are happy too, he jokes. Now they can go back to the saying, “Failing to behave in class will automatically lead you to lose your spot on the athletic team.”

The one thing missing, however, is competition.

It was the promise of competition, in fact, that

Even though practices are underway, COVID restrictions demand they remain noncontact. Meaning no games. Not even internal scrimmages. This is the next challenge the team is determined to tackle. “We are starting to lose interest. Those who started in October haven’t been able to play a single game, even against each other. We need to try and boost them up and the only way to do this is by having them play games,” Shmaitilly relays.

The Athletics department is determined to revive competition. Even though IC’s rival schools have not begun their programs, they hope to bring in clubs & meets for the teams to play against. They also hope that they will be able to host some version of the annual Alton Reynolds Tournament.

The tapered athletic program has not dampened Shmaitilly Naji, and Chehade spirits, and they have big plans for the future. They are working on a program to boost collegiate scholarship opportunities for their players, collaborating with an international scouting organization and elevating athletes’ profiles through social media, tournaments, and other CV boosting opportunities.

They are also very much looking forward to traveling again, and are hoping that their athletes might get the opportunity to do so by the end of the year. Travel is a nice experience and contact for our athletes as it exposes their sports capabilities and enhances their team spirit and bond. They wait for it each year! Omar adds by experience.

“Especially for the seniors,” Karine notes, Until then, we are all counting down the days when we can cheer, “Go Cougars!”

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SCHOOL

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Updates ‘60 Nicholas Khairallah sent in the following photos

Ibrahim Khoury, Najib Backdache, and Nicholas Khairallah with IC‘s previous president Don Bergman

‘64 Victor Haddad lost his leg as a result of a couple of blood clots lodging in his right leg, which necessitated the amputation of the said leg to save his life. He says all is well, and he has a great supportive family. He sends his love to friends and family.

‘65 Marwan Stambuli shared the following message: Our Ic1965.com website is growing with events and updates.

Please visit it and let us have your news if you have not joined the group yet.

He also sent in the below photos:

Updates ‘81 Hani Riman opened a new nursery in Ain Zhalta that includes all kinds of fruits and ornamentals called The Green Ranches. There is a special discounts for IC and AUB alumnus, using the phone number 03706254.

‘82 Ruba Moussa has been working in real estate for the past 15 years, which she is very passionate about. In 2017 she returned to AUB to receive her Realtor license. Her company is Rubaslist Real Estate Services and she asks that If you have potential clients, please refer them to her.

Whether they are looking to buy, sell or rent a property, they will guide you through all available options based on your & budget & needs. For viewing of properties in Lebanon, contact her on + 961 3 752372, or email Rubaslist@gmail. com.

‘89 Firas Sinjab and Diana Kaissy sent in the following message and photos: Our class held a reunion February 25th at Lily’s ABC Verdun. Some of us had not met since we last parted suddenly in March 1989 (due to Al Tahrir war outbreak) and never came back to finish our school year.

‘97 Hussein M. Dajani just resigned from Nissan Motor Co. as a General Manager for Digital and CX Transformation for Africa, Middle East, India, Turkey, and Oceania and

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will be joining Deloitte Digital as a Partner leading on the Advertising, Marketing, and Commerce vertical for the Middle East region.

‘02 Nader Houella moved to Riyadh in 2021. He is currently a Business Instructor and Career Coach at the Lincoln International College in Riyadh.

‘17 Georges Kanaan started a dual-title PhD program in oceanography and astrobiology in September. His current research was funded through a departmental award given to the best proposal, that aims to address pollution in the ocean. I’m studying how certain cold-living bacteria (extremophiles) may produce emulsifiers to allow us to clean up future oil spills in the ocean. The most popular commercially available emulsifier (Corexit) is toxic to the environment, so there is a critical need for an effective, non-toxic product.

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Letters to the Editor In these sad days in Lebanon and indeed, the World, I am certain the whole IC Community is looking for better days, especially on the home front.

For those of us who graduated in the fifties when almost everything was smooth and full of happiness - thankfully the IC Spirit is still full of joys from the past. And also with great memories!

After over 40 years serving on the IC Board, I am happy to note high positive signs at IC in spite of sad issues and indeed mainly no progress on the political front in Lebanon: only divisions, feuds, conspiracies, and ongoing poor governance and corruption.

We thus pray for honorable parliamentary elections next May, and results that would pave the way for a Resurrection ! And I fear and pray that IC and other international educational institutions will not be submitted to equivalents to Izmir Turkish Days of the past, and tighter negative interventions as to freedom and quality education.

And with hope that the IC spirit would always prevail !

Miracles seldom happen, yet it may be the only way out for our beloved country.

Sincerely, Elie Sehnaoui ‘56 I remember that last year at IC so vividly. It was a year

of hope and new beginnings. Sitting on the rail and benches next to Rockefeller hall was the ‘ thing to do’ with my friend Mandana. IC, to me, is a spirit, a way of life, an openness and acceptance to differences along the way, and a forever feeling of belonging.

Zeina Madi ‘88

Zeina and Madana on their bench

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We regret to inform you that Abdus Salam Shuayb ‘57 passed away in January 2022. IC faculty and staff send their deepest condolences to the Shuayb family.

We regret to inform you that Ayman Sawwaf ‘72 has passed away. IC faculty and staff send their deepest condolences to the Sawwaf family.

We regret to inform you that Stelio Scamanga ‘56 has passed away. IC faculty and staff send their deepest condolences to the Scamanga family.

In Memoriam

We regret to inform you that Nabil Hamidi Sakr ‘87 passed away in January 2022. IC faculty and staff send their deepest condolences to the Sakr family.

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“I AM IC” is a touching story of a school looking for a place it could finally call home.

Sold at Antoine Bookstores, IC Advancement Office and online at: www.antoineonline.com All proceeds go towards the IC Scholarship Fund International College P.O. Box 113-5373, Beirut, Lebanon.

Tel. 961 1 367420/33, Email: alumni@ic.edu.lb 305 East 47th Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10017 Tel. : 212 529 3005, Fax: 212 529 8525. Email: icny@intlcollegeny.com www.ic.edu.lb

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