How Top Entrepreneurs turned Crisis into Opportunity
Entrepreneurs play a critical role in our economy, and they face plenty of challenges daily. However, the last year was particularly challenging on many levels, especially in Lebanon. How did some entrepreneurs deal with the crisis and continued in their businesses despite the COVID-19 crisis, political instabilities and economical challenges?
Let's hear their stories and ideas of some entrepreneurs who turned crisis into opportunity!

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Speakers for this panel are:
- Anthony Abou Antoun - Crazy Events / Artists & More
- David Frem - Frem Industry: Car Manufacturing & Design
- Jamil Haddad - Colonel Beer
- Samer Azar - Alex the CFO
- Samer Toutounji - Eshmoon Organics
- Yusr Sabra - Wakilni

Moderated by Randa Farah - Founder & Manager of Lebtivity.com & I Have Learned Academy, University Instructor

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More info about the speakers below:

- Anthony Abou Antoun - Crazy Events / Artists & More
Anthony Abou Antoun, being one of the youngest event producers across Lebanon is the owner of various entertainment brands such as Artists and More Entertainment, Crazy Events, Ibiza Dancers & The Crazy City. Despite the unfortunate events cross the country, Anthony has produced The Frozen City Ice Wolrd Tour, Jonas Blue On Ice and a series of events. He has taken the decision to accommodate alongside the virtual world and decided to launch www.thecrazycity.com recently. His experience includes 16 years of production alongside artists management for the biggest events and brands in Beirut & the Middle East.

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- Jamil Haddad - Colonel Beer
Born and raised in Batroun, Jamil Haddad is an adventurer at heart. Growing up, he always had a desire for new experiences and spent much of his time camping, enjoying the outdoors, and windsurfing at Batroun's famous spot Colonel. That very spot inspired the name of Jamil's project, Colonel, a microbrewery that produces and fosters the culture of high-quality craft beer, on a green platform in the heart of Batroun city.
But how did it all start? The beer has long been one of Batroun's favorite drinks and that culture nurtured Haddad's own passion for beer and motivated him finally to take up home brewing. But home brewing was not widespread in Lebanon and that made the process hard to learn in the beginning. However, after pursuing rigorous research, attending several workshops in the UK, and touring different breweries and beer festivals in Europe, Jamil finally learned the craft and became proficient at it. Fast forward to a couple of years later, Colonel Beer makes its much-anticipated debut in the summer of 2014!
In addition to their beer, Colonel’s micro-distillery is also now producing a new range of crafted spirits: gin, vodka, and Arak.

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- David Frem - Frem Industry: Car Design & Manufacturing
David Frem, creator of the first Lebanese car, never lost sight of his achievement. He believes that: "Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared to believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances." He strived for his achievement, that was at first and at a time a dream. He never stopped; every obstacle was simply a course to develop his accomplishment muscle. He gave himself room to fail and fought like hell to attain. He planned purposefully, prepared prayerfully, proceeded positively and pursued persistently.
His story starts at the age of 17, when he realized his gift of drawing cars.... His enthusiasm towards vehicles, their shapes, curves and performance grew with the years.
He was capable to design a 2 dimension car using programs, which allowed him to propose the execution to his first vehicle model as his university senior project. Professors and board declined David's proposal five times in a row, but he was persistent enough to convince them and that's when his project started at mid year 2005.
A1/3 scale model was manually crafted and named the Blue Shark car. It took seven months to be completed...Blown away by this accomplishment, the university graduated David as a distinguished student, however David was seeking an even more tough challenge, mastering the 3D designing programs, he decided to execute an actual car, handmade, 100% Lebanese.
Early year 2006, able to get his first sponsor, David commenced his journey in realizing his vision. It took him 3 years to reach his goal, facing many obstacles since Lebanon was going through a rough period, unstable political situation, assassinations and war. But none of the above was capable of stopping David from moving forward.
2008, Frem f1 car was revealed to the public... it was garnered for over a year with media coverage, national and international. His campaign adopted one theme: ''It is only One's dream can build a country''. All Lebanese youth were looking up to David... But still David was not feeling fulfilled. He needed to test his skills globally therefore he participated in a worldwide competition, the Michelin challenge design 2009. David Frem and for the first time in the Middle East history, Lebanon won this competition and David returned home in one hand a trophy and in the other hand an Outstanding Design Award. His second model the Frem FR 1 amazed the jury; it was an astonishing design that occupied headlines in New York times news paper.
The world recognized this small country and Lebanon entered proudly the wide world of Automotive design.
Although his dream seemed difficult to reach, David never thought that it was impossible to achieve. Frem F1 was his beginning, Frem FR 1 was his worldwide success and his latest achievement, introducing the Frem Beirut edition.... New car, New Concept ... on Beirut Road.
Frem Beirut edition, the successor of both Frem F1 and Frem FR 1 , has not been designed for the average person. It has been designed for those who want a car with a fierce hard lineand a rush of Adrenaline.
Frem Beirut edition's design took around a year to be finalized on papers. Innovative in its concept, this car definitely made David the pioneer in designing and executing such a vehicle with such an exquisite form in the entire Middle East region.
The Frem Beirut Edition car took only 6 months to be implemented. A time record was broken.... and results were unquestionably amazing. It was launched in Forum de Beirut in 2010, National and International media covered this event focusing on the idea of car industries in Lebanon.
Early year 2011, David started his research to design and manufacture another kind of vehicles; he wanted to explore the horizon of his designs.
Frem Immortal, the new 4x4 design by David Frem revealed in summer 2018 after 7 years of R&D and the first Lebanese vehicle made to have a number plate as the first time in Lebanon’s history.

- Samer Azar - Alex the CFO
Samer Azar, CFA is a financial storyteller who specializes in helping people overcome cashflow-related anxiety.
Unlike other financiers, Samer’s experience was forged in entrepreneurship and angel
investing. He has helped his clients collectively raise $15 million in financing. As the founder
of Alex the CFO, Samer is on a mission to help ambitious founders sleep soundly knowing
that their books are handled by experts.

- Samer Tutunji - Eshmoon Organics
Samer Tutunji, a chemist and yogi, was driven by the holistic health philosophy promoted by yoga to start Eshmoon. He originally wanted to produce organic cosmetics but felt the Lebanese market was not ready for that and decided to start with food- starting with the most loved food product: chocolate.
Eshmoon is a brand of healthy and Holistic products made from natural and organic ingredients founded in 2012. Eshmoon Holistics won in 2018 the second position in the Brilliant Lebanese Awards for the title of business of the year. Famous for its healthy chocolate truffles spreads and tablets, Eshmoon has a variety of culinary products ranging from cereals to nut butters and coffee. Distributing in health and food stores in Lebanon, Eshmoon is starting to export its products to international markets like the UK, Canada, and UAE.
Many aspects of Eshmoon are innovative and can be summed up with coming back to our local roots in order to express their unique local identity.

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- Yusr Sabra - Wakilni Yusr is the co-founder of Wakilni.
A doer with a passion for building and empowering productive and happy teams; Yusr established Wakilni – a smart logistics solution focused on e-commerce SMEs – in 2016. Today Wakilni is one of the fastest growing last mile service providers covering all of Lebanon. In 2020, Yusr established the Wakilni E-commerce Hub which offers e-commerce businesses shelving, storage and fulfillment services in addition to delivery. Yusr was featured by the American University of Beirut as one of the women alumni impacting the world through their work. She is committed to transferring enthusiasm and knowledge and to being the driving force behind creating and delivering services that make people's lives easier

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- Moderator:
Randa Farah is the founder of I Have Learned Academy & Lebtivity.com as well as a University Instructor at USJ.
Randa has an extensive track record in HR Management and Recruitment across multinationals in various industries. Her practical expertise is supported by her degrees in HR Management, Organizational Psychology & Business Advertising and Marketing. Her specialization is Happiness at Work, Stress and Wellness at work. In addition to being a corporate trainer, Randa has been an instructor at USJ for over 10 years in HR Management & Organizational Psychology Courses for Master students. Randa is an international speaker, sharing her passion for HR, Happiness at Work & Soft Skills at conferences & trainings across Europe, The Gulf and the Middle East.‍
She is also the founder of Lebtivity.com, calendar for events, keeping Lebanon updated about all types of cultural, sports, artistic, culinary, events in Lebanon.

This session is online and Free of Charge!
Booking is a must on the below link:
https://ihjoz.com/events/5787?#checkout

Donations are optional and encouraged, distributed to families in need.

Booking your free slot ahead is a must, places are limited.

This session is organized by I Have Learned Academy, part of a program in collaboration with the US Embassy in Lebanon named: Toolkit for life in crisis times & after COVID-19.

Supported by Air France, Lebtivity.com

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