Following a rigorous selection process, half of this year's 400 applicants were invited to present their papers at the event, which took place over four days at the Crowne Plaza on Hamra Street.

Conference Chair Dr. Haidar Harmanani, professor of computer science and assistant dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, said this year’s conference included an unprecedented number of keynote speeches, panel discussions, and tutorials, and aimed to stimulate constructive debate by proposing an array of "visions for the future" of the field.

Electronic engineering is indeed in a growth phase. It may seem a rarefied field of research but its subject permeates modern life, from cell phones to microwaves, medical images to biometric passports, underpinning our systems not only of telecommunications and digital entertainment but also those of energy and health care.

"Electronic engineering is a rising, still relatively new field with an accelerating turnover of new research," says Technical Program Chair Dr. Fadi Kurdahi, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Irvine. “For that reason, many papers are published at conferences rather than in journals."

A session on nano-based systems served to confirm Kurdahi’s point about the field’s cutting edge Cellphones, MP3 players, and computers are ever more densely packed with functions powered by silicon transistors. The average laptop now contains more than 50 million transistors, each around 100 nanometers in length. Soon, however, the silicon transistor will reach its lower size limit, thwarting the industry's drive to create smaller, faster systems.

Nanotechnology could overcome this impasse, superseding silicon with microscopic molecular devices that could transform electronics. Conference Chair Dr. Mohamad Sawan of the University of Montreal predicted that a terabyte hard drive the size of an apple seed will appear within the next five years.

Several presentations addressed environmental concerns. A keynote speech by Dr. Bernard Courtois, director of Multi-Project Circuits (CMP) in France, outlined new methods of reducing energy consumption with low-power electronic devices. Professor Andreas G. Andreou of Johns Hopkins University noted that production of a single microchip consumes 40 kilograms of water and produces four kilograms of waste.

Adreou predicts that implantable microchips will be integral to health care in coming decades, facilitating diagnosis, drug administration, and patient monitoring.

Sawan’s work exemplifies Adreou’s prediction. As the Canada Research Chair on Smart Medical Devices, Sawan is advancing real-time diagnostic tools by circulating blood and cells through microchips, as well as developing "brain machines."

“Through CT and MRI scanners have furthered our knowledge of the brain, we have yet to discover precisely how human vision happens, or how an idea is formed," he says.

Sawan hopes to decipher neurotransmitter connections that cause diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and then to create implantable microelectronic devices that directly connect to the neurosystem, allowing experts to monitor the brain and wirelessly modify the implanted device to optimize treatment.

Middle East-based electronic engineers contributed over 17 percent of papers presented at the conference, which also attracted numerous Arab expatriates. Hazem El Tahawy, managing director of Mentor Graphics Egypt, expressed satisfaction with this turnout, stressing the importance of developing a regional electronics industry structure to support emerging local talent.

The conference offered LAU students a unique opportunity to interact with international industry professionals.

"This exposure to different perspectives on such a wide range of topics will help me to narrow my focus on when I begin my own research," said Fouad Kada, an electronic engineering graduate student at LAU Byblos.

Alluding to LAU's recent string of ABET accreditations in engineering and computer science, Harmanani said, "this conference takes it to the next level by shifting the focus from teaching to advanced research."

Luiz Santos of the University of Santa Catalina in Brazil commented on the conference's organization and dynamic atmosphere. "People are interacting a lot in small sessions, which really fulfills the goal of establishing international connections," he said.

Next year's ICECS will be held in Seville, Spain.

More than 200 participants convened at LAU Beirut to take part in the fifth IEEE Lebanon Communications Workshop, organized on November 12 by the IEEE Communications Society Lebanon chapter.

Dr. Sanaa Sharafeddine, assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics and general co-chair of the event, attributes the high attendance to the caliber of the technical program that addressed diverse topics with focus on emergency communications, highlighting the critical role of telecommunication technologies, networks, and applications in crisis management and disaster mitigation.

Telecom engineers and executives, university professors and students from various Lebanese universities also had the opportunity to discuss emerging topics — cloud computing, mobile broadband evolution, and the recent deployment of 3G in Lebanon, among others — with experts from Lebanon and Europe.

The event was co-organized by LAU, the Telecom Regulatory Authority in Lebanon, and LAU’s IEEE student branch and ACM student chapter.

Dr. Philippe Frossard, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, says that 21st-century scholars have the duty and responsibility to engage with the communities they serve, and act as public advocates for change.

“The goal of this workshop is to provide participants with up-to-date knowledge and opportunities for networking,” he says. “In that respect it should also be a platform for initiating applied research activities that address relevant problems at national and global levels.”

The event approached its theme from technical, social, policy and regulatory angles.

“Technology design and development can no longer be divorced from social concerns and business interest,” said Dr. Irina Shklovski from IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. “Instilling this kind of reflexive engagement in students through workshops like this is a great approach.”

Several speakers emphasized that the broad use of mobile communication technologies and their increasing integration in our daily life make them all the more crucial during disasters and crisis management.

Dr. Laurent Franck, head of Telecom Bretagne’s Toulouse branch, said that a failure of telecommunications could trigger a “chain reaction” leading to humanitarian, economic and political chaos.

According to Franck, successfully meeting this challenge will depend on the willingness of political and economic actors to develop emergency telecommunications.

Students present at the event engaged in animated, sometimes lengthy discussions with the professional participants.

“I was happy to see students from different universities across Lebanon eager to learn about emerging topics and to interact with the invited speakers and guest professionals the way they did,” said Dr. Sanaa Sharafeddine.

Mounir Younes, a computer science student and president of ACM’s student chapter at LAU, said the workshop “revealed the importance of technology in our lives from a risk detection and recovery perspective.” Younes added that research in this area can potentially increase efficiency and decrease casualties in an emergency.

The workshop was sponsored by MTC Touch, Cisco, Nokia Siemens Networks and BMB.

Fifty-six teams from nearly 40 universities around the region competed for a top prize of brand-new laptops and the chance to continue on to this year’s international contest in Poland.

The event’s popularity has grown considerably in recent years, with this year’s contest setting a record for number of teams admitted.

Dr. Faisal Abu-Khzam, associate professor of computer science at LAU Beirut and this year’s contest site director, attributes this to rising regional awareness of the contest, adding that more and more countries have been organizing their own national versions.

“Last year, for instance, there were only two teams each from Jordan and Syria. Both have since organized their own national contests, and this year have sent us 11 teams each,” he says.

Organized by the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics at LAU Beirut, the three-day event included recruitment presentations by major sponsors, technical and practice sessions, a trip to Jeita Grotto, and an awards dinner at Beirut’s Riviera Hotel.

The actual contest took place on the final day. Teams of three students had five hours to solve as many of the ten programming problems correctly as possible. Coaches watched anxiously from the sidelines as their teams hunched over workstations spread over two floors of the Learning Resources Center (LRC). Nearly 30 student volunteers from LAU’s computer science department helped monitor the event.

In the end, two teams solved six problems each while the rest solved five or less. The top five teams were from Egyptian universities, with German University of Cairo taking first place and Cairo University taking second and third places.

It was the second ACPC competition for third-year LAU computer science major Jad Baz. He prepared for the contest by attending regular algorithms sessions with Abu-Khzam and practicing on his own time with problems from previous contests.

“We tried not to get very stressed,” says Baz. “Of course we were disappointed when we got wrong answers, but we kept our cool and didn't give up.”

His team – called the LAU-Iterators – made up of Baz, Jad El-Chmaytilli, Mohamad Yassine, and coached by Abu-Khzam, managed to solve three problems and was on their way to the fourth. “We were proud of the final outcome, even more so of our teamwork and team spirit,” says Baz.

Ali Anous, a second-year student at Tishreen University in Syria, says the opportunity to visit Beirut and participate in his first contest was “amazing.”

“I hope to continue in this field and participate in many contests throughout university,” he says.

The contest was sponsored by Consolidated Contracting Company (CCC), Facebook, Byblos Bank, Ayna Corp, Zakhem Engineering, and Quantech (which donated the three laptops for the first-place team), and organized under the high patronage of Dr. Hassan Diab, Minister of Education and Higher Education.

LAU Beirut played host for the second year in a row. According to Abu-Khzam, the decision to invite IT recruiters to give presentations reflects a concerted effort to turn the event into a premiere recruitment forum.

CCC and Facebook gave presentations about internship and employment opportunities. Facebook also administered a coding exam to around 100 contest participants.

“Preparation for the competition motivates our students to learn more and to excel,” Abu-Khzam told the audience of participants, sponsors, officials, faculty and staff during the event’s opening ceremony. “It is an opportunity for them to show what they can do, and gain visibility, especially among recruiters,” he added.

LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra during the opening ceremony emphasized the importance of scientific curiosity in leading to important inventions, including the computer. “Don’t forget to compete today,” he said to the contest participants, “to promote the field and exhibit the talents our region has in the sciences.”

Dr. Samer Habre, chairperson of the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, agrees about the importance of exposure.

“I had many students from other countries approaching my colleagues and me to inquire about LAU’s graduate programs,” he says. “Indeed, we might well be seeing some of our competitors joining us here in the future.”

Habre and his team of colleagues and student volunteers started planning for the contest back in August, booking hotel rooms and getting bags, pens and t-shirts branded. “The bulk of the work came in the two weeks leading up to the ACPC,” he said, “and despite the challenges that come with organizing such a large event, it has been very successful.”

The workshop was organized by the Paris-based National Institute for Demographic Studies, a specialized research institute working in the field of population studies.

Participants included 18 undergraduate seniors and graduate students from LAU, Université Saint-Joseph, and the Lebanese University, as well as four LAU faculty members, all interested in honing their quantitative skills for future research projects.

Four INED associates — Cora Mezger, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sussex, Sorana Toma, a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford University, and Lama Kabbanji, researcher at the Institute of Research for Development — led the training, which introduced quantitative migration research methods and analysis of macro- and micro-level data. Throughout the course the participants had hands-on sessions with Microsoft Excel and the quantitative analysis software SPSS.

Dr. Paul Tabar, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at LAU Beirut and the director of IMS, says that the purpose of the workshop was twofold.

“The first, more straightforward aim was to show students and faculty how to construct a survey question and use SPSS to analyze data collected from that survey,” he says.

“The other aim was to raise awareness among faculty about the need to teach these kinds of skills in a more in-depth way in their own courses, to make our students who are embarking on a master’s degree program better equipped with quantitative research skills,” he adds.

Tabar would like to see students writing their master’s theses using both qualitative and quantitative research. “Without both of these components, their theses will simply be pieces of argumentative writing,” he says.

Ph.D. student Mariam Hasbani says that the regression analysis (modeling and analyzing multiple variables) portion of the training was most useful. “Since I'm planning to conduct a survey for my own Ph.D., I may consider the migration topic because the theories we discussed were very interesting, and of course the practical part we did on SPSS will be very helpful.”

One of Tabar’s students, Mira Mawla, a senior political science/international affairs major at LAU, decided to participate because there were a lot of concepts in quantitative research that she wasn't yet familiar with.

“I had forgotten how to work with Excel, so this was a good refresher. Also, I'm sure I will use the SPSS program soon, especially for my senior study,” Mawla says.

The participants clocked 26 hours of class time over the four-day span, which is more than half a semester’s workload, according to Tabar.

“Despite its intensity, one cannot expect such a workshop to replace a one-semester course — but given the time limitations the instructors did an excellent job,” Tabar says. “They managed to convey how important quantitative research skills and SPSS are for any student’s future research.”

IMS gave the attendees a certificate of completion at the end of the workshop to “make student attendance useful,” says Tabar. “This can also be added to their CVs and make them more attractive candidates later on.”
 

The university now has the first and only ABET-accredited computer science program in all of Lebanon.

Following closely on the heels of ABET’s accreditation of all undergraduate degree programs in the School of Engineering, the announcement triggered a wave of elation in the LAU community.

LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra greeted the “thrilling news,” describing it as “a remarkable success story to be added to that of the School of Engineering” last week.

“LAU is on an unstoppable roll,” said Jabbra in a university announcement, thanking the faculty and staff of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Byblos departmental chair Dr. Haidar Harmanani, LAU Provost Dr. Abdallah Sfeir, and the School of Arts & Sciences’ outgoing deans Dr. Samira Aghacy and Dr. Fouad Hashwa.

Sfeir seconded Jabbra’s remarks in an email announcement to the community, describing ABET accreditation as a “landmark achievement” for LAU. Sfeir also gave general credit to LAU's institutional culture of rigorous assessment and review, a legacy of its recently completed five-year strategic plan.

“LAU got better today, and it gets better every time we demonstrate our commitment to the virtuous circle of assessment, evaluation and improvement,” Sfeir wrote. “ABET accreditation of the computer sciences program is an exceptional accomplishment on this route.”

Formal ABET approval capped years of preparation by the department. A joint message from Dr. Harmanani, who was the principal coordinator for the accreditation push, and Dr. Samer Habre, chair of the department at LAU Beirut, cited the “hard work and dedication of all entities” of the departments on both campuses throughout 2010, including administrative assistants and computer center staff. The chairs noted that “faculty members in particular worked endless hours revising the curriculum, assessing outcomes, and making the necessary recommendations for improvement.”

ABET’s visiting team evaluated the program in November of last year, and submitted an overwhelmingly positive report. According to Dr. Harmanani, the team was especially impressed with students’ technical knowledge, alumni successes, faculty publications and university facilities for the program.

Other positive signs similarly emerged, long before ABET’s decision was announced. Months ago an ABET official wrote to Harmanani to inform him that an exhibit of thorough and well-written institutional self-studies displayed at the April 2011 ABET Symposium had selected LAU’s for inclusion.

Describing LAU as a regional “pioneer” in computer science, Habre said ABET’s imprimatur would yield tangible benefits beyond formal recognition, including increased enrollments and “improved scholarly output of faculty, strengthening further our position in Lebanon and the region.”

Several computer science students were especially active in the accreditation initiative, and described themselves as thrilled by the news. Gioia Wehbe and Omar Omran, chairs of LAU’s chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), both said the program’s new status would boost students’ prospects for admission into competitive graduate schools, and ACM vice chair Nour Mohtadi suggested that top companies would be more likely to aggressively recruit from the program’s undergraduates.

“What ABET does is set a quality stamp,” Harmanani affirmed. “It says, ‘there are all these universities, and then there is LAU.’”

Stressing that accreditation must be renewed after six years, however, Harmanani counseled against complacency. “The challenge for us is to insure that we maintain this quality level,” he says, pointing out that a new ABET coordinator will be tasked with managing the ongoing assessment necessary for reaccreditation down the line.

Students got the inside scoop on up-and-coming alternative modes of transportation during a lecture on electric bicycles and motorcycles held at LAU Beirut on July 8.

The lecture was given by Mohamed Chehab, CEO and general manager of TechTrax, a Lebanon-based distribution company that specializes in electric vehicles and alternative power.

According to Dr. Ahmad Houri, associate professor of chemistry at LAU Beirut’s Natural Sciences Department, the lecture was organized so that his Introduction to Environmental Science students could gain exposure to local initiatives taking place in the field.

“If used on a wide scale in Lebanon, electric bikes and motorcycles would have a very important environmental impact, especially on improving air quality in the urban areas,” says Houri. “However, wide-scale use is still dependent on more reliable electricity supplies, available infrastructure, and cheaper prices.”
 

Houri introduced the concept of the alternative transport lecture to his students.
 

Chehab told the audience of students that green energy is changing the way people live. “With electric vehicles, you’re consuming less and economizing on what you consume,” he said.
 

A battery-operated electric vehicle on display outside Orme-Grey Hall at LAU Beirut.
 

Chehab explained the battery life and cost of the electric bikes and motorcycles on display to students of the Introduction to Environmental Science course.
 

Here, Chehab demonstrates some of the bike’s components.
 

“The institute is the first of its kind in Lebanon,” says Dr. Haidar Harmanani, professor of computer science and chairperson of the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics at LAU Byblos. “We felt a strong need to promote the field among high school-aged youths, given the country’s shortage of computer science majors, and show them that computer science is about more than writing programs — it involves creativity and innovation,” he adds.

Organized by the department, the program consisted of a series of guest lectures as well as practice labs led by two instructors, Byblos Academic Computer Center administrator Fouad Kada and Byblos computer science undergraduate student Joseph Junior Sfeir.

After learning the fundamentals of web programming, the students, who were selected from a pool of 62 applicants, spent the final three days developing a web application as part of a competition to win an iPad2.

Michel Semaan from Baouchrieh Adventist Secondary School won the prize for his pattern-recognition web application, which involves DNA testing and bioinformatics. It recursively performs pattern matching based on two characters and guesses the repeated pattern.

“His application used HTML stylesheets, PHP and MySQL, and had an Ajax-enabled front-end, which gave it an advantage over the other web apps,” explains Harmanani.

Semaan, along with five other students who got the highest marks on their web-application project, also received a scholarship worth 15 percent of tuition fees to attend LAU.

“This was the first time most of the students experienced college life, and now many of them want to know how they can enroll at LAU,” says Harmanani. “We even had some saying that they initially were considering to study medicine or engineering, but now are thinking of choosing computer science.”

“It was a perfect week and a perfect program,” says Maroun El Kosseifi of Lycée Nahr Ibrahim. “We had the benefit of having amazing and patient teachers, great computer equipment, and a beautiful university.”

Thanks to the sponsorship of Dr. Georges Harik, a major LAU donor and renowned computer scientist, the program was offered for free.

All the students received certificates of participation.

The students with the top five projects (that received scholarships to LAU) were as follows:

1. Michel Semaan (Baouchrieh Adventist Secondary School)
2. Christopher Gunstone (Notre Dame de Louaize College)
3. Tony Sassine (Lady of Balamand High School)
4. Basil Karam (David Karam Educational Center)
5. Salma Bakhit (Antonine Sisters School) and James Karam (Notre Dame de Louaize College)

In addition, 10 more students received Honorary Mentions in the amount of $50 for their considerable efforts and hard work.

LAU Beirut has also been hosting a summer computer science training program for high school students.
 

From July 4–15, grade 11 students from 35 schools are being taught by LAU chemistry professors how to extract caffeine from tea, prepare aspirin, and make their own soap. Other students are working with computer science instructors on building their own websites and developing games. The programs also include lectures and group projects.

“It’s great, because it’s so hands-on. We’re not just sitting there reacting,” says Farah Shaer, a junior at Girls’ College in Bashura who is enrolled in the chemistry program.

“The lecturer told us the different components of aspirin, then we prepared it ourselves,” she says, and then jokes, “Maybe, I’ll make it for free at home now.”

The summer training programs stress applied learning over classroom theory, according to Dr. Nashat Mansour, assistant dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at LAU Beirut and professor of computer science.

“We’re trying to make this experience a little bit of fun, while also having practical applications for the students,” he says.

Mansour hopes the programs will help acclimate the high schoolers to college life, as well as demonstrate LAU’s unique teaching style, which focuses on individual attention to students along with practical skills.

For some students, such as Malek Sadder, the program is their first time learning in a university environment. Though Sadder, a student at American Community School at Beirut, has no plans to study computer science, he says he is excited about “getting to see what college teaching is like.”

Others, such as Mohammed Annon, from International College, have a proven passion for computer science. “I knew a lot of these skills already, but it’s wonderful to meet new people with so much experience and enthusiasm.”

Shaer is already counting LAU among the colleges she plans to apply to next year. “Now, I think I really want to be a chemistry major,” she adds.

At the end of the programs, six talented participants will be chosen to receive partial scholarships, should they choose to attend either of LAU’s programs. Three students participating in the chemistry training sessions will be offered a scholarship covering 20 percent of tuition after financial aid, while three computer science students will be given 15 percent of tuition costs after financial aid.

The chemistry and computer science fields were chosen as pilots for the summer camp to raise awareness about each department.

According to Mansour, many students don’t realize the career potential a chemistry major possesses, and the program will help boost interest among possible incoming students.

Though the computer science program has a high level of enrollment, Mansour adds that LAU already possesses faculty and computer equipment to accommodate more students. The computer science program is being considered for accreditation by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and the application is in the final stage. The only other university in the region to hold the accreditation is the American University in Cairo.
 

The application, a simplified version of the LAU website for iPhone and iPod Touch, allows users to view webmail, news, financial aid information, the course catalog, the academic calendar, pictures, campus maps and other features.

“Now high school students, people from outside the country, or anyone who is not familiar with LAU can see the campus,” says Omar Omran, the 20-year-old LAU student who is the mastermind behind the project.

An iPad version of the same application is expected to be released within the next couple of weeks.

(Update: The iPad app is available on the iTunes store.)

No one commissioned Omran, a third-year computer science student, to build the application. On his own initiative, he learned the computer language used to program the application last summer. His friend, Ralph Khattar, who studies civil engineering at the American University of Beirut, took care of the application’s design.

The app was nearly complete by fall when Omran showed it to Karina Rodriguez, associate director in LAU’s Marketing and Communications Department who is in charge of the university’s website.

“Usually things like this would be planned, approved and budgeted for, and they would take months to complete,” Rodriguez explains. “In this case, Omar showed up with an almost-finished application and was seeking some support for completing and releasing it.”

The university management backed Omran’s project with the aim of supporting student ingenuity on the one hand, and offering enhanced student services on the other hand, says Dr. Elise Salem, LAU vice president for Student Development and Enrollment Management.

“Our strategy is to reach out to students through social media and applications on their phones,” she says. “This is the trend and we want to be part of the technology most used by our students.”

According to LAU web statistics, the main website received 5,634 visits from mobile devices in 2009, 84,372 in 2010, and more than 112,000 so far this year.

Down the road, LAU might have Omran develop a version of its applications for BlackBerry and Android devices.
 

Professionals from library and IT departments from universities across the world discussed the best ways to meet these demands, as well as encourage interdepartmental cooperation, at the eighth annual meeting and conference of the American International Consortium of Academic Libraries, held at LAU from April 27–30.

AMICAL is an international consortium of American-model, liberal arts institutions of higher learning based throughout Europe, North Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East.

Members meet annually to discuss emerging issues in the field of higher education with a library and IT focus, according to Cendrella Habre, director of LAU Beirut’s Riyad Nassar Library.

Under this year’s theme “E-content: Collecting, Managing, Promoting, Teaching,” members and invited guests explored potential ways for library and information services to transform the way they bring scholarly content to their respective academic communities.

“In simple terms, I would say the theme means providing easy access to any piece of information available electronically to end users (in our case, students, faculty and staff),” Habre explains.

“E-content has recently invaded our world without prior warning, and we, as libraries, have had to face this challenge through trial and error to meet our end users’ needs,” Habre said during the opening ceremony at LAU Beirut’s Business Building.

In his opening speech, LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra praised AMICAL for its outstanding commitment to delivering academic content innovatively.

“We, as presidents and provosts of universities, are very grateful to you, for any institution wouldn’t be worth a grain of salt without a vibrant library at its heart,” Jabbra told conference participants.

In terms of e-content, Habre says LAU is “going with the flow.”

“There is no way that we can flee this trend. Several of our print journals have been switched to e-format, as well as the majority of our print reference material (dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, etc.), and packages of e-books, have been added to our collection,” she explains.

Around 135 people, including LAU staff, attended this year’s four-day meeting, which included panel discussions, rounds of lightning talks (highly focused five- to 10-minute presentations), and roundtable discussions.

Participants also had the chance to take part in a joint program with the Association of American International Colleges and Universities conference, held at LAU Beirut from April 29–May 1.

The AMICAL and AAICU conferences were scheduled concurrently to allow library and IT staff to further interact with the presidents and administrators of institutions. One of the several joint AMICAL–AAICU events included a workshop on IT–library cooperation.

Habre calls the event “extremely informative.”

“In terms of LAU library staff members, this event helps them in moving beyond their daily tasks and the library walls to be involved in other responsibilities as well as reassure teamwork,” Habre says. “It also helps them in expanding their network and learning from each other.”

This was the second time AMICAL met at LAU (the first was in 2005).

Participants hailed from universities including Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco; American College of Greece; American University of Paris; American University in Cairo; American University of Beirut; and Haigazian University, to name a few.

The conference also gathered representatives from library suppliers and publishers such as EBSCO, Oxford University Press, Thomson Reuters, and Baker & Taylor, as well as some IT companies including IBM Middle East and Hewlett-Packard.