The Summer School on “Biomedical Informatics: Foundations and Research Directions” covered computational techniques and information technologies used for medical diagnosis, clinical decision making, personalized medicine, molecular biology, and health care systems.

It was co-organized by LAU’s School of Arts and Sciences and the Software Institute, under the patronage of Dr. Mohammad Khalife, Lebanese Minister of Public Health.

“The aim of this course is to lead participants to transform and implement this new information they are learning [concerning biomedical informatics] in the health sector, and to motivate participants to conduct research in this field,” said Dr. Nashat Mansour, LAU computer science professor, who is the director of the Software Institute and assistant dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in Beirut, during the launching ceremony on July 5.

Mansour added that one of the objectives of this summer school is to establish a network of researchers, from a number of universities, who will address challenging problems in biomedical informatics.

The course sessions were led by four world-class experts in the field: Dr. Bruce Bray, professor of biomedical informatics from University of Utah’s School of Medicine; Dr. Thomas Payne, medical director of IT Services at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine; Dr. Peter Tonellato, director of the Laboratory for Personalized Medicine at the Center for Biomedical Informatics of the Harvard Medical School; and Dr. Sami Khuri, computer science professor at San José State University.

The course attracted 45 participants, 35 from Lebanon and 10 from other countries in the region.

During the opening ceremony, LAU President Dr. Joseph Jabbra called on participants to “stay ahead of the curve” by “thinking outside the box.”

“The 21st century belongs not only to educated people, but to innovators as well,” Jabbra said. “All of us need to think outside the box … and this class is an attempt to do that.”

Minister Khalife also addressed the course participants during the opening ceremony, where he talked about recent and ongoing efforts inside the ministry to stay up-to-speed with information technologies.

“We cannot manage a health department without having an information system,” he said, adding that the ministry has incorporated a developed statistical system, but that includes some limitations.

Khalife also mentioned that the ministry was recently awarded the E-Government Web Award for its innovative website by The Arab Administrative Development Organization, which is affiliated with the League of Arab States.

The summer school at LAU was co-sponsored by the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research, Philips Middle East, the Arab Computer Society, and Software Design.

The LAU libraries boast 132 full-text online databases of journals including more than 52,098 full-text electronic journals, and close to 50,000 electronic books, besides print books and other information records.

Library users benefit from ample reading areas in the Beirut-campus Riyad Nassar Library, which was completed in 2005.

The electronic resources at LAU’s libraries have expanded considerably in recent years, leading the university to become a leading research institution in Lebanon for faculty, students and researchers.

LAU’s libraries have been able to use technology to advance their services and this has contributed to the advancement of scholarship and research substantially at the fast-expanding university, which has opened two new schools and restructured two others, in the span of two years.

Today, the research and informational needs created by faculty and students at LAU, from across seven schools, is impressively being met by the university’s strategic development of research tools and resources, including one of the most impressive journal collections in the region.

LAU’s libraries boast: 132 full-text online databases of journals — of which some are updated every 15 minutes — that include more than 52,098 full-text electronic journals, close to 50,000 electronic books (of which 16,000 are owned by LAU), 393,000 print books and other information records. Of the 2,450 journals and magazines that the libraries carry, 70 percent will be available online by 2013.

“Our online databases are growing on a yearly basis by 4–6 percent,” says Cendrella S. Habre, the director of the Riyad Nassar Library at LAU Beirut. She says technology has facilitated the impressive growth and expansion of LAU’s library collection, facilities and resources, resulting in library resources that are second to none in the country.

“By 2013, our plan is to have only 250 journal titles in print in RNL and 250 in the Byblos library,” says Habre. “Right now we have almost 800 in print.”

One of the most noteworthy services the libraries offer is an international interlibrary loan and document delivery service.

This also extends to a range of services available to library users, including specialized research training sessions, and a live chat service to ask for assistance.

In addition to research tools, the libraries also offer both desktop and laptop computers for borrowing, as well as state-of-the-art network-connected furniture.

The success of the new and constantly evolving services and facilities offered by LAU’s libraries is evident in attendance numbers year on year. Habre says in Beirut attendance has increased by 34 percent yearly from the fall of 2008–09 to the fall of 2009–10, although she says borrowing books has decreased because more information is now available online.
 

Byblos library expansion on the horizon

Some of the services the libraries offer include an international interlibrary loan and document delivery service, specialized research training sessions, and a live chat service to ask for assistance.

A new and significantly expanded structure — to be named after Lebanese writer Khalil Gibran — is on the horizon for the Byblos-campus library.

Joseph S. Hage is the director of LAU’s Byblos-campus library, for which a new and significantly expanded structure — to be named after the revered Lebanese writer Khalil Gibran — is scheduled to begin construction in the coming few years.

First established in 1987 at the former LAU campus in Amsheet, the Byblos library moved to its current location in 1991 with about 10,000 volumes in a space of 600 square meters. Student enrollment at the time was approximately 1,000 students at that campus. Now with an enrollment of close to 2,400 students in Byblos, in addition to its local stacks, the library has three remote access storage areas in different buildings.

With the opening of the new School of Medicine and School of Nursing, as well as the restructuring of the School of Engineering — all based on the Byblos campus, in addition to the other schools of Pharmacy, Arts and Sciences, Business, and Architecture and Design, the Byblos campus is set to grow rapidly in both facilities and student enrollment over the coming years.

Hage says that, “naturally, the increase in student numbers leads to an increase in the library attendance.” He explains that the average student attendance at present is 750 students per day. However, Hage says the current Byblos-library facilities are already stretched too thin.

Despite the increase in general and specialized electronic databases at the Byblos library, Hage says the circulation of books has increased by 100 percent over the last 10 years due to an increase of student numbers, and a highly efficient inter-campus loan system that is fueled by a rich collection.

That said, expansion is on the horizon for the fast-growing Byblos library, and a steering committee for the new library has been established, and has met with the architects who will be soon submitting part of the plans, says Hage.

The LAU libraries are holding an open house for students, faculty and staff on May 4 to provide more information about their services and resources.

The training center was chosen for the award among over 700 Cisco academies spanning from Morocco to Afghanistan that were nominated to receive any one of 11 distinguished awards.

“We’ve worked hard and we expected that they would recognize us,” says Bassam Moujabber, acting director of LAU’s Cisco academy. “We do more than is expected, and our trainers are excellent at providing the top support.”

LAU’s Cisco academy operates on three levels: locally, where it offers courses to college students; regionally, where it deals with curricula and instructor training; and lastly, it serves as an academy training center to train the trainers of regional academies.

This year, the academy hosted the two-day (April 17–18) Arabian Adventure Roadshow 2 Conference in collaboration with California-based IT giant Cisco Systems. The annual conference is held in a different location each year.

Titled “Education Means Development,” the event gathered Cisco trainers, managers and administrators for a series of presentations focusing on networking, creating sustainable academy communities, and enhancing ICT education.

“The main aim of the conference was to understand where curriculum is going,” Moujabber says. He explains that educators must learn to constantly adapt to new innovations in the ever-changing world of technology.

LAU’s Cisco center, Moujabber adds, stands at the forefront of ICT innovation in the region through its beta testing of curriculum and applications.

Fadi Moubarak, Cisco general manager for the Levant region, gave an address during the conference, where he predicted that in 10 years, the world will be looking at the Middle East as a leader in educational development.

Dr. Houda Baraka, first deputy to the minister of Communications and Information in Egypt, gave a presentation on the evolution of education in Egypt over the decades from traditional one-on-one tutoring in the ’70s, to the industry age in the ’80s, followed by the internet age in the ’90s, and finally how social networking websites are being used for learning.

“We have done a lot but we need to do more,” she said. “In Egypt, education is not there to amuse students. It is there for our economic development.”

The only female among the contestants, El-Fadl has attracted much media and industry attention for her achievement and website. The site is the first regional online networking site dedicated to creative talent — including music, fine arts, design, film, theater, architecture, writing and all other “creative” fields — and offers both companies and individuals a platform to share work, find the right talent for projects, and connect with fellow creative individuals and professionals.

The idea for tasmeemME started after El-Fadl had been freelancing for over five years in the Middle East, she says. “It was difficult to market myself as a creative and to find freelance jobs. … When I needed to hire other freelancers, I didn’t know where to start looking for them. I felt it was necessary to bridge the gap between service providers and service seekers in the region, facilitating both outsourcing and freelancing, pushing them forward as concepts.”

With a booming creative industry across the Middle East, tasmeemME is designed to fill a gap to support freelancing and outsourcing. It brings unique and exclusive features to creatives across the region, including the opportunity to promote themselves through a free profile and portfolio, as well as networking, recruiting, messaging and advertising services.

“The internet is a fascinating tool, and when used productively can help bring so much opportunity,” explains El-Fadl. “There is plenty of potential to do new things in the Middle East — we’re such a fresh and untapped market in many fields.”

ArabNet 2010 was the first international conference for the Middle East and North Africa web industry, and was produced in collaboration with a number of strategic partnerships, including the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship and the Syrian Young Entrepreneurs Association. The event also featured many high-profile sponsors such as Microsoft, Google and Aramex, as well as some of the biggest names in the region, such as Bank Audi, Maktoob, and Souk.com.

The ArabNet conference aimed to give promising young and new entrepreneurs a chance to gain exposure and build their business.

tasmeemME was co-founded last year by El-Fadl, who has established herself as a prominent graphic designer in Jordan, and Tamam Mango, a well-known business consultant in Jordan.

The site will be launching new services soon, including project bidding, a forum, and an online marketplace to promote internet trade and more. The site, which is currently in English, will also be launched in Arabic this year.

“The creative sector in the Middle East is booming,” says El-Fadl. “We wanted to build a regional platform that brings the creative and the business worlds closer together.”

Ghada Majed, the assistant director for Alumni Relations at LAU, says El-Fadl’s success is a testament of her adapting her skills, with the market’s needs. “Noor [El-Fadl] is a young alumna who combined her design talents with today’s technology and was able to make a difference and achieve success,” says Majed.

Read more about El-Fadl’s achievement and the ArabNet conference in this CNN article. You can also watch this CNN video on YouTube.

Rizk, an engagement partner and head of data center engineering services at the company, offered an overview of Edarat Group’s role throughout the region with ICT, while reminding the audience that technology never sits still.

“Technology is changing rapidly,” said Rizk. “You have to keep abreast of the latest technology in your area of expertise. Today, you have to run faster just to stay in the same place.”

Through decades of technological evolution that have brought us software, the personal computer, internet, audio and video networking, and today, complete data centers, Rizk explained how we have moved from the massive IBM mainframes of the 1950s.

Rizk, also an LAU graduate, spent a good portion of his presentation detailing the five main layers of ICT: user interface, application, database, technology infrastructure, and physical infrastructure — all of which are critical to allow businesses and organizations to function properly.

“Technology is not an option,” he said. “It is important today to have a strategy and a technology infrastructure in place to suit the organization and improve the performance of its business.”

Rizk encouraged students to continue studying for years after receiving their undergraduate degrees and advised them to seek jobs where they will gain the most experience — even if that means accepting a job with a lower salary because, as Rizk assured, it will pay off in the long run.

“You need to continue to learn for maybe 10 more years after you graduate [to succeed],” he said. “That’s how competitive the job market is.”

Responding to a question from the audience, Rizk said that students interested in applying for internships with Edarat Group can contact them through the company website.

The event was the first of a 12-part series organized by the Byblos Guidance Office for the spring semester to help students get an insider’s view of the career options available to them after graduation.

“Edarat often contacts our office with job opportunities, so we decided to invite them,” said Rana Sakr, career guidance officer in Byblos.

The Guidance Office has 11 more presentations from various companies scheduled for the coming weeks including from Bank Audi, Credit Libanais, AMIDEAST, and Procter & Gamble.

For more information about the upcoming presentations, contact Rana Sakr from the LAU Byblos Guidance Office, at: rana.sakr@lau.edu.lb.

Just two weeks following its launch, LAU’s new Facebook page has already attracted well over 5,000 fans with the number growing by the minute. Hundreds have also subscribed to follow LAU’s Twitter updates.

“We want them to be as interactive as possible,” says Greg Houle, LAU Advancement Communications Manager based in the New York Office, who is overseeing the university’s strategic entry into the ever-important world of online social networking.

Houle notes that within minutes after a fan suggested that LAU create a discussion board for its Facebook users to post links and chat, his team responded by doing just that. “We really try to give our followers what they want as much as we possibly can,” he says.

Students and alumni have even been using the sites to share tips on how to find work and give the heads up on potential job opportunities in Lebanon and the Gulf countries.

Like many LAU students, Nadine Maknieh, a third-year marketing student, says she became a fan of LAU’s Facebook page simply to stay in the loop, but was surprised to find the site offered more than just news.

“Most students spend much more time on Facebook than they do surfing the LAU website,” she says. “So this is a good way to stay up-to-date with what’s going on at LAU while at the same time hearing about jobs and discussing different issues.”

LAU will soon be launching a YouTube channel, where the university will upload a range of short videos including interviews with faculty and administrators, and clips from campus lectures and guest speakers.

“We want to have some short interviews with [distinguished faculty] engaged in work at LAU that will resonate with people far and wide,” says Houle. “Our goal is to blast out the videos on Facebook and Twitter as well, so that they will have the maximum impact.”

Entitled “Innovation@Cisco,” the event tackled how the concept of business incubation at Cisco is being undertaken by the company’s four-year-old Emerging Technologies Group. It was co-hosted by the university’s schools of Business and Engineering.

The term “innovating incubation” in business and technology, as explained in Cisco’s website, refers to the process of providing a favorable environment for nascent ideas to morph into business units — and then nurturing these small, newly established businesses toward full development.

In the words of Dr. Walid Touma, director of LAU’s University Enterprise Office and event moderator, “The biggest businesses started as small ideas.”

Moretti outlined how his team at Cisco is currently working toward the ambitious goal of creating “a stream of billion-dollar businesses”; businesses valued at $1 billion within five to seven years of launching.

By pooling ideas from within the business community through such online networks as Cisco’s Innovation Zone and its I-Prize competition, Moretti argued that “the key to success is to build a network to go and harvest these ideas, to find ways to connect the dots, and find the diamond in the rough.”

Notable examples of successful ideas that, through incubation, have boomed into businesses worth billions are the TelePresence audio-video system and FlipVideo hand-held digital camcorder and video-sharing devices.

Both Moretti and Touma were enthusiastic about the potential of such innovation ventures for Lebanon, especially considering the country’s heritage in creative businesses.

However, they identified three main obstacles that impeded progress in this area — the small number of entrepreneurs, outdated legislation and a lack of infrastructure, particularly broadband.

“There is no shortage of capital in Lebanon,” said Touma — “there is a shortage of people, of laws and of infrastructure for mitigating the risks.” He added that the government needs to partner with corporations and the financial sector in order to make investment in innovation possible.

Directors of leading Lebanese banks, NGOs, local entrepreneurs, and students, faculty and staff from other Lebanese universities were invited to the event.

The speakers encouraged the audience to sign the Broadband Manifesto — that is also supported by LAU — which is an effort by the Lebanese Broadband Stakeholders Group to mobilize support for widespread broadband access in Lebanon as a basic necessity for any economy.

The speakers also made an effort to inspire students to take the plunge into entrepreneurial life.

“There is nothing magical about being an entrepreneur,” claimed Moretti, adding that while going into business is indeed a risk, young people should not be afraid to act on their ideas, because they have comparatively less to lose.

Read more about LAU’s cooperation with Cisco.

Placing sixth among 45 teams comprised of the best student computer programmers from universities across the region, the three-member LAU Sailors team, comprised of Raja Baz, Rashad Kabbara and Amer Mouawad, impressed at this year’s annual contest hosted by the Arab Academy for Science and Technology. The event is a qualifying round to the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

In fact LAU made such a great impression at the event that it has been granted the opportunity to host next year’s regional ANARC–ICPC contest, to be held in November 2010. “This is quite an honor, and would give us a very high visibility in the region and worldwide,” says Dr. Samer Habre, chairperson of the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics at LAU Beirut.

Two LAU teams participated in the contest, the experienced Sailors and the junior Stars, both of which were coached by Dr. Faisal Abu Khzam, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics.

“The level of skill at the contest was very high across all of the teams,” says Abu Khzam, who has been appointed by the ANARC–ICPC steering committee to be site director of next year’s contest. “The contest attracts the best programmers in the region,” he adds.

Abu Khzam explains that the fact the LAU Sailors placed sixth, not higher, is due to chance, and not necessarily a disparity in level of skill. He explains: “The third team and our team both solved six problems, but the difference was only because of timing — our students were very close to solving seven problems. And considering the first- and second-place teams solved eight problems, it shows that our students’ skills were comparable to the best students at the contest.”

Amer Mouawad, a member of the Sailors team, says it was a challenging contest. “There were tough teams, and were very well-trained — especially the Egyptian teams hosting the competition,” he says. “We realized we didn’t have enough training because we were hoping to be in the top three, not the top six,” he adds.

“I don’t feel satisfied, I was hoping for better and we weren’t far from being in the top three. We only missed one problem that we should have solved. But since it’s the first time that we made it to the top 10, it’s better than the previous participation,” adds Mouawad.

Separately, LAU’s junior team, the Stars, solved four problems, something that Habre describes as “a very promising achievement.”

The members of the junior team are Marwan Fawaz, Karim Jahed and Hussein Mohsen, all of whom have just recently completed their first year at LAU.

The LAU Sailors programming team is no stranger to success — it won the first Lebanese Collegiate Programming Competition held at LAU in July 2009, beating 15 other teams from across the country.

Read a story about computer science student Amer Mouawad, a member of the LAU Sailors team that competed in Egypt.

Within about five weeks Mouawad developed a computer application that identifies songs when people whistle them into a microphone.

Along with other LAU computer science students, Mouawad presented the project at an LAU event in June, and a committee of professors found his project to be the best.

This automatically qualified him for an award by the Software Design Consulting Group, a Lebanese software company that operates locally, regionally and internationally. The company granted a $2,500 prize to Mouawad, as well as two third-year students from the Ecole Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Beyrouth of the Université Saint-Joseph, for their innovative software projects. Mouawad received the prize during a ceremony on October 15 at “L’Atelier,” Berytech 2.

Dr. Nashat Mansour, assistant dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in Beirut, who was one of the professors on the committee and also Mouawad’s advisor for the project, explains that the two things that distinguished “The Whistler” were how unusual and innovative Mouawad’s idea was and “how hard he had to work in order to implement a system like this.”

“He had to learn quite a few things by himself that he had not learned in the normal courses that we offer. He had to go one step ahead,” Mansour says. “It was really impressive what he did in this short period of time [given for the project],” he adds.

When asked how his project relates to a similar application for Apple’s iPhone, Mouawad replied, “I didn’t know about the iPhone [application] until after I finished my project. It’s something different.”

With the Apple application, he explained, the phone picks up the melody from a playing song (not a whistle) “and tells you what the song name is,” whereas with “the ‘Whistler,’ you whistle any part of the song and it tries to match it to a list of songs in a database.” It’s hard to compare them, he said, because they use two different techniques.

Mouawad joined LAU as an undergraduate student in computer science in 2004 and is now completing his M.S. in computer science.

As a research assistant with Dr. Faisal Abu Khzam, assistant professor at LAU’s Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, Mouawad is currently working on research in theoretical computer science, including graph algorithms, exact algorithms and parallel algorithms.

On November 22, Mouawad will be traveling to Alexandria, Egypt, for the four-day Arab and North Africa Regional Programming Contest with five other LAU students — some of whom were winners of the first Lebanese Collegiate Programming Competition held at LAU in July — and Dr. Abu Khzam.

Mouawad hopes to win so that the team can go on to the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in China.

After he graduates next year, Mouawad is planning to pursue a Ph.D. and later an academic career.
 

MESM, a regional project established and sponsored by the European Multidisciplinary Society for Modeling and Simulation Technology, has been running annually since 1999. This year marked the first time EUROSIS held the conference in Lebanon -- with the support of De Montfort University in Leicester and IEEE UKRI–SPC -- and chose LAU to host it.

The conference was divided into five sessions with distinct themes: simulation methodology and tools, simulation and artificial intelligence, communication network simulation, complex systems simulation, and industrial simulation.

Over the first two days of the conference in LAU Beirut, 19 papers were presented on topics related to the session themes including simulation models for cyber attacks, an alternative home absorption system, and a new look at digital handwriting recognition, to name a few. The third day was spent in Byblos introducing the participants to the campus.

"We in EUROSIS believe strongly that modeling and simulation make a powerful combination to improve the systems and organizations of the 21st century," says Dr. Marwan Al-Akaidi, EUROSIS general conference and program chair, and head of the School of Engineering and Technology at De Montfort University.

MESM is just one of 12 conference kinds under the umbrella of EUROSIS. Aside from the Middle East, EUROSIS runs and sponsors regionally geared annual conferences in North America, Asia and Europe, as well as several other thematically specialized conferences that are held throughout the world.

Typically, the only differences in simulation trends developing in separate regions are those that take into account the unique situations and needs of specific areas, says Dr. Haidar Harmanani, MESM regional chair, and chairperson of LAU's Computer Science and Mathematics Department. "Based on the region, simulation requires certain specific social behaviors or expectations that could affect it," he adds.

For example, Harmanani explains, industrial simulation focusing on family businesses, which make up the vast majority of businesses in Lebanon, is more suitable and beneficial to the country than it perhaps would be in regions where family businesses are less common.

Although the participants all came from Europe, aside from just four, they were all of Arab or Iranian descent.

At the end of the conference, Harmanani and Al-Akaidi presented an award for the best paper to Nadine Zbib, who represented a team of three from the University of Lille–Nord de France, for their paper on "Simulation of Dynamic Allocation and Routing in FMS Using Potential Field."

Through such events that enhance LAU's exposure, "we are opening avenues for our students," Harmanani says, adding that after the conference, some participants contacted him to express interest in collaborating on future projects and even sponsoring LAU students for Ph.D.'s.

The program goes beyond showing educators how to teach technology, said Codde, head of the program from the American side and supervisor of the workshops. "We want to teach teachers how to teach with technology," he added.
 
Osta, who's the program coordinator in Lebanon, said the project aimed at developing an LAU educational technology program by exchanging expertise between teams from both universities and adapting three MSU courses.

The project, which is in its second year, is funded by a USAID and Higher Education for Development grant.

"The Arab world has the potential, but not the infrastructure and the 'recent' tradition of scientific and technological research," he said in an interview. He noted it would require "a concerted and dedicated effort by leaders in academia, government and industry" to make Middle Eastern society start investing in opportunities for young people.

But the LAU trustee thinks technological advances have set the stage for change. "The communication revolution has flattened the world and given everyone, everywhere, access to information," he said.

"This presents people in Lebanon and the Middle East a golden opportunity to contribute and play a major role in the world's economic welfare," he said. He is confident that Middle Eastern youth can gain the abilities needed to lift the region out of technological and economic stagnation.

Dr. Elachi brings years of experience in academia, science and space exploration, adding luster to the body that oversees LAU's affairs.

He is director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and vice president of the California Institute of Technology, where he teaches electrical engineering and planetary science. His main area of expertise is the obtention, analysis and interpretation of imagery of planetary surfaces, including Earth.

"I hope my experience as a university professor, researcher and director of the world's leading space exploration center, will allow me to give an additional perspective on how to strengthen education and research in Lebanon, in general, and at LAU in particular," he said.

Dr. Elachi, a friend of President Joseph G. Jabbra, was delighted when he was tapped for consideration on the Board of Trustees. "I grew up in Lebanon and then moved to France and the U.S. for my university education and then my professional career, but I always felt that the Lebanese people have a lot of potential if given the opportunity," he stressed.

His eagerness to serve on the board was in tune with Dr. Jabbra's goal to make LAU a first-rate university and to help the young people of Lebanon achieve a higher level of education so they could contribute in the world of the future, he said.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was established by Caltech in the 1930s. It created America's first satellite, Explorer 1, and it sent the first robotic craft to the Moon and out across the solar system, surveying all of the planets except one. Pushing the outer edge of exploration became JPL's raison d'etre as a laboratory for the National Aeronautics & Space Administration.

Dr. Elachi was principal investigator on research and flight projects sponsored by NASA and was the lead investigator for the Shuttle Imaging Radar series. He served as co-investigator on the Magellan imaging radar and is team leader of the Cassini Titan Radar experiment orbiting the planet Saturn.

The globe-trotting scientist, who was born in Lebanon, studied physics at the University of Grenoble, France, before receiving a diplôme d'ingenieur from the Polytechnic Institute at Grenoble.

He went on to earn M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical sciences from Caltech, adding an M.B.A. from the University of Southern California and an M.S. in Geology from the University of California at Los Angeles for good measure.

Dr. Elachi has authored over 230 publications in the fields of space and planetary exploration, Earth observation from space, active microwave remote sensing, electromagnetic theory and integrated optics, and holds several patents in those fields. Of his three texts on remote sensing, one was translated into Chinese.

Digital signatures are used to verify the identity of the sender or author of a document and to avoid intrusions. The technology has allowed thousands of businesses worldwide to switch confidently from paper-based processes to electronic workflows.

The first draft law regulating cyber-security in Lebanon was formulated six years ago. Several other drafts have been presented to Parliament since then, but none have come to fruition.

"Such a project goes along with our government's commitment to fighting corruption and boosting modernity," Mitri said, but added that it requires assistance from international specialists.

Administrative Reform Minister Jean Oghassabian said secure communications would be necessary to improve the flow of information between the public administration and citizens.

"[Citizens] would not trust any effective electronic government services in the absence of laws regulating digital signatures," Oghassabian said.

Attorney Stephen Mason, an expert in electronic communications security, shed light on the history, purpose, forms and applications of digital signatures. Mason also discussed his views on building a legal framework, looking at existing E.U. and U.S. legislation.

Mason covered electronic fraud and identity theft, suggesting ways to prevent them. He is a leading authority in the ways electronic communications can make or break an organization. He promotes the establishment of e-mail and Internet use policies, interception and monitoring of internal communications, and, data protection.

LAU President Joseph Jabbra underlined the benefits of such technologies to society, stressing the university's commitment to contribute towards raising the level of expertise in emerging technologies.

The president of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association in Lebanon (ISACA), Ramzi Tarabishi, briefed the audience on the association's efforts to provide knowledge on management, monitoring, security and professional auditing.

The conference, organized in cooperation with ISACA Lebanon, was held under the patronage of Lebanon's Premier Fouad Seniora at the Bristol Hotel in Beirut March 30, 2006 and it included representatives from Lebanese banks as well as professionals from LAU and other institutions.

Plans for design, construction and operation of the pilot plants (one at each university) were approved during a meeting held at the Byblos Campus May 16–18, 2005.

The €3.4 million project, officially identified as Efficient Management of Waste Water, its Treatment and Reuse is funded by the European Union and involves six countries working in partnership: Germany, Italy, Palestine, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Delegates from these countries discussed progress reports, action plans and budgetary issues during the meeting in May.

Once operational, the facilities will be used for teaching purposes and most importantly for training local engineers and prospective municipality plant treatment operators.

LAU and Balamand U. have already scheduled for this summer, specialized training workshops on recent advances in wastewater treatment technologies.

The project will continue through April 2007. It had kicked off in April 2003, driven by the efforts of Deans Fuad Hashwa (LAU) and Michel Najjar (Balamand).

The project coordinator, Dr. Ismail Al-Baz from InWent-Capacity Building International in Berlin, Germany, along with the rest of the delegates, appreciated the tireless work of project managers Dr. Sima Tokajian (LAU) and Dr. Najib Gerges (Balamand) for bringing the meeting to fruition.

The addition of wi-fi hotspots covering the entire campuses in Beirut and Byblos is a natural extension to the ubiquitous cable-based network already in place, according to Assistant Vice President for Information Technology Roy Majdalani.

The infrastructure was provided by Cisco Systems. It allows students, faculty and staff equipped with wi-fi computers or PDAs to access internet and intranet resources from most locations on campus. Users need their email name and password to connect. The IT Help Desk will also provide login parameters for guests.

The network is based on high-speed specifications known as 802.11b and 802.11g that deliver speeds comparable to cable-based networks. This allows for multimedia services such as voice over IP and video.

The network includes 186 access points covering all university buildings. The wi-fi signals can be picked up over a total of 50,000 square meters indoors and 120,000 square meters outdoors on both campuses. With the upcoming inauguration of new buildings the number of hotspots will increase to 250 and the indoor area coverage, to 86,000 square meters.

High speed and wide coverage will make the network a major conduit for academic endeavors, learning resources and administrative procedures. LAU President Joseph Jabbra said, "our vision is to create a world-class IT environment that fosters a productive educational and working environment for LAU students, faculty and staff." The university has more than 6,000 students and 850 faculty and staff members.

Cisco was selected for its commitment to security and support. The company also maintains an academy training center on LAU premises. "IT and the internet have a critical role to play in providing quality education to large populations," said Mark DeSimeone, Cisco's Middle East & Africa Vice President. "We are proud to be working with the Lebanese American University on this key initiative for Lebanon and the region," he said.

The December 8 inauguration gathered high-profile speakers including Lebanese Minister of Telecommunications Jean-Louis Cardahi, delegates from Lebanon's Ministry of Education and the U.S. Embassy, DeSimeone, Dr. Jabbra, Vice President for Finance and Administration Elias Baz and Majdalani.

Cisco Systems, a network hardware company, operates academies at three levels--local, teaching college students; regional, dealing with equipment inventory, curricula and instructor training; and, "academy training centers" that train the trainers of regional academies.

As of January 2004 LAU functions at all three levels. As a CATC, it has administrative, legal, instructional and support responsibilities in the region and reports back to Cisco Systems in Belgium. The area covered includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Yemen and Afghanistan.

LAU also offers courses to university students, allowing them to become Cisco Certified Network Associates and Cisco Certified Network Programmers.

"The courses bridge the gap between theory and practice for engineers and technical people," said LAU's Acting Dean of Engineering & Architecture, Dr. Elie Badr. "Training time on the job is cut by a large factor."

"We can also target senior high school students as well as technical institutes' staffs and students," asserted Dr. Badr.

Some of the universities, institutes and colleges that have sent instructors to be trained at CATC-LAU are Saudi Arabia's King Fahd Petroleum University, King Abdel Aziz University, Effat College for Women, Mouhammadia College for Engineers in Morocco, College of Telecommunications in Algeria, General Telecommunication Institute in Pakistan, Cairo University, several Iraqi universities as well as institutions in Lebanon.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia requested that 13 Iraqi delegates to a course in August 2004 be housed on campus while others stayed at nearby hotels.

Sponsors for that activity included UN agencies, the International Telecommunications Union and U.S. Agency for International Development. Lebanese MP Bahiya Hariri, chair of Parliament's Education Committee, and Mr. Abdulilah Dewachi, regional adviser of communications and computer networking at ESCWA visited LAU, toured the facilities and met with President Joseph Jabbra and faculty members involved in the project.

Starting October 2004, LAU's Cisco Institute director is Dr. Iyad Ouaiss from the university's computer engineering faculty. According to Dr. Badr, the dedicated work of staffers Bassam Moujabber, Wadih Zaatar, and Joseph Khalifeh has been crucial to the academy's expansion. Cisco training was previously offered under the Software Institute.

"During the dot-com boom, Cisco Systems wanted to give back to the economy and the community," explained Dr. Badr about its inception. "It created the Cisco Learning Institute, an agency to fund academies around the world whose task was to train instructors and students on how to network computers."

CATC is responsible for training two instructors pro bono from each regional academy; others pay their way. Typically, courses are 4-5 days grouping 16 in each class. Some courses offered are bridges between different versions of computer software.

Earlier, the Middle East and North Africa Cisco Networking Academies held their annual conference at LAU. The April 2004 conference "Educating Tomorrow's Networking Professionals" was hosted by the Byblos campus and drew regional academy representatives and officials from Cisco Systems.

Press clippings about the CATC announcement are available on this website.