Two of the startups of Batch 2 of the Agrytech Accelerator won the first and second place at the LIRA 2018 program while Berytech chose 3 new innovative startups from the program to incubate for 2019.
Top winners from Agrytech Program
Nisrine El Turky and Christina Chaccour, founders of IO Tree, won second prize at the Lebanese Industrial Research Association’s (LIRA) 14th forum in the ICT field, while the first prize went to Serge el Khoury, Kevin Boutros and Kristina Farah, founders of Quadra. Both startups have used their background in science and engineering to innovate solutions in the agri-food industry.
LIRA brings together academic and industrial expertise, providing an opportunity for industry and academia, both public and private, to meet and exchange their research findings. The program has a mission to build effective cooperation between the industrial and academic sectors in Lebanon, through addressing the research and development needs of the Lebanese industries, in order to academically empower the industrial sector with innovations leading to the promotion of competitiveness and productivity.
Three Startups to join Berytech Incubation Program
For its yearly incubation award, Berytech chose 3 projects from the program. These will go through a dedicated track of training, workshops, coaching, and mentorship over the period of 1 year:
1. Heatechs – a solution for heating and cooling by using renewable energy with advanced material to manufacture blankets for refugees that provide a clean and safe solution for heating at a fraction of the cost and without the risk of uncontrolled heating from stoves, founded by Rabab Kawtharani, Jawad Haidar, Rawan Ghalayini and Adam Choufi.
2. A novel device for diagnosing patient-specific ductal cancers, a project by Waddah Malaeb and Daniel Farhat.
3. Valorization of plastic waste into fuels from recovered heat, a project by Charbel Daniel.
Berytech joined the LIRA network as a partner in 2016, by adding the entrepreneurship component to the program, giving the opportunity for selected LIRA projects to turn their ideas and researches into viable startups.
