Berytech / Events

STAND Up! Virtual Showcasing and Pitching Event

Tuesday, July 13, 2021 · 3:00 pm till 5:00 pm (Beirut time) · Webinar

About This Informative Webinar

This July 13th, meet and support the 12 innovative venture that went through intensive capacity building in the STAND Up! Growing Innovation Program to launch and grow their scalable eco-friendly textile and fashion ventures in the Mediterranean.

For the past two months, the Stand Up! fashion and textile entrepreneurs have been working to develop their green business models, finance and market strategies, and preparing to showcase their solutions.

Join us for an online event where they will be virtually showcasing their solutions in the fashion, clothing, and textile sectors in front of an expert committee that will share valuable feedback and insights with the entrepreneurs.

The committee will choose four projects to continue in the program’s 7 months incubation phase and receive one-on-one mentor support, technical support, and 6000 euros to develop their businesses.

Watch the pitches, vote for your favorite project, connect with the founders and become potential partners, investors, customers, mentors or volunteers.

Discover the pitching teams

tiachriS is an interactive virtual fashion house that aims to sell online ethically made fashionable items to implement social change through an immersive virtual experience that will educate the consumer about sustainable living and spread awareness on the consequences of fast fashion.
LvPxAlSama is an upcycling and embroidery service that supports female artisans in Lebanon with regular and fair employment. The collaborative process is designed to educate the customer about the worth of fine hand-embroidery and provides the artisans with access to broader markets.
Goodkill is a fashion brand that aims to make an example and create a line of furniture, including cushions and sound isolation products from left-over raw textile materials in Lebanon, breaking the waste stream and creating truly sustainable products and brands.
Something New by Something Blue tackles waste of textiles after a single use in the bridal industry by extending the life cycle of worn once wedding dresses and upcycling damaged ones through an online marketplace with a simple buy and sell model for affordable 2nd hand gowns in collaboration with local in-need seamstresses.
La Boutique – Sociale is designing a solution to be able to shift from a traditional linear economy through keeping resources in use for as long as possible, recover and reuse materials by collecting and upcycling secondhand clothing as well as recycling fabrics. Their main purpose is to offer a zero-waste wearable piece of art.
Klovr is a peer-to-peer marketplace for circular fashion where buying and selling sustainable clothes has been made easy and reliable.
Lebanese Klakeesh is a project that recycles textile gadgets transforming them into unique, handmade, customizable gift

Naked is working to provide 100% natural organic hemp fabric, made from the fiber waste of hemp plants, to be manufactured into a breathable, healthy, and eco-conscious clothing brand.
Sisters for the World have created a fashionable design of washable, affordable, leak-proof underwear made out of healthy, naturally absorbent, and eco-friendly material. The desired product is meant to replace expensive single-use and non-biodegradable menstrual pads, thereby helping end period poverty. The underwear can additionally be used by both men and women for all kinds of leaks, such as those caused by incontinence or postpartum bleeding.
The Survival Kit provides a multifunctional product in one garment, which eliminates the need to produce several products separately as they are all combined in one, all while including the concept of upcycling, hence reducing fabric waste. The final product will guarantee an eco-friendly and space-saving product for customers and will help generate jobs for people willing to learn a skill and craftsmanship.
The concept behind Bi Aman was inspired by the increased medical waste resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and by the need to help offset hospital and medical care costs for those unable to afford it. The project aims to up-cycle the personal protective equipment of the medical front-liners and to turn them into a collection of useful sustainable fashion accessories such as practical bags.
Lebamoz produces natural fibers and fabrics from banana pseudostems with a very low carbon footprint. It aims to partner up with Lebanese banana farmers and Loom operators to collect and process banana fibers from otherwise wasted/burnt trees. The fibers will be spun into yarn and then either sold as they are or woven into fabrics.

Agenda

Welcoming

15:00 – 15:10

Ms. Anna Ibañez de Arolas, Project Manager, SCP/RAC
Mr. Ramy Boujawdeh, Deputy GM of Berytech
Mrs. Tala Saleh, Project Manager, Berytech

Pitching

15:05 – 16:40

The 12 teams will be pitching to a jury composed of:

Group 1:

Carla Saba, Deputy General Manager, Berytech
Fabio Montagnino, Head of Innovation & Entrepreneurship Office, Cyprus Institute
Jalal Moghrabi, Instructor, School of Architecture and Design, Lebanese American University

Group 2:

Gabriel Warde, COO, Warde Textiles
Constantin Saleme, Senior Coach and Investment Advisor, Berytech
Anna Ibanez, Project Manager, SCP RAC

Closing

16:40 – 17:00

People’s Choice Award and Closing

Meet The Speakers

Krystel Khalil

Programs Director, Berytech

Krystel Khalil is currently the Programs Director at Berytech. She manages the projects lab unit, responsible for the design, development, fundraising, partnership development and management of innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development programs, on the local and international scale.

With more than 13 years’ experience in the field of communication, entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and innovation, Krystel has developed an extensive experience in communication and outreach, business development, program development and implementation, from which EU-funded regional projects, tackling various innovation areas including technology, social entrepreneurship, technology transfer, cleantech, green and sustainable energy and more.

She runs communication and roadshow activities to promote entrepreneurship on the local and international level, while assisting entrepreneurs through coaching and advisory in communication strategy, social entrepreneurship and business model. In parallel, she gives university lectures and workshops in marketing research and entrepreneurship.

Krystel is a certified mentor from Mowgli Foundation and Confideo Venture Mentoring – affiliated to MIT. She holds a master’s degree in marketing and a bachelor’s in business from Saint-Joseph University, in addition to a social entrepreneurship diploma from INSEAD. She is a member of the US State Department alumni, part of the US Active Citizen Summit Program.

Krystel has attended entrepreneurship conferences, events and capacity building activities in over 15 countries and currently manages 5 international innovation and entrepreneurship programs at Berytech.

Her expertise: entrepreneurship, social innovation, environmental innovation, technology transfer, communication, coaching and advisory for startups, business development, program and partnership development.

Anna Ibañez de Arolas

Project Manager, SCP/RAC

Anna Ibañez, B. in Law (UB-Barcelona), PGCert in Cultural Management and Policies (UOC-Barcelona), MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (UOC-Barcelona), is the Project Manager at UNEP/MAP-SCP/RAC. She coordinates the ENI CBC MED funded STAND Up! project. Ms. Ibañez has more than 8 years of experience in the field of sustainability and specializes in supporting sustainable business development and innovation and fostering sustainable consumption the Mediterranean with a special focus on the intersection between the role of companies as drivers of circular consumption models and the change in consumer behaviour as a lever for change towards a circular economy.

Valeria Cibrario

Senior Expert - Business and SME development, Joint Technical Secretariat - Programme ENI CBC MED

Valeria has an honours master’s degree in Social Anthropology, from Edinburgh University (UK); a Master’s in International Co-operation (Development) from the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) in Milan (IT), a Diploma in Sustainable Tourism and Local development obtained at the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation, and has done an Executive course in Project Management at CUOA Business School in Vicenza (IT).
She was previously Project officer in international development (2001-2011) for various international NGOs in Italy, Mexico and Colombia, Project manager for the largest SME Association in Italy (2013 – 2020): deputy head of the international department from 2013 to 2016 (took part in and organised multiple of trade fairs, b2b meetings and hosted plenty of international delegations); head of the projects’ department since 2016. Her projects focused on SME development, business model innovation, internationalisation, smart city, industry 4.0, VET and all the services that can be developed and offered to micro and small companies. She designed, set up and coordinated a customised service with a dedicated team of 15 full-time staff, for MSMEs seeking public funding for internationalisation, R&I, business model innovation, transfer of business, etc. She represented the Association at various high level international meetings, fora and seminars, including public speaking and moderating engagements.

David Allo

Sustainability Manager, TEXFOR Textile Industry Confederation

David Allo is the Head of Sustainability at TEXFOR – The Confederation of the Textile Industry, the leading textile business association in Spain, representing 3,894 companies, the vast majority SMEs, which employ 42,873 people and reach a turnover of € 4,755M.

They defend the collective interest of Spanish textile companies that manufacture or market yarns, fabrics, textile manufactures and accessories, finishes and/or prints, for the clothing, home and technical and industrial markets.

Dabchy

Dabchy is an online platform, a localized fashion marketplace (a website and a mobile app) that allows women to revamp their wardrobes by buying and selling their used clothing online.

Their “Special Sauce” lies in the fact that they are operating as a trusted third party for each transaction. Sellers are guaranteed to receive their money and buyers are protected from unpleasant surprises when receiving their items.

They have achieved their goals of bringing, in 5 years of activity, more than 500,000 registered users on the platform and a catalog of more than 1M items for sale. Also, they are expanding to Egypt in 2021.

ID.EIGHT

ID.EIGHT was born from the meeting between Dong Seon Lee and Giuliana Borzillo, both of whom come from the world of footwear, in which they worked and where they met: Dong is a designer and Giuliana a product manager. Together they have created a collection of sneakers with a refined and at the same time sustainable and ethical design. The shoes are made in Italy with low environmental impact materials from food industry waste such as apple and grape skins, pineapple leaves, recycled cotton and polyester. ID.EIGHT, where ID stands for Identity and Eight (therefore the number 8) embodies infinity, the ability to regenerate and therefore eco-sustainability, is the project of eco-sustainable sneakers, made with waste from the food and materials industry recycling. The goal is to launch a low environmental impact shoe, made in Italy, made with innovative and eco-sustainable materials, unisex, with a refined design that recalls the 90s.

About the STAND Up! Incubator

The ENI CBC Med funded STAND Up! project is launching a 10-months program of business support activities and innovation opportunities designed for entrepreneurship and eco-innovative business projects in the textile, clothing and fashion industry sectors contributing positively to an environmentally and socially responsible circular model.

The program, organized in 4 different stages, will contribute to the growth of this ecosystem focusing on green business model development, early-stage incubation, access to markets, regional sectorial network and access to finance in 5 Mediterranean countries (Egypt, Italy, Lebanon, Spain and Tunisia). 

The first stage of this path is the launch of the call  for entrepreneurship and eco-innovative business projects with the aim to select young innovators and business men and women in the fashion, clothing and textile industry. They are invited to apply to access innovative solution trainings in order to turn their concepts and solutions into scalable circular businesses.

The project’s partner countries engaged aim at involving about 200 startups and recently established companies from the Mediterranean area which will be directly committed in activities and benefit from the support of STAND Up! growing innovation assets. 

Need more info?

If you have any questions about the Webinar or the STAND Up! Project, please email tala.saleh@berytech.org, and we will get back to you.